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Things I wish I knew before founding my mental health startup

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Re: Things I wish I knew before founding my mental health startup

#21

Post by canadianfella »

JimtheCoder wrote: post #5
onion2k wrote: post #2

Points 1 through 3 are off. Point 4 is bang on though. You don't need 250k to 300k, and if you had it you'd wish you had 500k or 750k anyway. A longer runway puts off the scary point where you have to launch something. You can bootstrap a startup with very little capital if you have the skills to do the work yourself, or you have co-founders with those skills, or most importantly you're happy for things to take longe…

"You don't need 250k to 300k, and if you had it you'd wish you had 500k or 750k anyway." Spending a quarter mill on a prototype seems like a horrible decision, TBH...

[dead]

Re: Things I wish I knew before founding my mental health startup

#23

Post by ugh123 »

ex_mozillian wrote: post #3

Fifth thing you should have known: Trying to improve mental health using an app is like trying to cure alcoholism with vodka. Societal addiction to devices is the reason why we've had an explosion in mental illness.

Connect with people where they're at. Don't ask them to go somewhere else. Maybe the best place for an alcohol intervention is... a bar ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Re: Things I wish I knew before founding my mental health startup

#24

Post by gizmo »

JimtheCoder wrote: post #5
onion2k wrote: post #2

Points 1 through 3 are off. Point 4 is bang on though. You don't need 250k to 300k, and if you had it you'd wish you had 500k or 750k anyway. A longer runway puts off the scary point where you have to launch something. You can bootstrap a startup with very little capital if you have the skills to do the work yourself, or you have co-founders with those skills, or most importantly you're happy for things to take longe…

"You don't need 250k to 300k, and if you had it you'd wish you had 500k or 750k anyway." Spending a quarter mill on a prototype seems like a horrible decision, TBH...

In every other industry you have to invest money upfront so you actually have a product to sell, and as the software industry matures the table stakes will continue to rise. People are only willing to use half-baked prototypes when they have no choice, but in more and more domains customers will have choice and expectations go up as a result

Re: Things I wish I knew before founding my mental health startup

#25

Post by bumby »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #19
331c8c71 wrote: post #9

> If you are a good seller, your product will always be worse than your narratives. Everyone you sell your product to will be disappointed when they start using it... > The market lives in an atmosphere of inflated promises... Anyone who can only tell the truth about their projects will not look ambitious and convincing enough. Nobody will invest in those projects. Agree? Disagree? I personally have limited experienc…

That second to last sentence dives off the deep end where I can't endorse it, but there's a large kernel of truth to the idea. As a new startup, your greatest competitive advantage is your ability to move fast. Marketing speak, on the other hand, is typically understood in terms of medium to large corporate timelines, where fast delivery simply isn't a thing: * "we're actively developing this feature" means it'll be…

>your greatest competitive advantage is your ability to move fast.

I don't want to come across as overly cynical, but I feel like there is a natural friction between this competitive advantage and certain domains in the health and/or critical infrastructure space, especially when "moving fast" can be at odds with quality. Safety-critical and regulated health domains don't seem like areas where moving fast is always viewed as an inherent good.

Re: Things I wish I knew before founding my mental health startup

#26

Post by pxue »

JimtheCoder wrote: post #5
onion2k wrote: post #2

Points 1 through 3 are off. Point 4 is bang on though. You don't need 250k to 300k, and if you had it you'd wish you had 500k or 750k anyway. A longer runway puts off the scary point where you have to launch something. You can bootstrap a startup with very little capital if you have the skills to do the work yourself, or you have co-founders with those skills, or most importantly you're happy for things to take longe…

"You don't need 250k to 300k, and if you had it you'd wish you had 500k or 750k anyway." Spending a quarter mill on a prototype seems like a horrible decision, TBH...

Do things that don't scale is really an absolute truth.

If you can use Excel spreadsheet or Google form to build your product. Do it for your first 100 users.

Obviously if you're in deep tech then this doesn't apply. But with deep tech and moonshots the value isn't the product, it's your arbitrage opportunity and expert patentable knowledge.

Re: Things I wish I knew before founding my mental health startup

#27

Post by bumby »

onion2k wrote: post #4
ex_mozillian wrote: post #3

Fifth thing you should have known: Trying to improve mental health using an app is like trying to cure alcoholism with vodka. Societal addiction to devices is the reason why we've had an explosion in mental illness.

We haven't had an explosion in mental illness. We've had an explosion in the number of people being able to recognize they have an issue, understand that help is available, and being willing to speak about it publicly. The problems have always been there.

"Rates of teenage depression began to rise around 2012, when adolescent use of social media became common"[1]

It's not clear to me that there's a mechanism to link this to the higher rate of diagnosis hypothesis. The authors instead link it to social media.

[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00296-x

Re: Things I wish I knew before founding my mental health startup

#28

Post by unusualmonkey »

I'm not sure this article has much insight, rather appears to be content for the sake of content.

"Right now, $300,000 is not enough to create a prototype and show traction on the global market. It’s a simple math. Let’s say you need three developers."

That's not simple math - that's faulty assumptions.

While there are always exceptions, you don't typically need to hire 3 developers to build a prototype!

The biggest thing missing from this article is customers - who are they, what do they want, and how much will they pay?

Re: Things I wish I knew before founding my mental health startup

#29

Post by smcin »

gizmo wrote: post #24
JimtheCoder wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"You don't need 250k to 300k, and if you had it you'd wish you had 500k or 750k anyway." Spending a quarter mill on a prototype seems like a horrible decision, TBH...

In every other industry you have to invest money upfront so you actually have a product to sell, and as the software industry matures the table stakes will continue to rise. People are only willing to use half-baked prototypes when they have no choice, but in more and more domains customers will have choice and expectations go up as a result

But what is and isn't "half-baked prototype"? People/users/media/investors confuse GUI with functionality with "addresses actual use case(s) for users who might pay/subscribe".

I'd rather have something with a brutal/nonexistent GUI but provides useful functionality and gives me a warm fuzzy that the developers have some use cases in mind, or a suggested workflow.

Yes there is a first-mover advantage to getting into a domain early.

Re: Things I wish I knew before founding my mental health startup

#30

Post by listenallyall »

> I’ve been a product manager/CEO in fintech

You talk about hiring developers, all kinds of marketing strategy... do you know anything about mental health? What makes you qualified to run a mental health company? Where do you discuss bringing in doctors, or mental health specialists, instead of FAANG devs? Is the "health" part just an afterthought?

> investors may not be impressed by the quality of your product

yea, when the founder doesn't seem to think that mental health expertise is important for a mental health startup, investors might be unimpressed.

> It’s ok to mention in your presentation that you have people with FAANG experience in your team

Maybe mention people with, you know, mental health experience?

Even your web site only refers to questionnaires and approaches "approved by" mental health professionals... No claims you have even a single one on staff.

Some fintech washout thinking he can immediately pivot to health of any kind, I hope people can see you for being the total fraud you are.

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