cbt MENTAL HEALTH APP LAUNCH

BACKGROUND AND BUSINESS GOAL
This was a personal passion project of mine. I believe that mental health is not taken seriously due to various societal and personal reasons, and I set out to see what I can create within the mental health space that will remove this stigma and inspire people to start their mental health journeys. I had read about Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and liked it’s simplicity in the sense of it being a templated series of questions in order to unravel your thoughts, reframe them and not take them so seriously. As a result, CBT ended up being the focus of Unthink.

PROCESS AND ROLE
I did the design and coded the application in React Native, even though I’m not a programmer. Part of the process was learning how to use React Native. I heavily focused on making it as simple as possible, stripping down features again and again, for a true MVP. For example, I didn’t even add the ability for users to delete posts, because if their not creating posts (MVP), then there is nothing to delete. Everything that could be secondary, was secondary.
After the initial MVP, for personal reasons, I did not do any marketing, yet within several months the app had over 3000 users who all organically found the app. As I saw more users coming in, I updated the most basic features. The app had quite a positive response, I received emails from users commenting on how it had helped them through a tough period in their lives. In the end I couldn’t figure out a way to monetize the app, combined with my lack of motivation to do further coding (I’m a UX designer after all), I pulled it from the app store. I’m still very much interested in pursuing technology in the mental health space