A Buffalo-based student therapy startup plans to double its customer base by the end of next year by focusing on big deals and adding services.
BetterMynd, an online therapy tool for college students, employs 13 and works with about 75 colleges across the country. CEO Cody Semrau expects that number of schools to reach more than 100 by the end of this year and be close to 200 by the end of 2024, especially after a larger focus on mental health post-pandemic.
“Because of the growing need and attrition of counselors, every campus will have to have a resource like this within the next couple years to supplement their services,” he said. “Since Covid to now, the market has shifted.”
Since launching in 2017, the startup has grown its user base to about 500 students currently registering on the platform every month and with over 1,000 session starts for online therapy per month.
BetterMynd won a $500,000 43North contest prize in 2021 and is in the process of raising a $1 million seed round.
The startup has found success in a state-by-state growth approach and will continue focusing on larger deals, like entire college systems, Semrau said. It's also working on adding supplemental services to boost its value proposition to the higher education market.
The startup began, through a partnership with a third party vendor, late last year a pilot program with four schools to test out a 24/7 crisis hotline for college faculty, staff and students who need immediate support.
BetterMynd plans on rolling out that service as an add-on option to its existing customers this fall. (Schools typically budget through the end of spring for the fall academic year, Semrau said.)
In January, the startup began a pilot program to offer its online therapy services to college faculty and staff in addition to its existing services to students.
“There’s been a lot of attrition in higher education, across the board,” he said. “Universities are thinking about ways they can support the mental health of their staff. That’s something I think we’ll see a lot of growth in in the next year or two.”
BetterMynd expects to fully roll out that offering this fall as well. The startup’s business model involves schools purchasing packages of therapy sessions, so with this addition colleges could allocate their purchased sessions to faculty, staff and students as needed.
The business is also looking into potential partnerships to offer psychiatry and medication management services and expects to start a pilot program for those offerings this fall. That’s due to customer feedback and higher education trends, according to Semrau.
Currently, he sees partnerships as the right strategic move to expand BetterMynd’s offerings.
“We’re really good at the online therapy piece, and because we’re still so small and nimble, we have found partnerships to be a quicker way to get to market with these products versus building it ourselves,” he said. “Eventually some of these things we might decide to build ourselves.”
