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Launch HN: Quirk (YC S19) – Open-Source Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

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Re: Launch HN: Quirk (YC S19) – Open-Source Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

#31

Post by flaque »

dvt wrote: post #28
flaque wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest, I just kind of picked it and went with it. I think at the time I had been talking a lot with my dad (an old copy-left enthusiast). I never really thought it would really be a thing.

Fair enough, I don't think it's a huge deal, it just makes it very inconvenient to use any cool parts of your code commercially or in other projects. Sometimes I'll work on a project without knowing if I'll ever commercialize it, and I try to err on the side of using MIT (or Apache) libraries/code as opposed to (L)GPL.

True, it makes sense for software packages, but less so for real products. If we build out any packages for public use in the future, they'll likely be MIT not GPL.

Re: Launch HN: Quirk (YC S19) – Open-Source Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

#33

Post by flaque »

adar wrote: post #32

I wasn't able to make it to WaffleJS yesterday but I hope your talk went well! As someone who's dealing with anxiety about the job hunt/interviewing for my first tech job right now, I can definitely see myself using Quirk. Best of luck.

Thank you! Good luck in the job hunt/interviewing. It took me a LONG time and a lot of tries before I stopped freezing up in interviews.

CBT (with or without Quirk) is definitely something that can help you here and definitely recommend giving it a shot!

Re: Launch HN: Quirk (YC S19) – Open-Source Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

#34

Post by subpixel »

flaque wrote: post #15
danenania wrote: post #10

Nice work! This is a great idea and something I've thought should exist since getting interested in CBT a few months back. Before even trying the app, here are some thoughts. - On pricing: $4/mo seems like a difficult price point to build a business around, and it doesn't reflect the value you're offering. People pay hundreds/thousands per month to therapists to improve their mental health. If outcomes from using you…

WOAH thank you for the in-depth feedback dude! On Pricing - Agreed. This pricing mostly came out of a bit of nativity on my part. I assumed that wanting to make something accessible meant being really cheap. But we're very quickly realizing that both we won't be able to sustain this price and also that by having this price, we're basically telling people it doesn't work. The reason why we haven't done too much on pri…

Some pushback on pricing: this app is a vitamin, not a painkiller. $4/mo is a perfect price for an app I may use daily for years and years with varying levels of engagement. Like Day One (price: $3.99) or TeuxDeux (price: $3/mo), both of which are quite successful.

Charge $10/mo or $20/mo and your churn will increase as people think "haven't used that in weeks, waste of money" and cancel.

Additionally, I think the term 'open-source' and link to GitHub have no place in your marketing materials at this point. You're gunning for the public now, and your support channel is going to be clogged with questions about why open-source does not mean free or how to install from GitHub.

(Also, this is awesome!)

Re: Launch HN: Quirk (YC S19) – Open-Source Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

#35

Post by mettamage »

I've used a couple of principles regarding CBT to become more social and to get a better dating life. The first book I read was Michael Hall's Mindlines, which was an NLP book (a nonsense pseudoscience acronym). A couple of years later I learned about CBT and saw it has a lot in common with NLP. The biggest difference: CBT has scientific research into it and NLP doesn't, a couple of people simply made it up. When I tackled these problems I was 16, around 18 I was a lot more scientific about this.

The key insights regarding CBT for me were the following:

1. Start with small goals and celebrate them.

2. Log the following questions:

A. To what extent do I think event foo or thought bar will happen? E.g. to what extent do I think I'll get ridiculed while introducing myself to this new group of people?

B. (after it happened) what actually happened and to what extent was this in line with my expectations? After doing it for 10 times, 5 groups were cold and generally non-responsive, 1 ridiculed me and 4 were very friendly and happy to have met me (from experience this would be a particularly worst case realistic example for me).

3. I've used this so many times: if you feel terrible, ask yourself whether you're having the right perspective. If you feel like you do, then ask yourself it's the only right perspective. If you feel you do, see if you can find other perspectives anyway and ask yourself whether those perspectives gave you new information. This did wonders on how I viewed my physical attractiveness. My opinion used to be: I'm ugly. My opinion now is quite nuanced and grouped into segments by age and personality type. Conclusion: the people I like either don't care (too much) or they find me attractive. It took me a long time to this conclusion. For a long time I had another one which was: I'm not that good looking but looks don't matter too much in dating, or at least not when people meet me.

Those 3 insights really helped.

It's funny, I also studied psychology but that never really helped as much in this area as CBT before it.

---

If you guys feel up for it, then send me an email (see my profile) to reach out to brainstorm on things regarding CBT/psychology, dev or UX. I thought this was completely solved but apparently it isn't.

I wish there were more positive psychology[1]/tech companies on the whoishiring thread, if I weren't applying for McKinsey right now, I'd have publicly asked to see whether I could help you guys out.

[1] While CBT isn't part of positive psychology, I feel they're quite close to the spirit of it which is why I include it.

Re: Launch HN: Quirk (YC S19) – Open-Source Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

#36

Post by flaque »

subpixel wrote: post #34
flaque wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WOAH thank you for the in-depth feedback dude! On Pricing - Agreed. This pricing mostly came out of a bit of nativity on my part. I assumed that wanting to make something accessible meant being really cheap. But we're very quickly realizing that both we won't be able to sustain this price and also that by having this price, we're basically telling people it doesn't work. The reason why we haven't done too much on pri…

Some pushback on pricing: this app is a vitamin, not a painkiller. $4/mo is a perfect price for an app I may use daily for years and years with varying levels of engagement. Like Day One (price: $3.99) or TeuxDeux (price: $3/mo), both of which are quite successful. Charge $10/mo or $20/mo and your churn will increase as people think "haven't used that in weeks, waste of money" and cancel. Additionally, I think the te…

> I think the term 'open-source' and link to GitHub have no place in your marketing materials at this point. You're gunning for the public now, and your support channel is going to be clogged with questions about why open-source does not mean free.

Agreed, basically only using the open source terminology in dev environments like hacker news. So in our screenshots and marketing materials, it's definitely not going to be anywhere.

We've expanded outside of just hacker folks at this point and some folks got really worried about privacy because they thought "open-source" meant that the their thoughts would be shared publicly.

Re: Launch HN: Quirk (YC S19) – Open-Source Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

#37

Post by flaque »

mettamage wrote: post #35

I've used a couple of principles regarding CBT to become more social and to get a better dating life. The first book I read was Michael Hall's Mindlines, which was an NLP book (a nonsense pseudoscience acronym). A couple of years later I learned about CBT and saw it has a lot in common with NLP. The biggest difference: CBT has scientific research into it and NLP doesn't, a couple of people simply made it up. When I t…

1000% this: > if you feel terrible, ask yourself whether you're having the right perspective.

One of the most common bits of "debugging" we do with folks is that they know they feel like crap, but they're not sure if there's a thought associated with it. Almost every time, the thought that they should be challenging IS "I feel like crap."

Re: Launch HN: Quirk (YC S19) – Open-Source Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

#38

Post by mettamage »

flaque wrote: post #37
mettamage wrote: post #35

I've used a couple of principles regarding CBT to become more social and to get a better dating life. The first book I read was Michael Hall's Mindlines, which was an NLP book (a nonsense pseudoscience acronym). A couple of years later I learned about CBT and saw it has a lot in common with NLP. The biggest difference: CBT has scientific research into it and NLP doesn't, a couple of people simply made it up. When I t…

1000% this: > if you feel terrible, ask yourself whether you're having the right perspective. One of the most common bits of "debugging" we do with folks is that they know they feel like crap, but they're not sure if there's a thought associated with it. Almost every time, the thought that they should be challenging IS "I feel like crap."

I find it one of the most intriguing parts about CBT, because I don't know of any research on one of the fundamental assumptions it has (from my interpretation), which is: your feeling/emotion is caused in a big part by a thought you have.

For me this seems to be at least mostly true, which is why I can use the assumption. It was then that I realized that I'm a believer of the appraisal theory [1]. But I still didn't find any convincing paper on it to what extent this is true.

The danger this can have is that it may be that some feelings/emotions are not caused by your thoughts, but because of something else, but yet you try to CBT it away. One example is: you simply have a chemical imbalance. The first question I asked in this case is: do I exercise? If not, then let's hit up that dopamine button first in a healthy way. If I do exercise, the next question is: am I eating healthy? I also put social contact in as a 3rd possible factor. Whenever I went to meditation retreats (they double as a silent retreat), I noticed that my thoughts went in loops and other people break you out of your thought loops. It was then how I viscerally experienced how one might become crazy when they are left alone. I also found ways to battle it (e.g. try to do math in your head and come to newfound knowledge).

My full (mental) checklist is:

1. Am I exercising? If not then there might be a dopamine issue.

2. Am I eating/drinking in a healthy way? If not then your body might not be working properly.

3. Did I sleep in a healthy way? If not then the same as point 2.

4. Am I experiencing constant stress for more than 2 weeks? If so, then cortisol might be screwing up my HPA axis [2]. I should check for burnout/depression symptoms to verify.

5. Have I been a hermit for more than 2 weeks? If so, have I been focused or mind wandering? If I have been mind wandering mostly, then it's time to visit some friends.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appraisal_theory

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothalamic%E2%80%93pituitary...

Re: Launch HN: Quirk (YC S19) – Open-Source Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

#39

Post by danenania »

zdrummond wrote: post #27
danenania wrote: post #10

Nice work! This is a great idea and something I've thought should exist since getting interested in CBT a few months back. Before even trying the app, here are some thoughts. - On pricing: $4/mo seems like a difficult price point to build a business around, and it doesn't reflect the value you're offering. People pay hundreds/thousands per month to therapists to improve their mental health. If outcomes from using you…

Offhand, I feel your advice is contrary. You suggest increasing the price because "If outcomes from using your app compare favorably to a therapist, shouldn't your pricing reflect that?", but then the next two points on brand and stigma suggest opening it up to all people who want to feel great. I think you need to choose one. You are either a niche therapy compliment/competitor (price insensitive) or a mental wellbe…

I wouldn't call therapy a niche market. Therapy apps might be currently, but if they can disrupt the current therapy model to a meaningful extent, they won't be niche for long.

While I don't have time to look for better data on this, a quick google turns up this 2004 survey via https://www.apa.org/monitor/julaug04/survey:

'A similar poll released in May, "Therapy in America 2004," and co-sponsored by Psychology Today magazine and PacifiCare Behavioral Health, found that an estimated 59 million people have received mental health treatment in the past two years...'

59 million people (in just the US... in 2004) is not a niche market! And these people are paying a lot.

The problem with trying to be a "mental wellbeing tool for a broad audience" isn't just the market being super price sensitive, it's the market being unwilling pay anything whatsoever, which leads to ads and selling personal data (yuck).

"Even if you don't make a unicorn, $4/month from 5% of your market, is still $20M/month."

Right, but how will you reach 5% of your market? I don't see much virality here, and $4/mo gives you no room for customer acquisition costs.

"Also, final note, many people suffering from mental illness can not afford therapy. Even $4 would be hard, $50 is impossible."

I agree, but an unsustainable business can't help anyone at all in the long run.

Re: Launch HN: Quirk (YC S19) – Open-Source Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

#40

Post by flaque »

danenania wrote: post #39
zdrummond wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Offhand, I feel your advice is contrary. You suggest increasing the price because "If outcomes from using your app compare favorably to a therapist, shouldn't your pricing reflect that?", but then the next two points on brand and stigma suggest opening it up to all people who want to feel great. I think you need to choose one. You are either a niche therapy compliment/competitor (price insensitive) or a mental wellbe…

I wouldn't call therapy a niche market. Therapy apps might be currently, but if they can disrupt the current therapy model to a meaningful extent, they won't be niche for long. While I don't have time to look for better data on this, a quick google turns up this 2004 survey via https://www.apa.org/monitor/julaug04/survey : 'A similar poll released in May, "Therapy in America 2004," and co-sponsored by Psychology Toda…

> I agree, but an unsustainable business can't help anyone at all.

10000%. This has basically been my learning experience (Koby's much more knowledgeable than I am). It's amazing how many people you can help if don't die.

Also 100% agree with all of your points! Though, you'd be surprised about how viral it currently is and also how cheap the customer acquisition costs are. (That said, I don't expect those trends to continue as we grow, they tend to get harder.)

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