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Comment by Grustaf | Hacker News Reader

But you are MORE expensive than all the examples cited. How is that an advantage?

As to brand, how does that help?

What kind of personalisation do you offer?

We are LESS expensive than current other options - I believe the other options mentioned are price points offered many years ago haha. We are $35/mo for 8 years to cover 20 years of storage. That is our cheapest - check our a price breakdown at anjahealth.com/shop/#pricing

As a brand, it helps because people of color can be most affected by being unable to find a stem cell match. And people of color - on average - have lower income in the US, so having lower prices makes us more accessible.

Personalization happens technically with manual processing. It also happens emotionally because we cater to every single customer to make sure that they feel supported regardless of what their birth plan/unforeseen circumstances are

This seems very expensive to me. We are paying approx £8/11USD per month for umbilical cord, blood and placenta. This pricing was from last year.

Yeah I googled it quickly and that gives me prices around 100 a year. Random example from NBC News below. Perhaps Anja's initial costs are lower?

"Private cord blood banking can be expensive. Depending on the bank, current promotions and whether you're storing cord blood, cord tissue or both, initial processing fees can run from roughly $500 to $2,500, with annual storage fees of $100 to $300 each year thereafter." https://www.nbcnews.com/business/consumer/cord-blood-banking...

Right - so in total for 20 years of storage for instance, (100-300)20 + (500-2500 down payment) comes out to more than our current prices which are (35-85) 8 for 20 years of storage as payments go over the course of 8 years to cover 20 years of storage.

I can guarantee we are the most affordable in the industry at this moment.

You having a strong brand helps people of color? Now you completely lost me. What do you mean?

So personalisation doesn't mean that the harvesting or storing is personalised? It just means you are emotionally supportive? Aren't your competitors supportive?

Re supportive. Not necessarily. Time and time again I hear stories along the lines of "I had to hand over my credit card in the middle of labor because I couldn't pay online and didn't know when I should pay" or "their supposed sales reps didn't have a lot of knowledge when I asked them questions specific to my birth plan."

Relevant to people of color because people like me - who are mixed race - will have a harder time finding a donor if they ever need stem cells. So banking their own ensures access

Do you have an alternate investment in this space or something? You've commented like 10 times with low quality content.

To spell this one out: Branding resonates with different groups of people. If the only brands that are in this space are ones that speak to non-people of color, by definition, the people of color wont see it, and by consequence, they wont have access to the treatments.

This applies to all things. Replace "people of color" with whatever you want. It's why there are "investment app for Gen Z" because the Merrill-Lynch doesn't reach anyone under 50. This is not rocket science, dude.

She didn't say anything about targeting, or not excluding, people of colour in their marketing. She just said having a brand is beneficial for them, and that confused me. Perhaps she said somewhere that they are targeting that group, if so I missed that.

I definitely don't have any investments in this space, I find it distasteful.

Appreciate the reply. Personally, I would rather hear your thoughts on why it's distasteful, seems like valuable discussion material. I got that impression from the comments and don't really know enough about the space to have an opinion. If you did, I missed it and I'm sorry.

tbh too many comments here are 'excited' about a business that is rather commonplace everywhere around the world, and is considered ethically ~dubious, since there are few cases where these cells are being used. Plus in past few years there were major advances in reprogramming live cells to back to various stages , and it seems that this is the future (partly the reason why investors invest in anti aging startups).

Agreed. As someone who has actually considered these services there are significant downsides not being presented here- not the least of which is the small number of actual use cases at the moment, especially for your own blood (which may demonstrate the same illness you’re trying to cure). I would have expected a bit more inquisitiveness from the audience here.

It just goes to show that being knowledgeable about technology doesn’t mean that you don’t have other significant blind spots.

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