(Part 2 – What happens where you run a mental health service as a Valley-type startup)
Several years ago, I had had first-hand experience with poor mental health and sought help via in-person therapy and medication. During that time, I realized the following:
- mental health help is binary: either there’s nothing or there are sessions with a mental health professional
- the financial cost puts it out of the reach of most people
- the time investment makes it difficult to balance work, home and this
At the same time, I had observed how my health had deteriorated over time, beginning with mild depressive symptoms with a decrease in drive and discipline. Today, I know that in others depression first manifested as increased anxiety. At that point, you know something’s not right, but doesn’t seem anywhere close to needing to see a psychotherapist. So you plod along until things begin to slide faster. By the time you seek help or someone does on your behalf, you’ve suffered quite a bit.
Therefore, I understood that
- people needed – still need – something handy that didn’t warrant full-fledged medical care but provided some minimal level of support for those with mild symptoms. There are now several studies showing that a plurality of the population, especially urban, have poor mental health
- because people would likely end up being somewhat dependent on it, it needed to be low-overhead enough to be offered free.
- and counterintuitively, it needed to be low-tech enough that its limits would be clear right away so that it would not disappoint later.