An app for mental health

In Spain, 6.7% of the Spanish population is affected by anxiety, exactly the same number of people with depression. In both it is more than double in women (9.2%) than in men (4%). Furthermore, almost half of Spanish young people between 15 and 29 years old (48.9%) consider that they have had some mental health problem. These figures offered by the Mental Health Confederation of Spain are only the tip of the iceberg of a problem that grows every year.

Although administrations and people are more aware thanks to the work of associations, users and mental health professionals, it is a problem that has yet to be addressed.

One of the challenges that arises when dealing with it is the cost. The lack of professionals in public health, added to the high cost of a private psychologist, worsens the situation. For this reason, two entrepreneurs from León have set themselves the challenge of democratizing access to mental health treatments through technology. They are Yeray Maarar and Daniel Sánchez, two young people who want to revolutionize mental health care, integrating technology based on artificial intelligence (AI) and access to personalized therapy and counseling in an application called ‘MyMind’.

Daniel Sánchez is 17 years old and works in a BasicFit gym, a popular chain of training centers in the Leonese capital. From a very young age he knew that innovation and companies were for him.

«I consider that I have been an entrepreneur since I was quite young because when I was 13 I started setting up online stores. Then I started working and was able to earn money to start doing bigger things. Now we are with MyMind and it is our project for the future,” explains the entrepreneur.

For his part, Yeray Maarar is a 19-year-old young man and studies an intermediate degree in electrical and automatic installations. In his free time, he likes to dedicate himself to boxing and, like Daniel, starting a business is one of his dreams.

“The entrepreneurial gene came out when I was 17 when I started working and I realized that I liked the business sector and I wanted to dedicate myself to it,” details the co-founder of MyMind.

Although their initial idea was not always to focus on the area of ​​mental health, they realized the needs in this field.

«When we first started Yeray contacted me and we were considering several options. I knew that he wanted to dedicate myself to the digital world because of the budget we had and also because I have always liked him. Later, I realized that I wanted to bet on artificial intelligence because it has a great future. Then we had an idea for agriculture with drones that incorporated artificial intelligence, but we decided to opt for mental health. We saw how we could do it and we opted for MyMind,” explains Sánchez.

MyMind, technological bet

MyMind is a psychology application that uses advanced artificial intelligence (AI) trained by a team of psychologists to provide personalized therapies.

«I like to say that it’s like having a therapist in your pocket 24 hours a day. The goal is to help as many people as possible and improve the well-being and mental health of our users,” says the founder.

“We have decided that 90% of our budget for the first year will be directed to the development and improvement of the application and 10% will be donated to charitable funds structured into three pillars: people, animals and the environment,” he adds.

The ‘app’ will have various tools to offer the user a complete and comfortable experience.

«The application will have a ‘chatbot’ trained by psychologists in which the user will be able to access past therapies. Likewise, the AI ​​itself will remember the conversations. In this way, he would be like a ‘real psychologist’ because he is capable of remembering what you said 3 months ago and will take it into account,” says Sánchez.

«You will also have access to smart watches to analyze parameters such as sleep quality or the daily steps you take and can remind you. Likewise, it will offer relaxation and meditation exercises to recommend to users. And it will have an emergency button for critical cases. In case someone is talking about committing suicide, they will be sent a link to the emergency button with the number of hope and 112,” she adds.

On the other hand, the ‘app’ will have long-term objectives and daily missions to encourage the creation of habits.

«We are going to hire a team of psychologists who will provide us with scripts based on realistic scenarios. These professionals will help us train the AI ​​and also with other sections of the application,” the founders detail.

Cost and audience

From MyMind, they emphasize that the application will work with a subscription to “avoid placing ads.”

«We do not think it is appropriate that a person can suffer a crisis and suddenly get an announcement. So we have decided to establish a discounted subscription of 4.95 euros to democratize mental health compared to the 60 euros that a psychology session costs on average,” they emphasize.

The target audience of your project is anyone over 13 years old. Its goal is to be able to cover from adolescence to maturity.

“We want to be able to serve people who are technologically adapted and who want to experience the improvement of technology,” says Daniel Sánchez.

«Our application seeks to improve cases of stress and anxiety, depression, help people with eating disorders… We also want to form support communities in cases where possible such as people with trauma. We want to be a barrier for non-critical cases and, in the case of critical cases, they will be left to the psychologists », he adds.

Long-term goals

The entrepreneurs say they plan to launch their application to the general public between January and June 2025 and from there develop and grow.

«Thanks to the 6,000 euros from the CEL contest we already have the financing to be able to get started. In the long term we would like to do organic marketing with videos for social networks. We want to take these viewers to a community where we upload the application updates and where we will release a pre-release just for them with exclusive offers,” they detail.

Although their plans are to internationalize their business, at first they want to focus on León and take the leap from there.

«We want to collaborate with personalities and associations from León. During these first months we would like to donate a portion to associations and we have thought about Salud Mental León. We also want to collaborate with Incibe so that they can provide us with support for the security of the application. Furthermore, currently, we are associated with the CEL,” says Sánchez.

«Our goal is to be able to help millions of people to improve their well-being and mental health. Expand and make it an essential in the lives of many people. “Our app is not just an innovation, but the natural evolution of how technology can improve our lives and be a vital part of the daily lives of millions of people,” he adds.

An award-winning project

MyMind, the project created by Daniel Sánchez and Yeray Maarar, was awarded in the I CEL Emprende Competition, where they obtained first place and won a prize of 6,000 euros.

The jury assessed the technical-economic feasibility, originality, the innovative and technological component and the social care value proposition that this business idea proposed compared to the 34 projects participating in this edition.

The entrepreneurs highlighted that their application is designed to “be a first line of support in mental health, reducing the need for psychologists in non-critical situations” and an “accessible solution” that makes psychological assistance “ubiquitous and easy to use.”

«Before it was taboo and many people did not want to deal with it. I believe that in addition to taking care of the body, we must take care of the head. Is essential. We want to invite all readers who are attentive to the launch of the application and can experience the improvement of their lives thanks to technology,” conclude both young people.