2018-2020
When Spill first started, we focused on phase 2 of the plan: bring down the cost of high-quality care. We tried to bring the cost of therapy down by using asynchronous rather than synchronous communication to deliver therapy. We built a message based therapy product and signed up a handful of businesses and a handful of people who paid for the product privately. Although it worked for a small audience and was an interesting product experience, we didn’t have a clear go-to-market strategy for this product.
2020-2023
At the end of 2019, we chose to focus on the employer-funded route to giving more people access to support and officially started work on phase 1 of the plan: increasing the global budget for mental health support. We started by expanding the product to include video therapy sessions that were free for employees to book as they were paid for by the business.
We also spent time hiring great therapists, introduced one off sessions and made the tool accessible through Slack.
We were able to scale this product to hundreds of businesses in tech and media. We’d built a better way for businesses to show care for their employees, and it was working. Spill finally started to have a meaningful impact, with thousands of therapy sessions happening every month on the platform.
2023-2025
As we tried to expand into new markets outside of tech and media, we found that we didn’t have the same product market fit. Customers outside of these industries had different problems and a different employee base.
We experimented with product offerings that could be valuable to new industries (e.g., support for burnout, pay-as-you-go pricing plans, and integrations with private medical insurance).
This work paid off, and we were able to develop a product that businesses outside of tech and media love.
2026 and looking ahead
We find ourselves at a moment in time where we’ve found product fit in a big market. The problems we have to solve are different to ones in the past - to use a construction analogy, we’re now spending our time thinking about how we can build the tallest skyscraper, not where to build it. Unfortunately (or fortunately), the problems ahead are likely harder than the ones we’ve already solved, and we have to be thoughtful about how we build the product and the company.
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