# It's Working! & Final 20k Sprint | Antelope Recovery

- Canonical URL: https://wefunder.com/feed/163972
- Entity ID: wefunder:feed_item:163972
- Published at: 2023-05-19 17:51:01 UTC
- Updated at: 2025-07-18 05:56:09 UTC

## Author
Shelby Robbins

## Subject
Antelope Recovery

## Content
Dear Antelope WeFunder Investors,Since we opened our doors to patients in March, we have made significant strides toward our goals. We are serving clients, receiving new inquiries every day, and our referral network continues to expand. Our analysis and instincts about this service and market have been validated, and we’re even more confident about what’s possible ahead. Antelope's teen recovery is filling a needed void, and we’ve hardly begun!The progress we’ve made from March to May:We are seeing IOP patients! We’ve received our first clients, and our team has made incredible progress with learning from each family to improve our program and streamline our processes.We’ve got the basics covered. We have the initial team up and running, are in compliance with the state, and have our robust backend dialed in. We are now receiving qualified leads every week. We’ve reached over 500 school counselors, churches, psychiatrists, pediatricians, and youth group leaders in the state, and we are receiving inquiries about our services every day.The next obstacle: Sustainable lead generation while we wait for insurance referrals. There are tens of thousands of teens who need intensive therapy in the state of Colorado. Over our first month of being open, we’ve run into these barriers to enrolling them into our program:Insurance. It will take, on average, 6 to 12 months before we can accept a single insurance company. Accepting insurance is complex, takes a long time to be approved, and is frankly designed to be confusing. Healthcare marketing regulations. Healthcare marketing is complex and full of legal barriers. We cannot market this business like any other.Referral partnerships in the space also take, on average, 9 to 12 months to mature. We’ve been making new partnerships over the past 9 months and are receiving consistent referrals. However, it’s not enough yet to fill our operating capacity. Timing. Summer is known across the field as a slow season. Teens are on vacation, families are busy, and without the stress of school, many teens fall through the cracks and don’t get care. September is the busy season. Opening our program right at the end of the school year has added one more hurdle to getting up and running. Our next big project is creating a sustainable lead pipeline that can support our efforts and scale with us as we grow. We have been vetting partners who can support us in navigating the complex terrain of healthcare marketing and also work directly with us to build sustainable lead-generating systems.According to SAMSHA, less than 10% of teens in Colorado receive help for addiction.  We need help reaching those teens and families with a comprehensive and interconnected system that creates a cohesive program.Our WeFunder SAFE is open until the end of June, and we are looking for at least $20,000 more to secure the company while bolstering our ongoing operations. These funds will specifically go towards completing and executing our outreach and marketing infrastructure and strategy. Marketing in the healthcare space is highly regulated. We need this capital to support our efforts to build and benefit from this essential infrastructure.  We’re confident in our traction based on the significant progress we’ve made with the first $50k from this campaign. With this final push, we’ll cross the chasm of the summer season and be in an optimal position to grow strong through the end of the year.3 ways you can support our success in this final leg of our fundraising:Consider investing more. If you’ve already invested, thank you! And if you’re interested in supporting us in reaching our next milestone, this is an optimal time, and I would love to connect with you.If you know any potential investors–please consider making an introduction and sharing this campaign. I am happy to meet with anyone who may be interested in our company.Share and comment on Shelby’s LinkedIn posts about our fundraising efforts!Thank you for your support, and we look forward to updating you soon.Warm regards,Shelby and the Antelope Recovery Team