A Buffalo-based online therapy tool for college students has been adding customers and key hires over the past year.
BetterMynd has added about 60 colleges as customers over the past year, which means it now works with about 113 schools. The business expects to reach around 135 by year-end, according to CEO Cody Semrau.
“One of the No. 1 reasons students do drop out of college is because of their mental health,” he said. “So the investment has a real return on investment for colleges to keep students retained and graduating.”
Why it matters: As colleges have a shrinking pool of potential students to draw from and competition increases, many higher education institutions have shrinking budgets but a greater need to attract and retain students. As a startup based locally at Seneca One Tower, BetterMynd’s success can impact the region through partnerships and adding jobs and local spending power.
The company’s business model involves schools that purchase packages of services.
Its bread-and-butter service is 50-minute online therapy sessions, but the business has also expanded to a 24/7 crisis hotline and just this spring launched a telepsychiatry offering. The company works with over 400 licensed and insured mental health clinicians across the country.
“(We’re) really continuing to focus on colleges and universities and their students and just offering … more wraparound services where schools may not have those resources available,” Semrau said.
The business, which started in 2017, uses third-party partnerships to launch auxiliary services to the online therapy sessions.
BetterMynd is averaging about 1,400 online therapy sessions a month, which is 1.9x year-over-year growth from February 2023 to February of this year.
This year, the startup’s goal is 30,000 annual sessions on the platform.
The business has also grown from 13 employees last March to about 20 workers. That includes new hires of head of product and head of customer success, which were brought on within the last 12 months.
Organically, as the company has grown, Semrau’s role as evolved to focus less on the day-to-day operations and more on defining strategy and creating alignment among all the team members, he said.
His vice president of campus relations, vice president of clinical operations, vice president of marketing, director of product and operations manager report directly to him.
Along with adding services, BetterMynd continues to grow through a state-by-state approach to customer acquisition and focusing on larger deals, like entire college systems.
For example, about two months ago, the Southern University System, the only Historically Black Colleges and Universities system in the U.S., signed on with BetterMynd. That means the startup becomes a preferred provider within that system’s network and colleges in that group can opt in.
The company also grows due to its brand and its reputation. All schools ask for references before signing on with the startup, according to Semrau.
“Leaders of these schools … are often talking together,” he said. “For us, it’s about providing the right experience for our customers.”
