Breast Health Enterprise

The essence of a breast health company that can truly survive in the long term and have real value to users is to fill the gap in public medical breast care services, dispel the misunderstanding of public breast health, and provide women with full-cycle physiological + psychological companionship as a third-party service carrier.

A while ago, I accompanied a friend to the Breast Department of a tertiary hospital for a review. While waiting, I heard the little girl next to me who had just entered college complaining with red eyes. The doctor said that her breast nodules were BI-RADS level 3, with a benign probability of more than 98%. A review in six months would be enough, and no medicine or surgery was needed. However, every time she came to visit her aunt, the pain was so painful that she could not even wear ordinary underwear. The hospital did not have corresponding soothing services, so she had to bear it by herself. This kind of demand that is not covered by public medical care and is between "not sick" and "needing treatment" is precisely the core value of formal breast health companies.

As for the boundaries of breast health services, the industry has been arguing for many years and there is no fully unified standard. Take the most common breast massage as an example. Most breast doctors in the Western medicine system do not recommend that ordinary people massage it casually, especially when there are nodules of unknown nature. External stimulation is likely to cause the nodules to grow or even damage the surrounding tissues. However, the breast department of regular traditional Chinese medicine hospitals does have massage programs for problems such as menstrual pain and breast milk blockage. They rely on acupoint stimulation to dredge lymph. However, the operator must hold a formal medical qualification. Both views are valid, but the real problem lies with those unqualified practitioners who boast about "three-month guarantees to eliminate nodules" and "detoxification to prevent breast cancer," which has brought the entire industry's reputation to the bottom.

I came into contact with a startup company in Shenzhen that provides community breast health services in the past two years. Their rules are very strict: all users who come to the store for soothing programs must first produce a breast ultrasound report within six months. Only those with a grade of 3 or below and a doctor's clear judgment that no treatment is needed can be treated with soothing programs such as essential oil massage and hot compresses. If an abnormal mass is felt on the user's chest during the service, the breast department of the cooperating tertiary hospital will be contacted directly through the green referral channel without any ambiguity. The founder said that at first some people advised him to add a breast augmentation project, which could triple the price per customer, but he refused directly, saying, "If I make this money, and one day I meet a user who has early-stage cancer and I delay it, I will not feel at ease in my life." Don't tell me, this store has been open for almost five years, and the ratio of old customers to new customers can reach 70%, which is much more stable than the beauty salon next door that boasts "7 days to C cup".

Not all breast health companies provide offline services. There is a team in Shanghai that takes the route of popularizing science and customizing products. Last year, it also held a free breast health market in the business district. Doctors from tertiary hospitals were specially invited to sit in and answer questions. The site also displayed underwear suitable for different development stages and different breast shapes, and even customized lightweight breast prostheses for users after breast cancer surgery. It also opened a free psychological mutual aid group for postoperative patients. Their operator said that they met an aunt who had undergone surgery. She felt that wearing a prosthetic breast was boring and she was too embarrassed to tell her family that she had not been out much for more than a year. Later, they customized a lightweight prosthetic breast. Last month, she went to climb Mount Huangshan with a mutual aid group.

The current controversial points in the entire industry are actually quite clear: some people think that such services involve physical contact and should be supervised by the health department, and all practitioners must take medical-related qualifications before they can work; others think that most services are life-style relief projects for healthy people. As long as they do not involve medical promotion or cross-border diagnosis and treatment, they can be regulated by the market supervision department. If the threshold is set too high, it will block out many small teams that can meet the needs of ordinary users. Both statements have their own truths. Now the regulatory standards are different in different places. This is also the stage where the entire industry is exploring and moving forward.

I was chatting with a physical store owner who has been providing breast health services for 8 years. She laughed and said that many people now think of it as an IQ tax when they hear the words "breast health". The company guarantees breast enlargement and does not promote sky-high price packages. Customers who arrive first ask if they have a recent physical examination report. If the pain is severe, it is recommended to go to the hospital for a check-up. If there is no problem, we will do a soothing program. Just do it in a down-to-earth manner, and regular customers are willing to bring their daughters and best friends.

In fact, to put it bluntly, the core threshold of this industry has never been imported instruments or exclusive secret recipes. It is to maintain the bottom line of "not crossing the line, not exaggerating, and really thinking about users." After all, it serves the health of nearly 700 million women in China, and there is no chance of it happening.