Two-sided marketplaces usually measure growth in total volume. A founder profile published by BreakingNewsABA on October 17, 2026 makes the case that, for healthcare matching, total volume is the wrong metric. Disclosure: this account is run by Special Needs Care Network, the company in the profile.
Source: Eric Sampson Built SpecialNeedsUSA.com To Connect Families and Providers.
The matching constraint
Eric Sampson, founder and CEO of Special Needs Care Network, told BreakingNewsABA that an ABA practice needs inquiries from families inside its service area. A family in one metro is worth nothing to a clinic two states away. The useful number per provider is the share of demand inside that provider's coverage area, not the national total.
Inputs the match uses
According to the profile, the match considers:
- The areas a practice serves
- The services a family is seeking
- The family's location and stated needs (diagnosis, age, program type)
Signals beyond the match
Sampson listed four factors that decide whether an inquiry turns into a real conversation: service-area fit, intake responsiveness, insurance compatibility, and available capacity. Only the first one sits fully inside the matching system. The other three depend on the provider, which is why Sampson tells practices to measure their own response time.
Cold start
Sampson also described the familiar cold-start problem: a marketplace needs both great providers and families looking at the same time, and team outreach is what got both sides moving.
Read the full profile on BreakingNewsABA. Special Needs Care Network matches families with special needs care providers in the United States at specialneedsusa.com.
