[Startup Bharat] How this Bhubaneshwar-based online platform is helping people deal with their mental health

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the mental health of people in India and across the world. There has been an increase in cases of stress, depression, anxiety, psychological isolation, emotional challenges and fear of failure, among others. Last year, the Psychiatric Society of India reported a 20 percent increase in cases of mental illness since the start of the pandemic.

This hit NIT, Rourkela graduates Raul Mohanty and mohanty swagatThey have known each other for more than nine years.

“Even though we are surrounded by our own people all the time, we may not find the right person to talk and resonate with, or share our agonies without hesitation. Amidst this mounting stress, we saw an increase in the number of suicides and cases of depression where people gave up even when faced with the smallest of failures. We have seen these scenarios up close within our families and close friends, and have also personally felt the brunt of increased stress and loneliness,” says Rahul, co-founder of FailTell. Your history.

led them to undertake GarmentfailGarment It came out of Bhubaneshwar in August 2020 as a platform that allows people with similar life experiences to connect.

What does FailTell do?

The startup envisioned building a community where people shared their stories of overcoming failure. The goal was to help people find their role models through real-life stories and ensure they don’t feel alone.

An all-in-one online platform, FailTell offers a wide range of services to help everyone overcome failure, conquer mental health and emotional challenges, devise career strategies, and deal with everyday concerns for personal, emotional, and spiritual growth. professional.

“Whether it’s mental health support, uncertain career decisions, or just someone you want to talk to who could help you lead a more meaningful and happy life, FailTell offers a comprehensive solution to reshaping one’s personal and professional growth, with its wide range of services,” says Swagat.

challenges

He explains that the initial challenge the team faced was finding reliable and affordable technology resources, including developers. Also, since the startup already caters to an overcrowded market, the team felt the need to stand out among all the big players in the market.

“Another major setback we faced was convincing people to share their stories of struggles, failures and challenges, considering the associated stigma in our country when it comes to mental health. We also faced difficulties expanding overseas as we had limited understanding of customer needs in those geographies through campus ambassadors we had hired from overseas campuses,” says Rahul.

The duo realized that it was important to push people to become aware of how to deal with failure and overcome it in a practical way. They saw the need to offer a more holistic approach.

“However, no platform could be found where people share their “failure” stories or life experiences in one place. This made us realize that we should do something to address these issues and remove the stigma of failure,” says Rahul.

Pandemic and other services

As the pandemic peaked, people faced heightened emotions, mental health issues, job uncertainty, anxiety about the future, and more. The team had realized that most of these issues were interconnected, and addressing one problem helped alleviate the others.

The startup then started offering additional services in August 2021, one of which is career guidance. The team is made up of domain-specific professional mentors with diverse backgrounds, ranging from popular industries like IT, Entrepreneurship, Consulting & Analytics, and BFSI to the lesser known like Venture Capital, Product Management, Fashion Design, Modeling, Fine Art, Government Services, Healthcare, Hospitality Management, etc

“With a compassionate and caring network of professional domain-specific counselors/therapists, life coaches and mentors, our goal is to make all of our services accessible and affordable to everyone, without compromising quality,” says Rahul.

the business model

The total size of the team is 14 across multiple teams: technology, marketing, design, and content. the team has 14,000 users who have shared 150 stories.

“We revamped our website based on feedback and product fit-for-market analysis to launch our new services. With that, we also managed to build a strong network of 50+ counsellors/therapists, 30+ life coaches and 150+ professional mentors (in 30 domains) within 1.5 months after launching our additional services”, says Rahul .

Here are some of the key metrics:

• 1,500 monthly active users, 150 stories, 250+ expert base, 14,000 user base
• career mentoring

“Our start-up is started from now on. As part of the AWS Activate portfolio, we have received credits from Amazon Web Services that cover a small fraction of our technology costs. We also get help and support from Startup Odisha to scale,” says Rahul.

While the team declined to share their income or the amount of money they charge the client, they did explain that they make money in the B2C business from clients who opt for career counseling.

Rahul explained that they also have a massive B2B offer for educational institutions, training institutions, corporate entities, MSMEs, etc. The team is also running webinars and will charge fees for the same as time goes on.

“We have other exciting projects and future plans that would add to the business model. For our B2C business, we have a 30 percent gross margin that is charged per session and makes money for our startup,” says Rahul.

market and future

According to GlobeNewswire, the mental health and addiction treatment market will touch $6.2 billion by 2027. Some of the applications in the segment include: I am Sober, Recovery Path, Sober Grid and others. There are others like Atmana that work on a freemium model, and while the app is free to install, advanced functionality requires a paid subscription of $90 per year.

“Our mission is to create a responsible and realistic social network for people of all ages and from all walks of life. We want people to understand the depth of each life process with a holistic view rather than just looking at the number of successful attempts. In three years, our goal is to partner with more than 100 educational institutes and build a network of more than 2,000 professional counselors, therapists, life coaches and mentors,” explains Rahul.