19 May 2015 Spotlight on Starling Minds

In this week’s spotlight, we are highlighting a young company that provides an online platform capable of helping you manage depression, anxiety, and stress, ultimately allowing you to take control of your mental health. With their innovative online toolkit, Starling Minds envisions a society knowledgeable and skillful in managing mental health, leading to healthier personal and professional lives. Read on to learn more about what life is like at Starling Minds…

1. Describe your company and your primary product(s) and/or service(s).

Starling Minds is a technology start-up company that was established in 2013. Starling evolved from Dr. Miki’s private practice that focused on psychological treatment/assessment for individuals who were off work because of their mental health issues. It is meant for organizations to proactively manage the runaway costs associated with depression and anxiety.

Starling is an online CBT toolkit that provides a 15 – 20% improvement in depression, anxiety, and real-life functioning (i.e. work, relationships, household/finances). Unlike face-to-face therapy that is expensive and highly unregulated, Starling is scalable, standardized, and can be provided at a fraction of the cost.

Our vision is to eliminate the stigma associated with mental health. Our mission is to change the way society views mental health by providing highly accessible education and skills for individuals to learn how to manage their own mental health.

2. How many employees currently work at your company?

Starling Minds is currently employing eight people, all near me.

3. Where are you located?

We are located right next to VCC Clark sky train station at 887 Great Northern Way, Vancouver. We just recently leased space from BCTIA Innovation Hub which has turned out to be an excellent place for us to be. Most of our employees live within walking distance.

4. Describe the culture at your company.

As a young company, our culture is still evolving but it does have a solid base that we are building it on. We are all passionate about our mission. We want to make an impact on how mental health is perceived. We want to eliminate the stigma around mental health by helping one person, workplace, and community at a time.

We want to build a team where the core values are trust, learning, and achieving together. We believe that if everyone does their best every day, we can change the world. Everyone on our team is part of same chain, and that chain must become stronger all of the time. Everyone needs to have a hunger for learning and doing new things. We will only achieve our dreams if we are responsible for each other and never let each other fail.

5. What does your leadership team (and company as a whole) do to support/grow that culture?

We believe in empowering everyone in the company to be an “A” player at whatever they do. We try to operate as a flat organization so that we are all accountable to each other and so that the best ideas always win. If everyone works hard and brings their “A” game, we cultivate a deep respect for one another.

6. When your employees talk about your company, what do they brag about?

Mental health problems affect everyone directly or indirectly through family member, friend or colleague. Our team gets inspired every time we hear from a user who tells us that we have been able to make a difference in their lives.

7. Describe your most recent achievement, milestone, reason for bragging rights.

Our members have consistently showed statistically significant improvements in depression symptoms, anxiety symptoms, real world functioning (i.e. work, relationships, household/finances). It is great for us to be able to prove that our program works, but it is even better to know that we have been able to make a real difference in peoples lives.

8. What kinds of roles are you hiring for?

Our next open roles will be frontend software developer and data analyst roles.

9. What kinds of people are you looking for?

Ideally we are looking for those outliers with something to prove. It doesn’t matter what degrees or experience they may have. It quickly becomes evident that they are hard working, dedicated, and passionate about their work.

We work hard, but we also play hard. Our team loves balls – soccer balls, footballs, baseballs, tennis balls… You name the ball, we throw, kick, catch, and hit it! If you want to join the company, you better get your sport gear out from the closet and be ready for some serious sports.

Because our work involves continuous learning, the most important requirements for our team members are sharing the vision, having the right attitude, being willing to learn and grow – and having hunger to be part of the best team in the world.

10. What is your company goal for the coming year?

Everything at Starling Minds hinges on innovation. Who would have thought that an online platform would be capable of reducing depression and anxiety? We have learned a lot from creating the first version of the program. However, now that we know that it has worked for many of our users, we are very excited to innovate an even better version over the next year.

To learn more about Starling Minds, visit them online at starlingminds.com

If you’d like us to shine the spotlight on your company, email hello@wearebctech.com today!