Support Health

SupportH is a startup designed to identify mental health problems among the general population over 18 years of age. Initially, the first problem that SupportH faces will be burnout, and then we will address anxiety, depression, among others.

SupportH will provide these individuals with an affordable option to identify mental health issues, so that they can assess their risk, through an AI that uses machine learning and natural language processing to evaluate and support these users, reducing the stigma of mental illness.

If properly scaled up, SupportH could be life-changing for these individuals by helping them regain health, well-being, and reduce financial and family strain. Moreover, will contribute to achievement of one of the targets of the Sustainable Development Goals, endorsed at UN General Assembly in 2015: to promote mental health and well-being for all by 2030.

Common mental disorders are increasing worldwide and close to 10% of the world’s population is affected (WHO). WHO estimates that, during emergencies, as many as 20% of population are affected by depression and anxiety. Another problem faced today is burnout, which leads to overwork and exposes workers to a state of exhaustion and includes almost all occupational sectors. A Gallup Survey in 2018 showed that about 2/3 of full-time workers experienced burnout on the job. According to the WHO, Brazil has the highest prevalence of depression in Latin America, in addition to being the most anxious country in the world.

For instance, factors that contribute to burnout can be listed as: job insecurity, conflicting conditions, high workload, and job-stress linked to the demand of high standards, quality services, and high competition. SupportH hopes to help people of different backgrounds to assess their risk related to mental health problems, through an A.I. that uses machine learning and natural language processing to evaluate and support these users, reducing the stigma of mental illness. At the end, SupportH expects to provide a life-changing for these individuals by helping them regain health, well-being, and reducing financial and family strain.

SupportH aims to improve not only the identification of burnout, but also other mental health problems in a playful and fun way. Instead of answering a long and tedious questionnaire for each problem, the user will download an APP on his smartphone or tablet. Then the user will go through this entire process by playing a game for each problem. At the end, the A.I. will display a result, assessing the user’s risk of having or not having, for example burnout, allowing him to decide where and when to seek help. And according to the game’s result, the A.I. can refer the user to the SupportH Physicians/Psychologists network. SupportH offers both in-person and virtual assistance.

Additionally, SupportH expects the user to return to the APP regularly for a reevaluation and, after treatment, come back to check on his progress. There will be a diary to record his emotions on a daily basis and at the end of the month, it will be possible to observe them as a chart. Through online webinars, videos, podcasts and e-libray the users will be able to access the necessary online resources at their convenience to improve their personal lives.

Initially, SupportH focuses on the public that is directly dealing with the pandemic, in other words, healthcare professionals. Only in Brazil, this population exceeds 3,5 million. However, the problem of mental health not only involves these professionals, but every human beings who are currently living under enormous stress. In other words, SupportH will serve this population at some point in the future. Another important factor would be age, however, age group does not influence the problem addressed by SupportH, as there is no age to be depressed, anxious, exhausted, etc. But, our initial goal is to work with people over 18 years of age.

In SupportH's view, this population is currently underserved due to the stigma associated with mental health. In almost all societies it is still taboo to talk about it. And due to this non-acceptance, the vast majority of people does not seek help early and in most cases they never seek any advice. And sadly, because of this delay in correct diagnosis and treatment, the problem is only discovered late.

Therefore, SupportH's vision is to give each user the freedom to feel comfortable, anywhere, anytime, to take this assessment, without feeling forced or embarrassed. And instead of answering long and tedious questionnaires, the user can make this analysis through a game, which will bring daily scenes, such as one family going on a vacation, the ride to the airport and other details that unconsciously lead to stressful situations.  This way, through daily scenes SupportH hopes help the user to address common mental health problems.  At the end of each game, everyone will be informed about their result. If his score needs proper attention, the A.I. will refer the user to the SupportH's network of mental health specialists with whom he can interact, both in-person and online.

The first SupportH mockup has just arrived in early June 2021 and now SupportH will go out to the public for interviews and simulations with real customers. The idea is to carry out this interaction with health professionals, but also with various other professionals from different segments. At least 100 people will be interviewed to validate your hypothesis. Likewise, a landing page will be created to verify the interaction with the public and a focus group to listen to opinions and different points of view from the general public.

SupportH expects the customer to use the APP as a tool to frequently analyze his mental health, in addition to actively participating in the proposed activities, such as: online webinars, videos, podcasts and e-books. In this way, users will be able to access the necessary online resources at their convenience to improve theirs personal lives.

SupportH seeks to combat stress, depression and other mental health problems. Our primary focus is evaluating and helping healthcare providers in Brazil, but also trying to reach all people over 18, who needs support and care to overcome the stigma of mental health. SupportH will solve this challenge through games that pose day-to-day scenarios, pointing out that many of the difficulties are fostered in the daily routine.

After playing and living the user experience, the A.I. will display the result and, if necessary, refer the user to the network of doctors / psychologists who are part of the SupportH team.

SupportH has just developed the first mockup and started the validation process with the public, in the city of São Paulo, with health professionals, as well as several other professionals from other areas of activity. And at this moment, we do not have statistical data to share yet. Regarding fundraising, we have not received any and all investments made so far have been made by the three co-founders.

Regarding the business model, SupportH foresees that there are opportunities in the following segments: B2B, B2C, B2G and SaaS. Furthermore, we also foresee that our potential market is linked to all companies / sectors where there is a human being working under stress, for example: airlines, banks, schools, etc. In addition, another potential customer, will be those who live in stressful conditions, where the demands of day to day interfere with their quality of life.

Until now, the usual method to diagnosis depression, anxiety, burnout, and other problems, is based on long and tedious questionnaires, which often makes this process exhausting. In addition, some times, the customer does not have the skills and knowledge to solve them, not even the time necessary to do it. Therefore, SupportH has decided to approach this problem in a different way, where the customer will play a game that addresses these problems through day-to-day scenarios. And throughout this process, there will be situations where you can possibly identify yourself and that can act as a trigger, activating the problem.

After playing, the A.I. will show the result and, if necessary, refer the user to the network of physicians / psychologists who are part of the SupportH's network.

Another interesting point is that we intend to be inclusive, that is, to enable this assessment not only, for example, to people with visual disabilities, but also to other groups, such as LGBTQ+.

Including all human diversity ensures a safer, more sustainable and healthier environment. And for us, diversity is positively associated with innovation and productivity.

SupportH hopes this kind of approach is a game changer, helps popularize the mental health approach, and further combat the stigma that surrounds it.

Currently, our solution is just a mockup. And at this moment, we have just started its evaluation, in order to obtain answers to our hypothesis. If we are correct, we will move on to the next step, which would be to go to market and adapt as necessary to achieve market fit.

In the world, according to the WHO, 350 million people currently live with depression. In our country, there are 12 million people who live with depression and 19 million who live with anxiety.

Last year, more than 576,000 people were withdrawn from work due to mental and behavioral disorders in our country, according to the National Institute of Social Security of Brazil.

And what we project is that by the end of the first year we will be able to serve 2,000 individual consumers in our market and 33 small and large businesses. And in 5 years, we expect to have 10% of the Brazilian market share.

In addition, we see the possibility of expanding both to the Latin American market and globally.

At the moment, SupportH is in the early stages of its journey and at this point the first mock-up has just been delivered. In June 2021, the first tests with potential consumers began, which allows us to test our hypothesis and if there is any doubt about our value proposition, there is the possibility of correcting it before going to market. 

Unfortunately, for the above reasons, we do not have any metrics or statistics to present.

SupportH has three full-time staff:

1. Giovanni Andre Viana

2. Renata Pietro

3. Ana Paula Peixoto

In our point of view, the three co-founders have complementary characteristics. 

Renata is an excellent personnel manager and has a special eye for marketing and social media. While Ana Paula likes the technology area, she is responsible for managing all aspects related to information technology. She also has extensive experience in the development of startups in the pre-operational phase, since she has been working in this area for more than 10 years. Meanwhile, Giovanni has extensive experience in the administrative and financial areas, being responsible for the management of these two sectors at SupportH. In addition, he was responsible for bringing the group of co-founders together.

1.    Renata Pietro - she's a RN, with master degree and a PhD. She has extensive experience in people management, both in the public and private sectors. Responsible for seeing the mental health problem caused by the pandemic. And she has dedicated herself to developing the social network on Instagram and also, she responsible for developing the SupportH’s marketing strategies.

2.     Ana Paula Peixoto - is a pharmacist with a master's degree. She has been working with healthcare startups for over 10 years and since then she has been dedicated to healthcare technology development.

3.     Giovanni Andre Viana – he is a physician (MD) with a PhD. He has experience in hospital administration and he was responsible for bringing the group together. In this phase of this start-up, he is dedicating himself to solving day-to-day managerial and administrative problems, as well as financial management.

In our opinion, investments in technology development are at the core of the business, while investments in diversity and inclusion are strategic for SupportH.

And for diversity, equity and inclusion at SupportH to be effective, these goals shouldn’t be the responsibility of just one professional or HR, but of all of us. And this must be communicated to all employees who will come to work with us. For this reason, we want these objectives to be in the way in which the teams are integrated, in the way in which we carry out the programs, in the creation of inclusive events and in the message that SupportH will send internally and externally to encourage the construction of various teams.

In the hiring process, to form diverse teams, we will focus on behaviors that reflect our values and will use these same parameters to analyze each candidate. And with each new hire, our vision of diversity, equity and inclusion will be reinforced as part of the onboarding process.

In addition, we seek to create metric evaluation criteria that allow us to compare the entire organization in an equivalent way. In this way, it allows the promotion, recognition or structuring of teams that face high-profile projects, in a fair and transparent manner.

And last but not least, put into practice what we write on paper, every day ...

When we learned of this opportunity, we decided to apply because we would have access to awesome peer classes that act as a trusted support group, offering inspiration and guidance, plus we would have access to a powerful network of impact-minded leaders across industries and sectors, with dedicated spaces to meet throughout the year. In addition, we would have access to mentoring, coaching and strategic advice from experts, as well as from the Solve and MIT networks. And also, receive monitoring and evaluation support to build an impact measurement practice.

And at the beginning of this application form, in the "More about your solution" section, I wrote about barriers, and one of those barriers was financial support, and if we were selected by MIT Solve 2021, we would have gained scale and traction to move forward

That’s why we decided to fulfill this application.

SupportH seeks advice, mentoring or partners to support its work in different areas of knowledge, since we need to develop an adequate business model that allows us to achieve sustainable growth. Another important fact would be to receive assistance on how to present investors correctly and accurately. In addition, monitoring and evaluation would allow us to learn to collect data and analyze its impacts on our daily lives. Moreover, we would like to expand our customer base, solidly and organically. And finally, the technology would be useful for game development and design and data analysis.

Sadly, at this time, we don't have any specific names in mind.