Furthr | Opinion

Health website Oscar will change the way people access insurance forever. No, really

April 7, 2014

Oscar, is a new kind of health insurance company, that hopes to use technology to make good care easier to find. A patient can log on to Oscar’s website and see his recent doctor’s visits and drug purchases, in the same way he can see his timeline on Facebook. Enter a symptom such as “my tummy hurts” into Oscar’s search engine, and the engine presents possible conditions, as well as a list of clinics and doctors, with the average price beside each option.

Oscar offers free generic drugs and a few free visits to general practitioners each year. Virtual doctor’s appointments, or televisits, are available all day. Its staff includes former leaders at Foursquare and Tumblr, two celebrated startups. In January it raised $30m, on top of a previous $45m, to expand its team.

Furthr, who works with other insurance companies, loves their fresh,clean easy to use website and is intrigued to see how the web might be able to shift the insurance business, just as it has changed entertainment, retail and a host of others.

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In business, tone is everything

April 1, 2014

A small internet meme is currently doing the rounds, this one authored by Warren Buffett. He calls it an economic moat. Put simply, the wider and more durable a company’s competitive advantages, the wider the moat. And the wider the moat, the better for a company, as it keeps competitors at bay and profits high. Economies of scale, intellectual property and relationships with key suppliers all help build a business’s moat. What can content offer? The answer, I think, is tone. Content is a highly effective way for companies to express what they believe and what they stand for. And that matters because often the product they sell is easily replicable. What does Samsung’s Galaxy phone do for you that iPhones do not? Content offers a way to differentiate from the competition and attract like-minded customers. It’s a terrific way for companies to build up their economic moat and become even more valuable.

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