Holistic.com founders seek funding, prep for expansion

BOULDER –To say that startup Holistic.com Inc. is a Web site devoted to alternative wellness articles, products and practitioners would be an understatement.

With an anticipated funding boon of nearly $1.5 million, founding partners Don Gaiti, Barbara Hope, David Lazaroff and Ravi Dykema intend to grow the company into a great deal more.

“The Web site is our major outreach into community and into lives, but we really view the company as a consistent and credible source of support and tools, information, products and services,” Hope said. “It’s a pretty exciting time.”

Funding sources were undisclosed; however, partners of the three-employee company expect to receive financing within the next few months.

Mike Murphy, vice president of CTEK, a nonprofit volunteer-based business consulting organization, acknowledged that Holistic.com is a prospective client. However, Murphy has not yet met with Holistic representatives to determine whether they will ask for CTEK Angel funding or whether they require assistance in developing a business plan.

Though Holistic.com was officially founded in February 2000, it has just completed beta-stage testing of its redevelopment. Therefore, no revenues were reported for 2003 or 2002.

The self-funded company initially included a costly online store, which was not specific enough in its product offerings for the target audience. Startup costs were approximately $100,000. The site receives approximately 1,000 visitors per day.

Lazaroff was an Internet technology professional with an interest in holistic health care. He had purchased the name Holistic.com in 1995, but did little with it. Meanwhile, life and business partners Hope and Gaiti shared an entertainment production company in New York. In 1997, the two moved to Boulder. Shortly thereafter, they created White Knight Productions, which continues to raise funds for nonprofit arts programs.

In addition to being the publisher of Nexus magazine, Dykema also happens to be a yoga master and adjunct yoga professor at Naropa. Approximately six months ago, a revamped Holistic site began offering free, video-streamed yoga exercises one could perform for fewer than five minutes at his or her desk. Dykema demonstrates the online yoga postures, and his Nexus publication provides much of the Web site content.

In March, Holistic.com began a partnership with Web-design company Peak Health Web Solutions, so that interested health practitioners could buy a linked Web site. Patients can even make an appointment online.

Also in March, the virtual store reopened with 25,000 book, DVD, video and CD titles in the body, mind and spirit genre. Products are distributed throughout the United States. However, partners plan to begin distribution overseas.

If Holistic receives the anticipated funding, the partners will put their expansion plan into motion.

They would lease a Boulder office and hire a content editor, a sales representative and a development specialist. Holistic partners would continue to build an online practitioner resource listing.

The founders intend to build “chant” rooms, similar to chat rooms, where people can meditate and reflect together. The company will offer online advertising and sponsorship opportunities, within the next year.

Holistic representatives intend to provide yoga either virtually or physically as a customized licensed package to employees of various businesses. Holistic.com partners hope to create health and wellness programs for Kaiser Permanente employees, as well.

“Ninety percent of all illnesses are stress-related to some degree. If we can help reduce stress in the work place, we can help increase productivity,” Gaiti said.

In the fall, Holistic.com representatives expect to host a cable or network television program called “the Mom and Doc Show,” in which holistic doctors would be interviewed. Advertisers would fund the program.

Within the next three to five years, Hope said she would like to see the company become an “infomediary.” In other words, Holistic employees could use data collected from the Web site to lobby for social changes, such as increased insurance coverage for holistic medical treatments.

Company representatives eventually would like to include a Web link for online Naropa University or Seattle-based Bastyr University courses.

Holistic representatives recently signed a proprietary letter of intent with self-awareness formulas allowing Holistic.com an exclusive marketing and training relationship with the wife of deceased formulas inventor Joseph R. Scogna. Within the next six months, Holistic.com representatives will gather focus groups of local practitioners to determine their level of interest in training in this health assessment method.

Gaiti would like company offerings to include home and planet health, as well as alternative personal health. He has already spoken to Natural Home Magazine and wishes to develop a relationship with them.

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However, Gaiti remains cautious about all of these ventures. “We don’t want to grow too quickly and undercapitalize,” he said.

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