Mental health needs more sunlight, more candor, and unashamed conversation. SoulUp, a mental health startup, provides exactly that
Founded in February last year by two IITians, Punita Mittal and Mahak Maheshwari, SoulUp bagged a deal from Shark Namita Thapar in season 2 of Shark Tank India in 7 March’s episode.
1.Founder’s story
Mahak and Punita have known each other for ~2 years now. They met through mutual friends. Both have a background in health-tech and share a deep commitment to building something meaningful in a related space.
Met multiple times to brainstorm ideas after Mahak exited her last start-up before finally zero-ing in on SoulUp.
2. Backstory of SoulUp
While both the founders do not have any direct domain expertise, they both have experience building D2C digital products in a related space. Punita (IIT Delhi, ISB alumna) have been in the healthcare space for 13+ years, she even led data science for HealthifyMe (a fitness app with 25m+ users) and built the world’s first virtual fitness coach during her tenure there.
Mahak (IIT Bombay alumna) started her career at Bain & Co, is third time founder, she had D2C snacks startup, then D2C digital first startup in digital health space before starting SoulUp. The inception of the idea came to Punita when she was volunteering for a year in Auroville, where she witnessed open conversations without judgement across the community.
3. SoulUp verifies the user/peer who has signed up is speaking the truth, especially for medical issues
SoulUp is building a LinkedIn-like network, yet for all medical issues, SoulUp requires proof of diagnosis and for other issues we do a verification call before any peer gets added to the network.
4. How to use the platform/website
SoulUp has a very intuitive website experience, anyone can search directly for the keywords related to their issue in the search bar, and you will get all the list of groups and peers related to that.
You can further filter peers based on their age, gender, topic, language, if peer has child or not, and availability.
5. SoulUp & Peer fees distribution
Yes, SoulUp split’s the fee of the call 50%-50% with the peers.
6. They found these top three mental health issues
- Relationships (infidelity, divorce etc)
- Mental health issues because of chronic medical conditions (depression, anxiety)
- Important life decisions (adoption, childfree, egg freezing etc)
7. New features they hope to add later this year
For SoulUp, peer connect is the central strategy, and plans to launch features like a buddy program. We also plan to launch additional features in medical domain where psychological comorbidity of any condition/procedure is left unaddressed usually. Developing a peer network across medical use cases itself is a large opportunity that we will be focusing on next.
8. Minimum qualifications they need from therapist to be on board with them
Bachelors & masters in psychology
9. Soulup’s moat
- Virality & network effect: More peers means better ability to recommend the ‘right’ peers. Virality 20% callers opt-in to become peers
- Stickiness of a peer community: Users keep coming back to speak to the awesome Peers they discover (via 1-on-1 or Groups)
- Data as an advantage: Data on emotional needs of millions of users will enable intelligent recommendations on solutions and peer connects
- Accrued Trust: The feedback/ratings collected across peers and Groups will enhance trust in the network.
Their Shark Tank experience
“Pitching on Shark Tank was a remarkable opportunity to showcase the unique concept of SoulUp on national television. Having ventured into this unprecedented industry of mental health was a challenge in itself, but Shark Tank gave us a lot of validation and assurance.
“It also gave us the chance to receive valuable feedback from successful entrepreneurs on the direction of our startup. Our interactions with other startup founders allowed us to engage in meaningful discussions that broadened our perspectives. It was our first foray into TV production, and we learned more than we ever thought possible.
“The validation we received from the Sharks, who offered us funding, was truly gratifying. Once the episode aired, the response we received was overwhelming. Many resonated with the idea of SoulUp, leading to an influx of conversations booked and an avalanche of work. The experience was worth every effort we put into it.”
The team at SoulUp is committed to building a strong and secure community for mental health conversations, breaking the stigma around mental health, and promoting self-care. With their current offerings and plans to expand, SoulUp is set to become a LinkedIn-like network for mental health, connecting individuals worldwide and fostering a culture of mental well-being.