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Show HN: Disrupting the hypnosis industry

16 points by xekul ↗ HN
I've been a hypnotherapist for the past five years, doing fairly well for this small niche, but since day one I've had ambitions of expanding beyond the borders of my city. The only question was how to do it without a corresponding increase in staff (...and capital, and headaches).

So I thought up Hypnotizr: http://www.hypnotizr.com

Hypnotizr provides online hypnosis sessions by sequencing together snippets that are recorded in advance. It's an inexpensive way to deliver well-made recordings that are also customized to individual clients' needs. With good voice control and a little post-processing, it sounds like one continuous recording. Nobody else is doing hypnosis like this, but I believe it strikes a good balance between personalization and cost.

Currently this is just a minimum viable product. To launch cheaply, I built the site using Drupal and Ubercart (with a lot of CSS/Javascript help from brianfarr, who you should hire if you ever get the chance: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3152012). I'm fulfilling orders by hand. If this site gains traction, I'm planning to hire a developer to rebuild the website from scratch, with automation for the session construction process (which isn't trivial, since some judgement-based decisions are involved). I'll probably rework the recordings too, depending on initial user feedback.

In any case, I'm hoping that this will be viewed as a "good enough" service compared to a bona fide hypnotherapist, for an affordable price.

If you have any thoughts on the website or the service, I'd appreciate your comments. If you're interested in becoming a beta tester, e-mail me at support@hypnotizr.com and I'll give you a test session for review.

15 comments

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tokenadult
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17365070
xekul
One of the reasons I'm leaning toward automation is that I'd be able to build the biggest "hypnosis lab" in the world. Imagine getting anonymous feedback after every session... With that data, I'd be able to quickly sort out the snippets that work from the snippets that don't.
sajid
This is a great idea and could be really successful if executed well.
xekul
Thanks!
sajid
Some thoughts that immediately spring to mind:

1. Initially focus on the weight loss and quit smoking programs.

2. Create special landing pages for these programs and A/B test them using different traffic sources.

3. Incorporate the client's name in the audio, that will really give it the personal touch. If it's too difficult to do that in the actual hypnosis session then add a preamble.

xekul
I definitely have #1 and #2 in mind. #3 is hard to do in session, but dropping the client's name into the preamble can work. I think it would drive home the point that the session's customized for every individual, although it does mean I can never be too far away from my (makeshift) studio, at least until I get through the 1000 (?) most common first names.
brudgers
My impression is that several U.S. states have registration or licensing requirements - how does your business plan to ensure compliance with them?
xekul
A few states do, although most states don't regulate hypnotherapy. My understanding is that the licensing applies to one-on-one hypnotherapy services and wouldn't apply to hypnosis recordings created by a semi-automated process. Among my competitors who offer hypnosis recordings online (either pre-made or custom recorded), I don't see any of them restricting their sales to states without licensing requirements. Having said that, I appreciate your comment, and I think it's a good idea to double-check with my lawyer that everything I'm doing is kosher.
AznHisoka
It looks like a good start. I think you'll need to do a lot of marketing, but you got domain expertise, and a hunger to create a product of it, so that's gotta count for something.
xekul
I like to joke that this is a business that funnels money from customers to Google Adwords, while I take a small cut for actually delivering the product. But even if that turns out to be the case, it's not so bad. I have few costs other than support staff and marketing.
DanielN
I'm sure you can get decent traction from adwords in this market, but I would think that you could do wonders with seo here. The number of blogs you could write and forums you could comment on have got to be nearly endless.
xekul
I think it's a good idea to do both. It can take a few months to see results from an SEO campaign, so in the meantime, I'll do Adwords to optimize my landing pages and figure out which keywords convert the best.
stfu
Have to agree on that good Seo is the key. I set up a while a website for my mum allowing her to offer some online service and there is a tremendous demand. I just wish the service was as automatizeable as yours. Good luck with that, its a great idea!
eps
Pardon my general ignorance on the subject, but I remember a documentary saying that certain forms of hypnosis require a therapist to actually instruct patients to blink because they won't do it on their own. I know I wouldn't want my laptop to bluescreen in a middle of a session like this.
xekul
Hypnosis is usually done with the eyes closed -- people tend to visualize better that way, and I guess it prevents the eyes from drying out too.

Many people have used hypnosis tapes, CDs and MP3s, for decades, without the presence of a hypnotherapist, and I've never heard of anybody being harmed by it. If the recording cuts out halfway through, the client will eventually emerge from hypnosis, as though they were waking from a nap.