Alexis and Rodolfo Saccoman came to the US from Brazil as children. Their father worked in a factory while he earned a Bachelor’s degree and two Master’s degrees. He wanted to give his sons a solid foundation. Alexis and Rodolfo did him proud. Alexis is a therapist with a private practice, and Rodolfo is the director of online marketing for a major resort chain. They combined their knowledge and experience to create My Therapy Journal, a website that provides users with therapeutic services in the privacy of their homes. The site has two components. The first allows users to write down all of their feelings and thoughts in secure online journals. The second allows users to track their emotions, behaviors, diagnoses and problems to see how they are this particular day compared to how they were a week, month or year ago.
The brothers invested $125,000, 95% of which went into developing the software. They had no money left for marketing. They had more than 1,000 registered users, but only 120 were paying members. They had made only $4,000 in the last year. The sharks perked up when they learned that the brothers were in talks with Aetna Managed Care. Kevin O’Leary and Robert invested $80,000 for 51% of the company.
According to the brothers, they received one phone call from Kevin and Robert, then nothing. No follow-up, no money. After the show aired, they received hundreds of subscriptions, and users left glowing reviews. Alexis continued managing the website for a while; Rodolfo launched his own start-up. Now, there is no My Therapy Journal website; the Facebook page has not been updated since 2009.
