Before COVID-19, we’ve long known that 1 in 6 people worldwide suffer from mental disorders, and that by 2030, the global cost of mental health issues is expected to reach $6 trillion. And we’ve also known that every 40 seconds, someone dies by suicide.
So what changed?
The lockdowns confronted people with mental health struggles in a way that no statistic or report ever could.
The power of experience.
The pandemic didn’t start the mental health crisis, but it made it impossible to ignore, forcing public conversation about its importance.
Mental health care had some of the lowest tech adoption in healthcare, leaving it unprepared for rising demand and changing expectations.
It took a global crisis to move the needle in an industry already shaped by complex legal, ethical, and even political barriers.
And at the center of it all? The most essential part to all of us:
— the self.
Resistance to change is human.
But the mental healthcare system — outdated, fragmented, and filled with divisions between therapeutic schools and approaches — lacked the cohesion and efficiency people needed.
If therapy is meant to bring clarity, why does the path to it feel so unclear?
You know the power of social proof. That’s why the fear of disapproval around admitting mental struggles hits so hard.
Stigma thrives on shared fears — of being vulnerable, judged, and rejected by society and those closest to us.
The sensitive nature of mental health also makes people more receptive to negative news and criticism surrounding the topic.
So, how do we help people believe there’s a way to feel better — and that they can get there?
Seeking support on their journey to a better quality of life through therapeutic methods rooted in science and empathy.
Mental health professionals who strive to make a difference and grow by helping their patients find balance and meaning.
In a space for personalized mental health care —
where they engage, collaborate, and grow.
Connecting individuals with the right specialists for faster, more effective care.
Expanding access to care, removing barriers through digital tools, and streamlining resources.
Helping people talk about mental health and seek support without shame.
Shifting offline care to digital wasn’t just about technology or timing. It meant involving the community to better understand their needs and balance innovation with the specific realities of both professionals and patients.
A strategic partnership with PDS, combined with 1:1 feedback sessions, webinars, and social engagement, allowed the community to guide the platform’s evolution. This helped validate solution–fit early and move the product closer to market alignment, grounded in real-world use.
Combining education with engagement, our goal was to normalize mental health conversations and make seeking support feel more approachable.
From tone of voice to microcopy, the messaging was designed to carry emotional resonance and strengthen relevance. The language was intentional — supportive instead of sensational, educational rather than transactional — helping foster trust and connection at every touchpoint.
Sensly’s positioning, thought leadership, and marketing strategy played a key role in building credibility with mental health professionals – a group understandably cautious about associating with companies lacking industry expertise.
Co-developed with professionals, the strategy was grounded in a nuanced understanding of mental health challenges and the barriers faced by different socio-economic groups.
Webinars on key mental health topics, blog content, practical tips shared via social media, and real-time conversations with specialists helped foster an ongoing dialogue between clients, professionals, and Sensly.
Strict regulations, content sensitivities, and the deeply personal nature of mental health make marketing particularly challenging. Ads focused on specific problems are often flagged as over suggestive.
More solution-focused messaging was less about symptoms, and more about possibilities. This helped lower emotional resistance and made mental health feel more approachable, especially for people less likely to seek help.
The result? Nearly 48% of Sensly users were male — compared to just 17% in typical offline practices — showing how reframing the conversation and digitaizing the service can drive real behavioral change.
A smart form designed to reduce decision fatigue and improve match quality — connecting users with the right specialist based on their experiences and symptoms.
For those who prefer autonomy — detailed filters, video intros, and specialist profiles offer clarity, confidence, and full control over the choice.
Live chat or short video calls with trained psychologists help guide users and close the blind spots of the other two solutions — adding reassurance when it matters most.
Long queues and limited options often hold people back. We streamlined the process so care was quicker to access — when it matters most.
Finding the right help can feel overwhelming. Our tools removed the guesswork, making that first step clearer and less intimidating.
Fear of judgment or exposure stops many from seeking help. Secure, digital access created a safe space for people to reach out with confidence.
Balancing therapy with everyday life isn’t easy. Flexible scheduling and remote access helped make mental health support more manageable.
From mobile to desktop, Sensly was designed as a seamless cross-device experience — removing friction and making mental health support easy to access anytime, anywhere.
This wasn’t just about usability — it was a strategic move to increase accessibility, reduce barriers to care, and support growth across diverse user journeys.
And trust builds adoption. When people know what to expect and how to move forward, it lowers anxiety, increases confidence, and encourages action.
User experience was central to the strategy and key to delivering on the brand promise. It shaped every part of the patient journey to provide clarity and control, becoming a part of the therapeutic experience itself.
The goal wasn’t just to reduce cognitive load but to leverage community-driven development to improve care experiences, create real value for users, and translate that value into platform growth and a stronger product–market fit.
On average, mental health professionals lose 8 hours a week to admin — scheduling, payments, and non-therapy-related paperwork. Sensly saw this not just as an efficiency issue, but as an opportunity to free up time for what really matters: care.
With smarter workflows, guided matching, and a more seamless care journey, Sensly helps professionals align their time, expertise, and outcomes — while also gaining new clients.
That last part was especially important for those in their first 2–4 years of practice — therapists looking to build their own client base rather than rely on centers that could take up to 40% of their rates.
Remote sessions eliminate the limits of location — helping therapists expand their reach, diversify their client base, and offer more flexible, accessible care.
Automated scheduling, billing, and client management reduce admin work by up to 3 hours a week — allowing therapists to focus more on patients.
Providing therapists the tools to shift from working for others to running their own practice — connecting with the right clients and managing business in one place.
Easy booking, secure messaging, and real-time support simplify care for clients — building trust from the first click to the final session.
Early collaboration with one of Poland’s largest mental health associations — PDS — helped shape the platform before onboarding the first 100 professionals. By then, it was already deeply shaped by practitioners.
In an industry where credibility is everything, we combined community-led growth with a bottom-up acquisition model — building trust, validating product decisions, and seeding organic adoption.
Through product demos, webinars, and 1:1 feedback sessions, acquisition efforts became part of the feedback loop — helping us stay grounded in real industry needs and build with the people we were creating for.
At Sensly, brand wasn’t just a layer of identity — it was a mindset for building the business. A clear brand purpose and promise were rooted in user reality and validated in practice.
This community-centered approach strengthened relevance, supported the potential for long-term product stickiness, and direcly shaped the roadmap through feedback.
The quality and consistency of the brand experience were grounded in business decisions that reflected Sensly’s values and positioning, though clarity doesn’t mean something will be easy.
From acquisition strategy to how we solved user problems, maintaining alignment was possible even in a resource-limited startup. The smaller scale allowed for more focus and tighter control over every touchpoint.
Brand is ultimately the sum of experiences. And in the business models we tested, making those experiences meaningful wasn’t a nice-to-have, it was the foundation.
Because people don’t pay for access; they pay for value they feel or perceive.
The story of two heroes became the backbone of Sensly’s business strategy — one I shaped and led from idea to execution.
From crafting the vision and leading an 11-person remote team, to collaborating with mental health experts, designing the product, pitching to investors, and everything in between.
Building a startup in the Polish mental health sector — a complex, underfunded market — brought challenges of a different kind, but also rare fulfillment.
Despite previous ventures, stepping into the CEO role came with its own demands: constant learning, switching hats daily, and more humbling lessons than any book could prepare me for.
When I joined, the project was called “MyTherapy” — a limiting brand, especially considering the planned horizontal growth — with only about 35% of the product built after 8 months of development.
After restructuring the team and introducing agile workflows, OKRs, and a community-driven development approach, we spent 5 more months building — this time with a clearer vision and aligned momentum.
That shift led to the soft launch of a reimagined product under a new brand: Sensly.
What began as a simple marketplace was expanded into a platform with integrated SaaS modules — improving user acquisition and opening new paths for growth and scalability, enabling the company looking for investors.
Six months after public launch, over 160 mental health professionals and 2 100 patients were actively using the platform.
With leadership comes responsibility – and growth, often waiting just on the other side of discomfort.
A few lessons stuck with me the most:
• To listen more than I speak – especially when it’s hardest.
• To take care of myself – or the vision burns out with me.
• To make peace with my inner critic – so I can better nurture others.
Knowing isn’t the same as living it.
That’s the power of experience.
The vision? To transform mental health care through a more systemic lens — one that sees the full picture, from molecular and neurocognitive factors to the environments we live in.
This perspective only deepened through my own experience. Tackling depression is a messy, exhausting process. And like many other conditions, we could achieve far better outcomes if we treat it as a systemic issue.
The vision didn’t fully take off, but I haven’t let it go. I’m still moving it forward by helping other healthcare projects grow.
Poco a poco.