Mental health challenges in young adults are like the tip of the iceberg. You are able to see only 1% of what actual reality is.

Students are no longer just students. They do a side hustle, they expand their network, they live independently, they explore themselves but in more unsettling ways.

In other words, they live a cool but pretty chaotic life which the majority of them are not yet ready to handle. As a result, they become more vulnerable to the mental health crisis.

And if they do not find the right help and support at the right time, they end up making wrong choices like dropping out of schools or universities, separating from parents, isolating themselves, adopting wrong habits, and giving up on their dreams.

There are many solutions. But the most workable solution must always be the most accessible solution.

In other words, the solution must be accessible easily, affordably and fit into the lifestyle of the students.

Yes, we are talking about a mobile app or web app which students can use without stressing out and as a part of their lifestyle. All they need to do is either install the app on their mobile phones or access the web app from browsers.

Using this digital solution, students can set mental health goals, read and watch impactful resources, track their mood, get instant and virtual help from therapists, participate in community and get a totally new perspective on life.

So yes, there are challenges and there are solutions too. What we need to look for is something sensible, youth-centric and advanced solution like what Mantra Health is already doing!

The most basic requirement to start a healthcare startup in the 21st century is a digital platform in a form of either a mobile app or a web app. Because that’s the only way to reach a large number of consumers very easily.

In case you’re wondering, mobile apps and web apps are two different things when it comes to development and working. For example, building a mobile app costs 25 to 40% more than building a web app. However, mobile apps deliver a wow experience and open on mobile phones separately unlike web apps which open only in web browsers.

The following table will help you understand more about mobile apps vs web apps.

Even the most advanced and robust digital platforms for mental health do not perform well in the real market and help you make money if you don’t have an outstanding business model.

Because ultimately it’s your revenue streams that make you earn dollars and it’s your value proposition that helps you acquire customers.

Without finding and executing proper revenue streams and achieving value propositions, nothing will work in your favour. Thus, spend some great time setting up a profitable business model.

Here are some tips from our business analysts to help you in setting up a business model.

• Always generate multiple revenue streams as surviving on only one revenue stream is rare now.
• For every revenue stream, there must be at least 10 value propositions.
• Don’t focus only on students. Make their parents, healthcare providers and universities an active part of your mission.
• Build a separate strategy to earn the trust of your target audience with clinical evidence and clinical use cases.
• Focus on modern-age mental health challenges of students rather than solving most common mental health issues.
• Focus more on selling experiences rather than your service.
• To keep operating costs low, adopt automation in your organization.
• Build a strategy to reach the break-even point as soon as possible and go profitable.
• Give priority to customer service. Use chatbot-like technology to solve customer queries within seconds.

One module of digital mental health for students is virtual care. So, to provide virtual care to students, you must have healthcare providers or therapists registered on your platform with whom students can book appointments and receive virtual mental health consultations from anywhere.

Here, you have two options. You can either let individual healthcare providers register on your platform or you hire your own team of healthcare providers.

The majority of low to medium-scale healthcare startups nowadays tie-up with individual healthcare providers and create their profiles on digital platforms as it helps in saving operating costs.

But once your startup goes large-scale, you must build your own team of healthcare providers to ensure consistency in care and keep control in your hand.

• Login/sign up
• Profile
• Set goals
• Goal tracker
• Sleep and mood tracker
• Medication management
• Book appointments with therapists
• Video or chat consultation with therapists
• Soothing music
• Resources around mental health
• Payment /insurance/ health cards

• Chatbot
• Gamification
• Rewards for achieving targets
• Dashboard for parents
• Community
• eCommerce

• Freemium model

Under this model, you let your users use some of the basic features of your app for free of cost and charge a fixed fee for using advanced and premium features.

• Telemedicine

You facilitate users to book virtual consultation sessions with therapists and charge them on the basis of per visit. You can also charge extra for virtual visits on weekends and on holidays.

• Subscription plans

You can launch several subscription plans for users to receive exclusive mental health care multiple times by paying a fee only one time. You can start subscription plans for virtual care, meditation, exclusive resources etc.

• Universities tie-up

You can tie up with different universities and schools, provide them with a dashboard along with free access to your platform to their students and in return, you charge a fixed fee per student from university or school.