Keep Calm and Pivot

Challenge:

A Mental Health App had missed the COVID surge, allowing competitors like BetterHelp and Talkspace to dominate the market. Struggling to acquire users, facing investor pressure, and on the brink of collapse, the client engaged us to craft a growth marketing plan that would drive revenue fast. However, as we dug deeper, we realised that no amount of marketing could fix the fundamental flaw in their business model.

Approach:

Through discovery sessions, we uncovered a critical bottleneck: a chicken-and-egg dilemma that plagued not just our client, but the entire industry. Whenever they acquired new consumers, they ran into supply issues—there simply weren’t enough mental health professionals on the platform. Conversely, when consumer numbers dipped, professionals abandoned the platform due to lack of demand. Scaling demand alone wouldn’t solve the problem; we needed a deeper intervention.

Beyond that, their competitors were well-funded giants, and their infrastructure wasn’t robust enough to compete head-to-head. A pivot wasn’t just necessary—it was the only viable way forward.

That’s when we reframed the challenge. Instead of competing in the overcrowded consumer acquisition race, what if our client became indispensable to the very professionals that powered the industry?

Mental health professionals were a fragmented, cottage industry—each practitioner running their own small business, juggling paperwork, appointments, billing, and compliance. They lacked centralised support, and every platform struggled to recruit them. This was the real gap in the market.

We repositioned the company as the trusted partner to mental health professionals, offering a SaaS-style subscription model that provided industry tools, tax support, booking software, and seamless patient management. In addition to offering a service, we also proposed a secondary income stream by implementing an infrastructure solution for the industry, which enables B2B partnerships with larger platforms that require just-in-time therapist availability.

Outcome:

We helped the client articulate this new direction, securing critical investor funding and unlocking a sustainable growth trajectory. Instead of competing in a saturated space, they carved out a new category—one that ensured their long-term relevance, not just a short-term marketing boost.