Shimmer (https://shimmer.care) offers guided video support groups for people struggling with their mental health. Shimmer matches members with shared identities and experiences and places them in small groups that meet for weekly support sessions along with a qualified peer coach. During the rest of the week, members have access to our Community Platform (a mobile app and web app) to leverage resources like community events, mood tracking, and gratitude journaling.
79% of young adults with mental health issues do not have access to care; the most common alternative, teletherapy, is expensive ($150/session), has significant churn (40% drop off after first visit), and lacks diverse representation (average age of 51 and 80% white). We've developed a curriculum incorporating material from expert group therapists at UCSF. This has led to a number of great outcomes including: providing care at a fraction of the cost of therapy ($50/month or $12/session), an 80% 4-month retention rate, and a diverse set of highly experienced facilitators that members can relate better to. If you're interested in trying Shimmer, you can sign up for a consultation call or a wellness workshop (both for free) directly on our website. Shimmer is led by three founders with extensive experience across healthcare and engineering. Having seen firsthand the severe effect that mental health issues have had on loved ones, we left previous roles (graduate programs at Berkeley MBA/MPH, UCSF MD and Salesforce SWE) to dedicate ourselves to improving the accessibility and affordability of mental health care.
I have some personal experience with this. I think what you are trying to do is commendable. Group therapies are also pretty expensive and not accessible for most people except in extreme circumstances.
The thing is if you're having say, 10 people for a 1 hour session, that gives each person about 6 minutes to share. But really more like 4 - 5 minutes after overhead. I think that is still worth _something_ (12 dollars per session sounds about right, edit: you may be able to go a few dollars higher), but you are basically trading off quality and cost here. It's going to be hard to actually build a connection and make it meaningful.
(edit: to be clear - the cost here isn't necessarily the lever - whether you charge 5 dollars per session or 25 dollars per session - you will need to make the 1 hour meaningful for the 10 people who are in the meeting, which will be the hard part IMO)
Good points! We've thought a lot about this and how to make the 1 hour as meaningful as possible. Three things that may help with this:
1) we do breakout rooms so members have more time to talk with one another.
2) groups are capped at the 8 person mark.
3) depending on the week, not everyone is always hoping to chat/share, sometimes members just wish to listen that day.
Hey friends, you’re working on something extremely important and it’s a real honour to be here for your launch thread. I’m celebrating my four year anniversary of getting out of a cardiac ward and to be blunt, I wish this had been invented four years ago.
Seriously folks, wonderful work - this is really cool.
This is really great! A friend of mine recently stayed a clinic for two weeks for a mental health issue, and she said the best part was that she could talk to others in the group who had similar problems.
This looks great, and clearly addresses a serious need. I'm curious about your plan for scaling. It seems like finding qualified group leaders would be a limiting bottleneck.
How will you continue to find and supervise good group leaders as you draw more users?
Currently we've adopted the requirements and interviewing strategies from leading support groups such as Mental Health America.
Surprisingly there are a lot of thoughtful people out there with solid experiences facilitating discussions/conversations and this has not been a bottleneck for us!
This is probably a great idea for people in marginalized groups who feel crowded out in group therapy settings.
But how do you address the potential for groups of white men that lack diversity to breed toxic attitudes? I say this as a white man who would be reluctant to go to such a group out of this concern.
Yeah that is a concern we think a lot about. It mostly comes down to the facilitator and protocols we've developed with our care and curriculum team that go into place when any "toxic topics" get touched on.
$50 a month is a lot of money for a lot of people with mental health issues. I get it's a lot cheaper then normal care by going to see a professional but I was expecting the student pricing I guess
From an American viewpoint at least, this is actually very reasonably priced. Paying < $20 for a session of medical services is essentially unheard of. I paid $30 as copay for PT every two weeks with rather nice insurance, and every time I walk into a doctor's office it's _at least_ $30.
I have never pursued therapy but I'm sure it would be a minimum of $30 per session with insurance, if not more.
Not to say it couldn't be better, but at first glance this is a _great_ improvement from the status quo.
Long-term: Maybe insurance or government equivalent can help?
Short-term: Every new invention needs to start somewhere. There are plenty of rich, middle class, and even lower-middle-class families that easily have $50 a month to help out a struggling child / sibling / cousin / ect.
Remember, new businesses need to start somewhere, and that somewhere is often selling to a very tiny segment of the market that they intend to serve. [Edit:] Many times this means starting at a higher price, and then lowering the price as the company streamlines itself and can handle more customers.
You should have added this to your pitch, above. I think your pricing is fantastic, but mentioning that you are willing to go even further for people who really need the help would have probably garnered a lot of goodwill around here.
79% of young adults with mental health issues do not have access to care; the most common alternative, teletherapy, is expensive ($150/session), has significant churn (40% drop off after first visit), and lacks diverse representation (average age of 51 and 80% white). We've developed a curriculum incorporating material from expert group therapists at UCSF. This has led to a number of great outcomes including: providing care at a fraction of the cost of therapy ($50/month or $12/session), an 80% 4-month retention rate, and a diverse set of highly experienced facilitators that members can relate better to. If you're interested in trying Shimmer, you can sign up for a consultation call or a wellness workshop (both for free) directly on our website. Shimmer is led by three founders with extensive experience across healthcare and engineering. Having seen firsthand the severe effect that mental health issues have had on loved ones, we left previous roles (graduate programs at Berkeley MBA/MPH, UCSF MD and Salesforce SWE) to dedicate ourselves to improving the accessibility and affordability of mental health care.