<aside> 💡 To build for the future, it’s critical we understand the market we’re building in, consumer sentiment, and where tailwinds are going in order to design a sustainable ecosystem. Below is an outline of our thesis for Mental Health 3.0 and how specifically we see the future of mental health.

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Our Thesis For Compass

We envision a world where Compass can serve individuals throughout the lifecycle of their mental health journey.

• We help people build habits around wellness through a daily mental health routine - which we call mental fitness. Our content and challenges center around the proactive development of skills and habits needed to navigate the stressors, anxieties, and unexpected events of our lives.
• We balance this thoughtfully by rewarding behavior, validated through biomarker data, to drive a positive habit and ritual. Our cause is to lower the overall caseload by promoting preventive behavior and proper screening of mental health issues. Through meaningful utility, we drive the adoption of our $COMPS token through both consumers and providers.
• The supply side of our provider network is driven by progressive decentralization and token incentives, earning tokens through active participation:
  • Referring providers or payers (incentivized referrals)
  • Conducting peer-to-peer training and upskilling (development)
  • Screening flagged clinical intake assessments from patients (curation)
  • Providers who complete detailed profiles and submit content (core action)

What Do We Believe About The Future of Mental Health?

• The best mental health services might not look like mental health services. Just as so much online learning happens on TikTok and YouTube, mental health 3.0 companies will innovate in form and model. On the surface, they won’t look like mental healthcare companies and may leverage a content studio, gaming, or AI in new ways. Mental health companies “in disguise” have a real opportunity to address a wider swath of the market than users explicitly searching for a therapy solution.
• Narrow market wedge is > broad market entry wedge. Care by subspecialty (eg, LGBTQ-focused mental health, eating disorders, elderly care) has the ability to create more defensibility than a commoditized general model where marketing spend creates a race to the bottom. This is especially relevant when less than half of those with mental illness receive the care that they need and underserved populations are disproportionately affected. Other narrow wedge examples include addressing medication needs or building enablement tools, such as a platform to empower anyone to build and lead a support group.
• Automated clinical screening focuses targeted care services. Most mental disorders emerge before the age of 25 years and, if left untreated, have the potential to lead to a considerable lifetime burden of disease. Many services struggle to manage high demand and have difficulty matching individuals to timely interventions due to the range of disorders. Our objective is to leverage Compass as a means for clinical staging for mental health that can assist the early detection and treatment of mental disorders. Our strategy is to incorporate a theory-based, automated clinical staging protocol that leverages the clinical validation and evidence base of the staging model through Compass.
• Connected fitness adoption and quantified biomarker data blends our physical health and mental health into a view of “health”. Consumer advancements in the Apple Watch, Whoop, and Oura Ring among other continue to layer in next-gen biometric sensors. With the addition of movement health and period tracking, the Health app for iOS and Watch now aggregates 150+ types of data across 17 health categories. Oura has activated its long-awaited SpO2 feature The ring uses a pulse oximeter (an optical sensor) to continuously monitor your levels, looking for irregularity and disturbances while you sleep. 10K+ third-party apps in the App Store use the HealthKit API, leveraging the growing data set from the iPhone and Watch for personalized health and fitness experiences.
• B2C2B is the disruptive GTM motion. Tailwinds indicate that payers are increasingly open to covering digital solutions, but the most capital efficient way to initially scale is to go direct-to-patient. This model (see Nurx, Modern Fertility, Abridge) also works because it gives users control of their health at every step of the process. Building a strong direct-to-consumer product for a population inside of a payor, shows efficacy and building a robust outcome data set allows us to get the payor to cover more of the cost. It’s important to have proven and measurable outcomes here as payers won’t consider partnerships with a digital mental health company without a foundation of clinical and financial outcome data. Tech is driving healthcare collaboration through clinical research, record keeping, and large-scale public health initiatives. We're living in a world where we can engage in a hospital visit through Amazon and have our entire health record through an apple watch.

How Do We Scale Our Provider Network?

As we think about the longevity of the business and how specifically we’ll scale our provider network - what matters most is how we grow and maintain our supply side of therapists.

An Angel Investor asked a great question earlier this week “if you’re trying to help solve the shortage of therapists, won’t adding in your own marketplace contribute to the problem?”. This is a fair question - our cause is to lower the overall caseload by promoting preventive behavior and proper screening of mental health issues.

That said, in order for Compass to work at scale, we’re going to need to grow our supply of therapists. The core challenge here is fragmentation - A recent study conducted by Zencare, a leading online marketplace for therapists, reveals the cost of mental health services nationwide averages $182 per session. The most expensive state in which to seek therapy is New York, with sessions costing an average of $213, while the least expensive state for therapy services is Idaho at $135 per session. Only 38 percent of therapists in private practice are in-network with any insurance panel.

How Do We Build The Right Incentive Structure To Attract Supply?

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