Product & Engineering Roadmap
MARCo Health will remain focused on the ongoing development of MARCo’s software products and systems, including on-device user interfaces, cloud software, AI development and improvement, and more. While MARCo Health follows lean best practices for product development, and implements product development strategies based on ongoing customer interviews and user testing research, there are key product development activities that must be performed to meet key milestones in this sprint plan.
These activities can broadly be categorized into product development activities on the end-user side and on the enterprise user side, and fit into three primary objectives:
The following roadmaps list the key activities that will be completed with a forecasted timeline in order to meet these objectives.
A Gantt overview of the planned product development sprints for this objective can be seen below.
A further breakdown of these planned activities and projects can be seen starting on the next page.
August 2024:
Since February 2024, the company has been developing a lower cost MARCo option (dubbed “MARCo-LITE”) that is scheduled for release at the end of August 2024, ahead of the “back-to-school” season. The purpose of the lower cost “MARCo-Lite” is to increase conversion rates by enabling customers with lower budgets to still be able to obtain a MARCo.
However, a lower cost MARCo alone does still encounter two challenges: the final product price is targeted at $299, which is still difficult for the average target customer to pay at once, and with a lower margin compared to the full-priced MARCo-III, we will need to continually sell higher volumes to match similar margins. To address both challenges, we will introduce a subscription to MARCo’s full feature set and future premium features. Customers will be able to either purchase the robots at full price and get 1 year of full use bundled in, or purchase at a lower price and subscribe for full access. Additionally, MARCo is presently gamified to reward users for completing mental health goals, but currently the rewards can only be redeemed for digital product customizations (e.g. unlocking soothing background music). To reduce churn and further ensure that our customers are adequately retained with MARCo, the MARCo reward system will be integrated into the subscription model so that in-product rewards can be redeemed for monthly or annual discounts or free months.
The general steps needed to complete this project are:
We anticipate that this will take approximately 6-8 weeks to complete.
September 2024:
We anticipate completing the subscription-pricing integration by the end of September. In the last two weeks of September, we will also begin to prepare for the major sprint planned for October: improvement to the human-machine interaction for easier user experience and higher chance of user retention.
Specifically, the improvements that will need to be made are focused on solving existing customer challenges with ease of speaking with the robot.
Work will not begin until October, but time in September will be spent to organize customer research and requirements, as well as creating a formal project plan and specifications for a smooth October kickoff.
October 2024:
The first two weeks of October will be dedicated towards a sprint developing improved human-MARCo interaction based on the requirements drafted in September.
The second two weeks will be focused on human factor testing between the current model of MARCo and its interactions compared to the newly updated interactions. We will recruit individuals who have never used MARCo before as well as existing customers and A/B test each group with the existing robot interaction modes and the newly updated modes. Based on customer feedback, we will continue improvements and modifications with a target update release in the first week of November.
November 2024:
In the first week of November, we anticipate launching the improved user interaction features ahead of the holiday season.
The last major lift required ahead of the last major purchasing cycle of 2024 (the holiday season) is a remote support system integrated directly into our products. Current customer service and support either requires a direct customer visit by one of our team members or technicians (which is not feasible for individual customers), or requires complex phone and video support that often ends with a temporary return and repair.
To reduce the friction caused by this current customer service setup, we will be implementing multiple touchpoints for remote product troubleshooting and customer support built directly into our products (e.g. app, robots, dashboard, etc.) This likely includes, but is not limited to:
These features will need to be completed before Christmas, when most holiday customers will begin to turn on and use their MARCos for the first time, to ensure easy and comprehensive customer service.
We anticipate that these features will take 6-8 weeks to complete, so we will need to start at the beginning of November.
December 2024:
We will launch the remote support feature suite ahead of Christmas 2025 so that all devices and apps will be updated ahead of the anticipated spike in usage.
Towards the end of December, following the release of the remote support, we will pivot towards a month-long sprint focused on planned features on user retention and improving engagement rates with our products. These improvements will likely include, but are not limited to:
Since user engagement is highest in the first 30 days (most MARCo goal and treatment plans last 30 days), these improvements are timed to be completed within 30 days after Christmas, when most holiday customers will have started using their MARCos. This means that the benefits of the heightened engagement and retention will apply to a large population of incoming customers, and pair with the newly deployed subscription model to reduce churn and increase revenue.
January 2025 - February 2025:
In the middle of January 2025, we anticipate releasing the retention and proactive engagement update to meet the target deadline of 30 days out from Christmas.
We will also pick back up an ongoing project of the “living bio”. Currently, MARCo learns about a user through set activities, defined interfaces, and populates a structured data file on a user to personalize its approach to them. However, this kind of approach is not scalable and not fully comprehensive in its ability to personalize the complete experience to a particular user, which we have identified as a pain point for most users.
The “living bio” would enable MARCo to take unstructured inputs from sessions, notes from a provider, and other user inputs to create a dynamic biography of the user and notes on what approaches or therapeutic modalities work best for them. This data will be fed to MARCo’s clinical AI to improve decision making during a session, yielding improved outcomes and higher user retention and engagement. We anticipate that this update will take an additional four weeks to complete on top of the work previously done on it.
March 2025 - July 2025:
During March through July 2025, we anticipate that most of our product development efforts will be focused on efforts that will support our B2B initiatives and customers, as we anticipate our first significant B2B sales as part of this sprint plan during this period. Product developments and improvements on the D2C side during this time will mainly revolve around lean product sprints and sustaining engineering for minor customer improvements focused on retaining and supporting users.
August 2025 - November 2025:
As B2B initiatives wind down and move towards a sustaining phase after July, we will shift our focus towards developing a major platform improvement: MARCo community integrations.
“Community integrations” refers to a suite of features that allow MARCo users to connect with other MARCo users, share their experiences and accomplishments on social media and with other MARCo users, and encourage other users who are struggling. The purpose of these improvements are three-fold:
These features will be rolled out in monthly sprints, but will need to be completed weeks ahead of the Black Friday/Cyber Monday weekend to ensure that there is adequate time for a community to develop and for enough social traction to gain a boost in sales during the 2025 holiday season.
A Ganntt overview of the planned B2B development activities is shown below:
A full layout of the planned activities can be seen starting on the next page.
August 2024:
In August of 2023, two of MARCo Health’s corporate customers, Vantage Health and West Bergen Mental Health, were awarded a second-phase grant from the state of NJ to improve their patient engagement technologies to reach new clients and support patients on their waitlist before their first appointment. MARCo Health was selected as the technology vendor, and over the course of the past year, we have integrated MARCo’s AI and software into these systems’ patient engagement platforms and EHR systems. The grant expires in August, 2024, at which point the three partners will begin to license out the software to other health systems throughout the state to fund the project and generate additional revenue.
The negotiations, contract writeup, and project scope development took from August to December 2023 for the last phase before technical development began. We anticipate a similar timeline for the next steps of licensing out the project, which means that, assuming a kickoff of the new project in September 2024, we will begin development of the fully licensable software in January 2025.
September 2024:
Since we anticipate that the first major contract with a hospital system (Hackensack-Meridian Health) will launch 6-9 months from the start of our sprint plan, we will need to prepare MARCo for full EHR interoperability ahead of an anticipated pilot program start (March 2025 at the earliest). Since HMHN uses EPIC as its primary EHR, we will first target integration with EPIC, and after the pilot launch and successful validation of integration, we will then target CERNER EHR interoperability.
We anticipate that full EHR integration will take approximately 6 months to complete and validate. In this time, the following will need to be done:
NJII Partnership Request
We would leverage the following support from NJII to ensure the success of this project:
October 2024 - November 2024:
During this period, we will continue development of MARCo’s EHR interoperability.
Additionally, we will have a two month sprint to work on HIPAA compliant SOAP notes integration into MARCo. This would be required ahead of full EHR integration as well, but it is timed in October to November to coincide with a key period in pilot programs that began in the Summer of 2024.
MARCo Health historically deploys its robots to new counseling centers and customers in three phases: a kickoff phase, where MARCo Health actively helps to train appropriate staff and promote MARCo to their clients through educational and awareness events; an evaluation pilot, where MARCo is used in a reduced capacity to get clients and staff fully comfortable with the robot and collect data; and then a full clinical roll-out, where MARCo can be deployed for sustained home use at scale. The first two phases typically take 2-3 months, but in some cases take up to 5.
Creative Change Counseling, You First Integrative Wellness, HUBB Arts and Trauma Center, Geek Therapists, and Beautiful Minds Therapy have all launched or scheduled pilot programs in June and July of 2024. At the latest, a full-scale clinical rollout at each of these centers would be done by November or December, meaning that tools and improvements necessary for sustained clinical home use of MARCo would be needed by then.
The HIPAA compliant SOAP notes and transcript recording has been a feature requested by counseling centers for months, but most centers have been too early in the pilot programs to be able to use them yet. It’s anticipated that a fully compliant solution will take two months to complete, meaning that a kickoff in October for completion in November would be on target for these programs.
December 2024:
We will continue development of EPIC EHR integration during December. With the launch of the SOAP notes feature in November to the existing pilot centers (Creative Change Counseling, HUBB Arts and Trauma Center, Beautiful Minds, and Geek Therapist), we will monitor and support the SOAP notes feature released to these customers before making it publicly available.
In December, we will also begin the development of a quick-login feature for MARCo to rapidly switch between users. A limited version of the feature existed in early models of MARCo, but was deprecated once MARCo transitioned to a single-sign-on authentication for security purposes. The purpose of this feature is to enable multiple users to use MARCo in rapid succession without needing to formally log-in and log-out during their time, which is necessary for MARCo’s used in semi-public areas (such as waiting rooms in counseling centers or safe spaces in schools) or passed between users frequently by clinical staff.
While multiple users can use the same MARCo, they will need to authenticate themselves and then sign-out once they are completed, or else MARCo may start the next session with another user under the pretense that they are the previous user, leading to potential privacy breaches. Currently, MARCo Health trains staff to sign out of users and has a remote reset feature to prevent this from happening, but it does lead to a break in the user experience and still poses some risk. The quick login feature would enable users to quickly walk up to MARCo and for MARCo to recognize the user (either using facial recognition, device proximity, or another quick pattern or indicator) to sign-out previous users and sign-in the new user with limited access for quick use.
We anticipate that this project will take two months to complete and roll-out to customers.
January 2025:
In January, we will continue to work on the EPIC EHR interoperability with MARCo for a March 2025 deadline. Additionally, we expect that the “quick login” feature will be completed by the end of January and released to production in that months’ software release. This is another major milestone ahead of an anticipated major hospital pilot in March 2025 with Hackensack Meridian Health and similar partners, as it will be necessary to ensure a smooth kickoff at larger institutions.
Following the timeline for the Vantage Health System and West Bergen Mental Healthcare project, we anticipate launching the development of the fully licensable MARCo patient-engagement system in January. Unlike the existing software, which was developed specifically for these two health systems, the finished product needs to be repeatedly and simply integrated into any health system’s workflow and technology stack.
The steps required to achieve this are:
We anticipate, based on previous performance, that this will be completed by April 2025. The work will be done in partnership with both Vantage Health System and West Bergen Mental Healthcare, reducing the overall burden on the MARCo Health development team.
February 2025:
In February, we will continue efforts on the EPIC EHR integration, moving into testing and quality control ahead of a planned March 2025 release. Additionally, we will continue the MARCo-as-a-platform development for the licensing partnership with Vantage and West Bergen.
Ahead of the anticipated March 2025 kickoff of our first major partnership with Hackensack Meridian Health Network, there is one final feature that will need to be launched - patient referral and MARCo ordering flow.
The MARCo model works best when patients are able to be assigned a 1-to-1 MARCo to support them any time, anywhere they are. However, due to logistical and cost constraints, many partnering centers are not able to give patients a 1-to-1 MARCo, requiring patients to either purchase one from MARCo Health directly or for MARCo Health to handle the logistics and fulfillment of getting patients a dedicated MARCo, even if it is the health system that purchases the robot.
Currently, this is handled by a manual process which works for small volumes of requests, but at larger scale, especially in centers such as Carrier Clinic which may discharge 80-200 patients every two weeks, an automated flow is needed. MARCo Health designed the UI mockup and process flow in 2023, but has not completed the development of this system due to other projects taking priority over this. We will renew the efforts on this development in February 2025 for a late March 2025 launch.
March 2025:
We anticipate that a formal launch of full EPIC interoperability will be completed ahead of an anticipated launch with Hackensack-Meridian Health Network in March 2025, March will represent the kickoff of the transition to target the next major EHR system for interoperability: Cerner.
Since much of the groundwork for EHR interoperability will have been completed for the EPIC integration (e.g. FHIR HL7 data formatting, etc.), it is anticipated that Cerner interoperability will take fewer than 6 months to complete; currently, we estimate it at an additional three months. The first month will be focused on identifying a key software integration partner, or making a determination on whether one is necessary.
Throughout March 2025, we will continue to monitor the roll-out of the EPIC integration at our anticipated partner to identify any key bugs, risks, or areas for smoother user experience, and implement them as the time goes.
Additionally, at the end of March, we anticipate that the patient referral and direct sale workflow in the MARCo dashboard will be completed and rolled out to production. This should pair with the anticipated timeline to formally get a full pilot program launch with HMHN and other partners to the point where they would need such a feature.
April 2025 - July 2025:
Between April 2025 and July 2025, we will continue our Cerner EHR integration, with an anticipated announcement of the feature launch in July to coincide with the budget year of most of our target customers and corporate partners.
We also anticipate that, by the end of April, the MARCo-as-a-platform licensing project will be completed, introducing an additional revenue stream from the partnership with Vantage Health System and West Bergen Mental Healthcare as we start to license these out.
However, the licensing of the MARCo-as-a-platform will see some limitations, specifically in that it will still only be able to be used for patient pre-engagement and in a capacity that does not rely on protected-health information for diagnostics, treatment plan support, and remote patient monitoring for existing patients. The reason for this is that MARCo’s systems process data remotely, which poses challenges for HIPAA compliance, data privacy, and cost and complexity reduction for health systems who have their own on-premise servers. This leaves out a significant portion of the market for licensing, specifically systems that are looking to utilize this for supporting their existing patient populations.
To reach these markets, and expand the revenue generated by this licensing, the solution is to develop a fully on-premise installable MARCo instance. The containerization of the MARCo-as-a-platform from the first stage of this licensing project takes care of bundling the interface and data processing for local systems, but MARCo’s AI still requires connection to our cloud for response generation and analysis.
The remainder of this licensing project will focus on training local models of MARCo’s AI, using open-source LLMs (e.g. Mistral, oLLAMA, etc.) as a base, fine tuned on MARCo’s training conversations and supervised sessions, and then deploying these in a white-labeled capacity into the containerized applications. This is anticipated to take 5 months to complete and launch, between May 2025 to October 2025.
Additionally, as we anticipate July 2025 to be the kickoff for a number of larger customers based on our planned sales cycle and budget years, we will use July as the kickoff point for another desired feature for health systems: group therapy facilitation tools built into MARCo. We anticipate that it takes on average 2-3 months for new centers to be fully trained on, acclimated to, and integrated with MARCo, meaning that the launch of the new group therapy facilitation tools built into MARCo will be targeted to launch in September 2025.
August 2025 - September 2025:
During August and September of 2025, we will continue our development efforts for the white-labeled, local-instance MARCo, as well as the group therapy options. We anticipate launching both ahead of the end of September, as the group therapy options will also be applicable to use in the school systems that utilize MARCo.
October 2025-January 2026:
Less work is anticipated to be completed during this period of time for our B2B customers, as most of our development efforts will be focused on improvements and development for our consumer arm ahead of the anticipated spike around the holiday season. Instead, development efforts for our B2B customers will be mainly focused on sustaining and maintenance of the software systems for our existing customers.