From seed round to open enrollment.
Helping Kyndly turn a Kentucky health-plan enrollment insight into a working product in time for a fixed market window, expand that foundation into ICHRA, and build the internal capability to carry it forward.
Client
Kyndly
Project
Kynd Choice
Services
Year
2023
Overview
A fixed window for a complex product.
Kyndly founders Erik Anderson and Waleed Bahouth started with a Kentucky-specific thesis: ACA enrollment was under-indexed because coverage was too difficult to navigate. Plans existed, but Kynect created friction in understanding options, estimating savings, and enrolling.
After closing its seed round in 2023, Kyndly had just three months to reach market before open enrollment. With no internal development team, and before AI-assisted development became standard, we helped define, build, and launch a guided Kentucky ACA experience.
Kentucky was the starting point for planned Midwest expansion through a broker-led model in which completed enrollments generated commission revenue. That made a trusted, repeatable enrollment journey essential to both customer access and company growth.
The Challenge
Make a regulated choice feel simple.
For users, the experience needed to feel straightforward: share a few household details, understand potential savings, compare relevant plans, and know what to do next.
Underneath that journey sat a much harder system. Kynd Choice needed to account for county and rating-area data, household composition, income, plan years, premium tax credits, cost-sharing reductions, Medicaid eligibility, benchmark plans, qualifying life events, enrollment deadlines, effective dates, and Kynect handoffs.
The challenge was two-sided. Residents needed guidance without being asked to understand the insurance system first. Kyndly needed a platform that could preserve the real rules behind every recommendation and enrollment path.
The fixed open-enrollment window raised the stakes. The risk was not only launching late; it was launching a product that worked for a simple demo but failed when real households, changing plan data, and enrollment edge cases appeared.
Our Approach
Turning ACA expertise into product logic.
Before building, we worked with Kyndly to research the eligibility and enrollment requirements behind the experience.
Kyndly brought local market knowledge, while we contributed product judgment and deep ACA and brokerage expertise.
Together, we defined how the product should handle household composition, income, subsidies, Medicaid eligibility, benchmark plans, qualifying life events, deadlines, effective dates, and Kynect handoffs.
Understand the market
We defined the Kentucky enrollment problem, user barriers, and commercial opportunity.
Model eligibility
We translated ACA requirements into clear calculations, decisions, and enrollment paths.
Shape the journey
We turned those rules into an experience people could complete without first understanding the insurance system.
A guided journey from household details to enrollment.
Kynd Choice led users from ZIP code and county confirmation through household details, income, usage, potential savings, plan recommendations, comparison, selection, and enrollment. Save-progress, help, and mobile states supported the journey beyond the ideal path.
A guided journey from household details to enrollment.
Kynd Choice led users from ZIP code and county confirmation through household details, income, usage, potential savings, plan recommendations, comparison, selection, and enrollment. Save-progress, help, and mobile states supported the journey beyond the ideal path.
Recommendations people could understand.
The product combined recommended plans with broader comparison views, filters, plan details, and confirmation steps. Recommendation logic could surface lowest-premium and best-value options while still letting users explore the wider market.
Eligibility and savings behind every result.
The application modeled Federal Poverty Level percentages, premium tax credits, cost-sharing reductions, Kentucky Medicaid eligibility, benchmark silver plans, dependent premiums, and final monthly costs. These rules turned household and plan data into useful guidance.
Enrollment paths built around real deadlines.
Kynd Choice supported enrollment details, qualifying life events, effective dates, deadline states, and the correct Kyndly or Kynect next step. State- and plan-year controls helped the team respond as enrollment periods and requirements changed.
From ACA enrollment to ICHRA
After the Kentucky launch, the same foundation evolved beyond individual ACA enrollment to support ICHRA workflows, including HRA contributions, client and carrier rules, administration, data uploads, exports, reporting, and multi-state requirements.
The partnership
Ship for the window. Keep building after launch.
The initial priority was clear: scope the core experience, build the product, and deliver a usable MVP in time for open enrollment.
After launch, plan data, new enrollment years, and real usage introduced new requirements and edge cases. We stayed close, strengthening the product as it moved into operation and expanded into ICHRA.
The partnership was designed to build capacity, not dependency. As the platform and company matured, Kyndly established its own internal development team and continued moving the product forward.
01
Shape and launch the product
Translate Kyndly’s market thesis and insurance expertise into a focused Kentucky shopping and enrollment product, delivered before open enrollment.
02
Harden and expand the platform
Support launch fixes, plan-data changes, new enrollment years, and edge cases while expanding into ICHRA, HRA logic, administration, exports, and reporting.
03
Transition capability in-house
Help Kyndly develop the product and engineering maturity needed to establish its own development team and carry the platform forward.
The impact
More than a successful launch.
Kyndly gained more than a working product. It established a route to market, a foundation that could adapt with its strategy, and the internal capability to keep building.
A validated route to market
A regulated ACA product reached customers within the fixed enrollment window.
A foundation for change
The product and operating models could support new markets, rules, and benefits offerings.
Lasting internal capability
Kyndly developed the team and product maturity needed to continue building independently.
Why it mattered
Making complexity easier to act on.
Strong product partnerships make complexity easier to act on today, while leaving the client better equipped for what comes next.
Kynd Choice transformed Kyndly’s market expertise into a guided experience that helped Kentucky residents understand their options, estimate savings, compare plans, and move toward enrollment.
Beyond that first experience, the product’s underlying models, decision logic, and operational workflows created a reusable foundation that could adapt as Kyndly’s strategy evolved.
