Herrel

Allyie Herrel
Leifheit
College Prep R/W- Period 3
4 May 2016
Proposal
Abstract:
The business Save a Life, Make a Friend has one goal, having a decline in depres
sion and anxiety. Over time, there has been an increase in both anxiety and depr
ession. For anyone who suffers from one or the other, they know that when you su
ffer from one it is not uncommon to suffer from the other one due to the origina
l issue. As this increases, people feel as if they have no where to go or no one
to talk to. Another major issue in America is that therapy costs more money tha
n many people are able to give. Rather than making people pay hundreds or thousa
nds of dollars to talk to someone they feel uncomfortable with, they have the ab
ility to use www.savealifemakeafriend.com. The website will be set up like a blo
g in order to allow people to choose which issue the are dealing with and then p
ost their story. After they post their story, people will be able to message the
m if they have something in common with the other person. By using this techniqu
e, this both concures the lack of a friend and the lack of a therapist when both
are clearly needed. Overall, the website is focused on allowing people to build
themselves an outlet without even needing to leave the comfort of their homes.
Need Explanation:
My friend attempted suicide when she was only 14 years old. My grandfath
er told me about his struggle through anxiety and depression after his parents p
assed. 350 million people worldwide are expected to suffer from depression and a
pproximately 40 million people suffer from anxiety in the United States alone (D
epression and Mental Illness, Ann Pietrangelo). With these extreme numbers, I be
lieve that something is truly wrong with the way we are treating these illnesses
. Rather than sitting with someone that you don't know and attempting to open up
to them, I think there should be a very different approach. When I needed emoti
onal stability after a traumatic event in my life, I couldnt find someone to talk
to in order to make me feel satisfied. After trying a total of three different
therapists, I took my own path to happiness. Versus paying someone to listen to
my problems, I learned that by talking with an aquaintance online, communication
felt simpler and easier.
Description of Innovation:
My innovation is a website that will allow people to simply state what they are
dealing with and some helpful tips to cope. By placing the issue that they are e
ncountering onto the website, people will be able to start a conversation based
on a major life issue. The issue with todays communication is that people constan
tly feel like the minority even while others have the same issue. By using this
website, people will be able to contact someone that they feel comfortable with.
Both people within the conversation will know that there will always be somethi
ng tying them together. A common misconception for people struggling with depres
sion and anxiety, is that they believe that they have nobody. While this is typi
cally false, by knowing that someone else will always feel the same and be there
, they are automatically placed into a better mental state. Due to males in Colo
rado being about three times as likely as females to commit suicide, we will als
o encourage a strong male spokesperson to take lead in our company.(www.colorado
healthinstitute.org)
With high suicide rates in Colorado, this is where we plan to start our business
. With more people joining the Mile High state, there is a higher likelihood of
growth in our company. We will start our company by communicating with organizat
ions focused on suicide prevention. These organizations could possibly be The Je
d Foundation, Suicide Prevention Lifeline or the American Foundation for Suicide
Prevention. By joining with one of these groups, we will be able to also join w
ith their excellent promotions. These promotions could include a wide variety of
things including: television ads, radio ads, newspapers, facebook, google, etce

tera. However, before we can fully join a new organization, we will need to begi
n the creation of our website. By doing this we will try a variety of different
websites that include free or purchased. We will also be hiring three website cr
eators. In order to include the stats about the number of men that commit suicid
e, we will hire 2 men and 1 woman. During the creation of the website we will as
k random people to test our website for 1 month. By doing this, they can assist
with placing ideas for the future as well as establishing a common knowledge for
the program. This program will not only ensure that people have someone to talk
to when they are depressed, but also will ensure they have a future friend for
when they are happy. By making the initial bond, they will be able to become mor
e appreciative further down the line aftre being there for one another. The comp
any will be called Save a Life, Make a Friend and is currently not a taken web n
ame as www.savealifemakeafriend.com. After a year of this program being used, su
icide and depression are both expected to finally decline rather than incline.
Implementation:
Our website, www.savealifemakeafriend.com, is going to made in order to
help people build bonds with others. By building these bonds, people who suffer
from depression and anxiety wont feel as if they are alone in the fight. The comp
any will make sure to have the website well planned before creation begins and b
efore it is released to the public. To start off the creation of the page commun
ication with larger companies such as AFSP (American Foundation for Suicide Prev
ention), Yellow Ribbon, Suicide Prevention Hotline, and the National Institute o
f Mental Health will be needed . By partnering up with these larger companies ww
w.savealifemakeafriend.com will be able to take their advice on how to better ou
r company. Also by partnering with them the chance to get the company s name out
to the public will improve. Then will be hiring a total of three website creat
ors and one artist to help make our website not only visually pleasing but easy
to use as well. The prediction is that there will be plenty of artists who would
be willing to volunteer for the page in order to only get their name out to the
public. For the website creators www.savealifemakeafriend.com plans to hire one
female and two males to provide the male ratio of suicides within Colorado (Mal
es in Colorado are about three times as likely as females to commit suicide) (ht
tp://coloradohealthinstitute.org). According to www.deltacreations.com, they sta
te that most websites cost around $3,000 for their business. Based off of that i
nformation, the company would plan on paying each website designer approximatel
y $1,000. (http://guides.wsj.com) After the website is up and running, dependin
g on the number of users, a phone application will most likely be created and re
leased (http://www.pcmag.com, How to Create an App). While the page is being cre
ated, multiple volunteers will be asked to be a part of testing our website to s
ee if they enjoy it. Also throughout the process, students from multiple schools
in Colorado will be interviewed on their mental state and something that either
helps them or would help them. In order to get this business up and running, $1
0,000 is approximately the amount that we would need to pay people and to buy an
ything that we might need along the way. Another thing that could possibly be lo
oked into is talking with big companies like Facebook, Google, etcetera to ask i
f they would be willing to help spread the word about this business.
Potential Obstacles:
While this is a pretty solid foundation of a business, there are some po
tential issues with the company. One of these issues is the possibility that nob
ody will join the company. Our way of fixing this issue is with better advertise
ment through multiple other companies such as Facebook, Google, and Youtube. By
using these larger companies, we are able to have more viewers and have not only
Coloradans view our website, but other locations as well. Another potential obs
tacle is the idea that people might create a fake page in order to find out info
rmation about another person. To attempt to stray away from the possibility of t
his, we would ensure that people include completely true information by hiring p
eople to check their background before they can fully join the site. Throughout
time one of our hopefully bigger obstacles will be that we have too many people
signed up for the website that we cant keep up. We can possibly solve this issue
by also hiring volunteers and by hiring new people and growing our company with

the number of customers. Most of these obstacles are a good possiblilty and we
are confident that we would be able to handle them with care and in the more res
pectful way.
Budget:
As stated above, the business will need quite a lot of money to get up a
nd running. By hiring a total of three website creators, this will approximately
cost at least three thousand dollars in order to pay them. In addition to their
salary, another requirement will be to purchase a website domain which will cos
t one hundred dollars per year. Since this is a yearly thing, the budget will be
set up for five years, hoping that enough money will be made to be able to sust
ain on its own. Due to the main part of this company being focused solely on hel
ping people who are suffering with depression, it is nearly guaranteed that ther
e will be some donations as well. In order to also continue to grow the business
, people will also be allowed up to set up an account where people donate to the
ir direct cause, but they will need to give the company a mere 5 percent of thei
r profit. The reasoning behind them needing to give the company any money at all
is because without the company, they wouldnt have gotten the money they need in
the first place. However, the company should receive a very small amount from th
em or else the people who need the help won t receive the money. Overall, the mo
ney needed will be three thousand for the website creators, five hundred dollars
for five years of a website domain, four thousand and one hundred dollars for a
dvertisement (2 newspaper ads are one hundred, two thousand dollars for four wee
ks of radio ads, and two thousand for a thirty second television ad). The estima
ted total will be at least seven thousand and six hundred dollars. However the g
oal would be to get eight thousand dollars for possible other expenses.
Works Cited:
"Business Website Design Services | Affordable Web Marketing." Business Website
Design
Services | Affordable Web Marketing. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 May 2016.
"Colorado Health Institute - Informing Policy. Advancing Health." Colorado Healt
h Institute.
N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Apr. 2016.
"Depression and Mental Health by the Numbers: Facts, Statistics, and You."Health
line. N.p., n.d.
Web. 27 Apr. 2016
"Facts & Statistics." Facts & Statistics. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Apr. 2016.
"How Much Does It Cost To Build A Website In 2014?" Executionists. N.p., 04 Dec.
2014. Web.
11 May 2016.
"How Much Does Television Advertising Really Cost?" Small Business. N.p., 12 Mar
. 2014.
Web. 11 May 2016.
"How Much Does Therapy Cost?" GoodTherapy.org Therapy Blog. N.p., 22 Aug. 2014.
Web. 11
May 2016.
"How to Create an App for IOS, Android, or Windows Phone." PCMAG. N.p., n.d. Web
. 04 May
2016.
"How to Hire Your First Employees." Small Business RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 May 2
016.
"Increase+in+depression+and+anxiety+graph+over+time - Google
Search."Increase+in+depression+and+anxiety+graph+over+time - Google Search.
N.p., n.d. Web. 11 May 2016.
Nepon, Josh, Shay-Lee Belik, James Bolton, and Jitender Sareen. "The Relationshi
p
Between Anxiety Disorders and Suicide Attempts: Findings from the National
Epidemiologic
Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions." Depression and Anxiety. U.S. National
Library of Medicine, n.d. Web. 27 Apr. 2016.
"The Surprising Health Benefits Of Sadness." Prevention. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Apr.

2016.