Holiday Retirement
services
We devised and launched a new subscription service designed to help seniors thrive at home for the nation's largest provider of independent senior living in the U.S.
Introduction
The majority of seniors prefer to age at home, yet the market between full independence and assisted living remains largely underserved. Holiday Retirement, the nation's 2nd largest independent senior living provider with 300+ communities, identified an adjacent market opportunity: seniors seeking light support and companionship without relocating to assisted living facilities. Their existing infrastructure—trusted brand, operational expertise, and physical proximity to aging populations—positioned them uniquely to serve this $436B aging-at-home market. We developed a subscription service delivering in-home support that preserved seniors' autonomy while providing peace of mind for families—extending Holiday Retirement's reach beyond their physical communities into the homes where most seniors choose to age.
Meeting with members in their own homes proved to be an immensely joyful and insightful part of the project, leading to extraordinary learnings.
Challenge
As people age, they cherish their independence and privacy, while their adult children grow increasingly concerned about safety and wellbeing. Geographic distance and competing demands often leave adult children worrying from afar, creating tension around autonomy and care. The gradual, uncertain nature of aging makes it difficult for families to navigate when and how much support is needed. This presented a design challenge: creating a service that provided peace of mind for adult children without undermining the dignity and autonomy of seniors.
Dr. Bill Thomas is a physician, professor, entrepreneur, playwright, and performer whose wide-ranging work explores the terrain of human aging. The Wall Street Journal highlights Dr. Thomas as one of the nation’s “top 10 innovators” changing the future of retirement in America. © Webb Chappell Photography 2016
Approach
We partnered with Dr. Bill Thomas, a physician and gerontologist recognized by The Wall Street Journal as one of the nation's top 10 innovators changing the future of retirement and profiled in Atul Gawande's bestselling Being Mortal. Dr. Thomas co-founded The Eden Alternative, pioneering community-based approaches to eliminating loneliness, helplessness, and boredom in senior living environments.
Dr. Thomas established a clinical framework that became foundational for both our digital product design and the entire care delivery model: purpose (maintaining agency as priorities shift with age), strength (holistic wellbeing including physical balance and vitality), and belonging (connection beyond individual pursuits).
This framework directly informed how we measured health outcomes—recognizing that reducing isolation and preserving autonomy are clinical interventions, not just quality-of-life enhancements. Dr. Thomas personally trained the care team, embedding these principles into daily practice from companion interactions to family communications to the data we tracked across our platform.
Our offering pivoted around four elements: Move, Eat, Sleep, and Heal. 'Move' ensured seniors had movement programs tailored to their capabilities. 'Eat' supplied specialized gourmet meals, easing meal-planning burdens. 'Sleep' optimized rest, while 'Heal' provided an environment for personal discussion, linking seniors to psychological support when needed.
Our custom-developed ecosystem of apps conceived for flexible member support
Innovation
We utilized the flexibility of Progressive Web Apps to create an ecosystem of apps. The first app was designed for members (seniors). "Companions," which was the label we gave to home health aides, helped bridge the technology gap for members when needed. Later versions of the app served loved ones, companions, and operations staff who managed daily tasks and communications.
Technically, Zuora was integrated for subscription management, GreatCall for incident reports and fall detection, WorkWave for route optimization, and Orderhive for order fulfillment. By integrating with these platforms, the app was able to cater to a wide range of needs and offer a seamless experience to all users.
The Members App enables seniors to place and customize food orders among other features.
Senior App
The Senior App was designed to make it easy for members to manage their meal preferences for various dietary needs and set visit schedules. Members could message their companions, keep track of their well-being, and access content curated by Dr. Bill Thomas. The app also enabled members to set personal goals while nurturing intrinsic motivation through the self-determination theory to ensure they remained engaged and inspired.
Family App
With the senior’s consent, the Family App allowed loved ones to view the senior’s well-being and communicate with their companion. It was designed to enhance peace of mind and support the adult child rather than replace their care. Interestingly, the additional insights about the seniors often sparked fresh conversations, enriching dialogue between older adults and their families.
Companion App
The Companion App was used to manage senior visit logistics, including their schedules, routes, and meal distributions. It also facilitated communication between the clinical team, seniors, and their families. The app maintained a task list, recorded BMI measurements and other biometrics, and allowed notes to be taken during visits. These notes were made accessible in the app for loved ones to view.
Sales app
The sales app offered an e-commerce solution, sensitively addressing topics like fall detection devices.
Operations App
The Operations App served as a central data hub for tracking all aspects of senior care, including day-to-day activities, health metrics, program performance, and financial data. Integrated with existing health information systems, it enabled regional managers to communicate effectively with all audiences, track and respond to emergencies, and efficiently manage operations.
Machine learning excels at classifying information, not to replace human judgment but to handle the majority of tasks, thereby highlighting strategic decisions for humans to address.
Machine Learning and Encounter Data
Our program utilized machine learning to analyze encounter data from visits to seniors' homes, identifying variables that had indirect effects on health outcomes. This data captured a wide spectrum of observations—from common issues like tripping hazards, poor lighting, medication management challenges, inadequate nutrition (empty refrigerators, difficulty preparing meals), mobility obstacles, and social isolation indicators to more acute concerns.
The data was categorized into positive, negative, or neutral buckets, and with senior consent, it became a critical foundation for personalized care interventions. This holistic view—capturing everything from routine home safety issues to urgent environmental hazards—demonstrated the transformative potential of integrating technology with home-based senior care, enabling proactive responses across the full continuum of need.
A.I.-Augmented Marketing
Our client expanded our work scope to include marketing services, building on our product expertise and audience understanding. We created a series of over 70,000 AI-optimized ad variations on Skai platform, with a humorous campaign that achieved the highest engagement. Our role also involved overseeing the marketing funnel and meticulously tracking leads across channels to improve conversion rates. Note that wee did not use AI to write copy but rather to create ad permutations (headlines x image x body copy x CTA variations).
We understand that senior care services can be a sensitive topic and that families may feel apprehensive about allowing strangers into their loved ones' homes. That's why we believe that it's essential to make the experience tangible from the outset. For many families, this may be their first time navigating the journey of external care for their seniors, so it's crucial to humanize the service. By taking this approach, we alleviated concerns, reduced friction, and fostered trust.
Storytelling
We chose a documentary-style approach to create authentic testimonials directly from seniors' homes. This enabled us to showcase interactions between seniors and their companions without any scripting, capturing the essence of our service and allowing potential clients ( adult children, typically the decision-makers) to see the service in action and genuinely understand its benefits. We placed these testimonials across our website and social media platforms, leading to solid conversion rates. This approach highlighted the authenticity and effectiveness of our service, resonating deeply with our target audience and reinforcing brand trust.
One of our members rediscovered her childhood passion for drawing with the help of the program, and shared her work with us proudly.
Impact
We validated untapped market demand through a live pilot serving 300+ members across three cities. Seniors and their families embraced the subscription model, demonstrating clear product-market fit for in-home support services positioned between full independence and assisted living facilities.The pilot proved Holiday Retirement's core assets—trusted brand, geographic footprint, and operational expertise in senior care—could translate successfully into the $436B aging-at-home market. With favorable unit economics and operational scalability established, we delivered a validated business case and expansion roadmap positioning Holiday Retirement to capture a market segment where the majority of seniors prefer to age—a strategic growth opportunity extending their reach far beyond 300+ physical communities.
