 For me I think a lot of people think that therapy is only for people who are really depressed or crazy or something has to be going really bad in my life and I think what therapy actually is is a way to be a better communicator it's a way to understand what your triggers are. So there's so many important tools and I think when it can be looked at when people see it more as like oh this is a way to be the most successful and best version of myself when you can shift that thinking it's such a powerful tool obviously you can tell I'm passionate about it like I feel like the world would be a better place that everyone was in therapy. This is Startup to Storefront. Today's guests are Kendall Bird and Sage Grazer co-founders of Frame, a mental wellness network that is a one-stop shop for therapy. On the user end you can search around and connect with therapists and on the back end it allows the therapist access to the tools they need to run their practice. This is therapy for the modern times. The stigma around therapy has been eroding for a while now and I truly think it's for the better. We all need to feel heard we all have problems we are all fighting our own battles and if you turn to a licensed professional to help you grow all the more power to you. So listen in as we cover everything from how Kendall and Sage went from running a lemonade stand as kids to launching Frame earlier this year why something as simple as movement is such an important part of mental health and we learn of the existence of therapist influencers. Now back to the episode. Welcome to the podcast on today's show we have Frame so this question either one of you can take it give people a sense of what your company does. Yeah so Frame is a mental wellness platform that makes it easier to connect with therapists in different ways both digitally and in person and we offer on our platform we like to think of it as a holistic approach to therapy for different stages of your personal growth discovery and we offer two core services on our platform so our first one is geared more towards people who haven't tried therapy yet they're curious about it they want to improve their personal growth but they're not really sure if they're ready for a therapy experience and for them we offer our digital discussions and these are live stream therapy discussions led by licensed therapists that you can tune into anonymously and watch from your own house and it gives you just a sense that there's volunteer participants and it gives you a sense of what a therapy session is like and we cover a bunch of different topics and at the end then after the session is done we record it and we upload it to our site so there's also content that you can watch on your own time and then our second service is for people who are ready to match with their own therapist and ready for that one-on-one experience and for them we offer our therapy matching you come on our site you answer 10 questions you get six therapy matches we facilitate free intro calls you schedule through our platform you can meet them in person pending covid or telehealth through our platform and then you pay through our platform so it's the whole one-stop shopper therapy and what made you guys want to start the company was it something that you were experiencing yourselves is it very personal and it was just hard to either maybe find the right therapist and you just thought this should be in a digital environment and what was what was the beginnings of this I grew up the story starts with me we grew up next door to each other in Los Angeles and we both were in therapy in high school I was started therapy when I was 15 it was such a big part of my life and I kind of just never stopped I went on and off in college and then after college I was living in New York and it's just been such a big part of like me growing into an adult a functioning adult like helped me in every aspect of my life and when I move I actually moved back to Los Angeles for a job at snapchat and I was working at YouTube in New York moved back to snapchat and I was really stressed I was doing long distance we hadn't IPO'd yet and I was like okay I need to talk to someone and I found I it literally was the worst experience trying to find a therapist I guess I'd like throughout my life I'd kind of lucked out and just always found one or my parents had found them for me and it was the first experience it took me eight months I spent over a thousand dollars meeting with different therapists that I didn't like and it led me to reconnect with sage who I knew was a therapist and I'll let you go from there sage yeah so like Kendall said I you know I went to therapy when I was a teenager and it was really meaningful for me and it was kind of the first time I felt like I understood myself and I understood why I did the things I did and so that therapist was really instrumental in my personal growth so it inspired me to want to become the therapist to someone else so I'm actually a licensed clinical social worker and a practicing therapist here in Los Angeles and Kendall when she came to me to talk about you know her trouble finding a therapist I was telling her about how hard it is as a therapist to build your private practice because I went to school to be a therapist I love my clinical work I care about you know providing the best treatment for my clients but doing all of the practice management and the marketing and figuring out how to make my own website and all of that was not in my wheelhouse so it was really difficult I tried a bunch of different platforms I didn't feel like they were getting me good client leads I was spending extra money and when you're starting your practice it's like every penny really counts so Kendall proposed the idea of building our own platform to help these two sides connect what's interesting to me is I I know like it's hard enough for some people to to decide I need therapy I need to go find a therapist like my sister I'll just give you a story personally so my sister's like hey I need to go find therapy I'm like oh it's so amazing we should all be talking to someone no matter what all of us in some form need therapy but I told her I'm like just so you know going down that road be prepared for it not to match right out of the gate right you have to put in work to find the right person you need to feel comfortable with the person you find and so I don't know if this is true but you must see it the same way right where it's almost like people make the decision but that's really just the beginning of the journey and then a hard part of it is the connection is that is that how you guys see that it's exactly right like I my friends make fun of me like I'm a therapy superfan like it's always been I'm like I like reality TV I like going to therapy like those are my hobbies besides working and I was like if I am such a therapy fanatic and it took me this long to find a therapist for people that have just made up that decision that like maybe I need to talk to someone it must be so easy to give up because it's such an overwhelming experience you don't know who you there's so many different credentials and titles and it's overwhelming and I don't know who I'm supposed to see and it's awkward and I think that was one of the drivers for me is that for people who you know it's overwhelming but I think another thing that was really really motivating for me on the consumer side was that I feel like there's such a misconception about what happens in therapy and I feel like there's so many people like even in Los Angeles that you know go to acupuncture like really care about going to the gym like want to be healthier people and they just don't know a lot about therapy and when I was at Snapchat and I started explaining to my co-workers like how much it had helped me at my job being able to communicate better with my boss they were like wait that's what you can do in therapy I had no idea and so I think for me like making it less overwhelming and then also just creating a way to educate people about what actually happens in therapy were really the drivers for me of why I wanted to start it and Sage comes from a completely different place being a therapist can you help people give a window into some of the myths like some of the ones I know it gives you a good system right so it gives you like a identify and then you want to feel like accept your feelings then it's almost like create value together right and so can you guys give us a sense of what are some of the things people think therapy is but in reality it's just like the building blocks for greatness but maybe people just don't know what that is like what's the bridge for me I think a lot of people think that therapy is only for people who are really depressed or crazy or something has to be going really bad in my life I was once at a dinner with my girlfriends and someone said I don't know why you go to therapy like no one's died in your family what um and it I was like we're living in like a very woke progressive city and there's still people are still saying stuff like that and I think what therapy actually is is a way to be a better communicator it's a way to understand what your triggers are like what are environments that put you make you more anxious so that you can avoid them or work through them it's made me be better at setting healthier boundaries like you don't even realize say joy's jokes I'm like oh I have perfect relationships and you don't realize that you might actually have a really unhealthy relationship with your family with your friends so there's so many important tools and I think when it can be looked at when people see it more as like oh this is a way to be the most successful and best version of myself versus like this is I'm in a crisis which it still is also for that too but I'm you know like I'm something is wrong with me I've now been labeled as a crazy person when you can shift that thinking it's such a powerful tool and I obviously you can tell I'm passionate about it like I feel like the world would be a better place if everyone was in therapy something I learned in therapy too is that people will tell me in fact a lot of investors that I pitched would be like well I don't go to therapy but I have a friend that I use as a therapist that's really great and I'm like mm-hmm okay and what I learned in therapy is that without even knowing it that we all project our own biases and insecurities on people and I was someone who was I never realized until I went to therapy that I was someone that I overly ask for multiple people's decisions when I'm trying to make my own decision or opinions I'll say what do you think and what do you think and it can be exhausting when you don't realize that there that's you've actually hit a trigger of something they're wildly insecure about and you don't realize they're actually projecting on you and saying like oh well you shouldn't move you know because you'll never make it in that new town and maybe they like had you know had a similar experience and when I learned that I was like oh that's so interesting and if so I think it's like even if you're trying to make a big decision in your life or smaller decisions to go to someone who has no agenda who's literally trained professionally to not have a biased opinion and and just give you like well what you know what have you thought about it from this perspective and to have that in a safe space is so important or sometimes I'll even be like you know I got to fight with my husband like was I being an asshole I don't know and you know sometimes they're like yeah that was kind of me to at least I can trust her opinion is like an honest one and so I think to me that is something that I would love for more people to experience because I think it's invaluable that was a long-winded answer I'm sorry no that's great sage same thing obviously you're on a different side of it so I just love to get your perspective on that yeah I mean I think there's a lot of different things but like Kendall said if going to therapy isn't just when you're in crisis I think that's one of the common misconceptions is that you go to therapy when you've hit rock bottom or when you're you know in a really dark place but yes that that is a time that you can go to therapy but you also are going to need to address that crisis in therapy and then after you do that you can probably actually then address what the underlying issues are and what your own personal growth is going to lead you to because it's very hard to really look at yourself and do that kind of deep work when you're in crisis I think that that's part of you know people think oh what they go when they're in crisis and they get better and then that's when they leave and really I think you go when you're in crisis that's when you you know get past that crisis and then you can actually work on yourself when you're not in a place of high distress some people feel like I don't want to talk about my past you know my childhood I don't need to get into that and the truth is that therapy looks different for everyone and your therapy might not look like talking about your past but also there's a lot of value in looking at our past because it our past informs our present right and so looking at our early experiences and how that impacts the way that we interact with the world around us and the way we interact with people in our lives and the way that our neurobiology develops it's immensely helpful when you're moving forward in life. One other thing too another misperception is that I think therapy sort of been like dramatized on in movies and shows and I think a lot of people are really surprised that the different types of therapists like we have therapists on our platform that are Latino and black and young and old and I think a lot of people just think it's like an old man with bifocals that like takes notes it's like sit down like in good old hunting or something right yeah exactly like you're sitting on that couch and you can't see them like in mad men or something and a lot of the people who watch our digital discussions give us feedback that's like I had no idea that a therapist could bring that kind of energy or like I didn't realize that a therapist with like tattoo sleeves could be on and like you know they're so different and they all have different approaches and I think that's something that blows people's mind when they watch our free content. Yeah I mean I so my wife and I to my wife we during COVID we're just like we're just like life planning right and so we're like hey are we gonna thinking about having kids and so my wife in her head she wants I don't know what she wants this like five acres in somewhere in like Mahalan Drive here in LA overlook like perfect everything's perfect with this garage and this amount of garage stalls and like this many children this type of kitchen and I'm like all of that's achievable but why is it that you feel like you need that with pre-children right and so and then she's like maybe I should talk to a therapist about this and I was like a hundred percent I was like talk to anyone but me and don't talk to me because I'm my problem is I'm just too logical and so to me it's like when you have I think there's this fear what I'm touching on is I think there's this fear that people when they're about to have kids have that their life ends once when right it's like oh all of my pursuits die like I can't be an entrepreneur anymore and there's this like cliff that people feel like and that's not the case I know a tremendous amount of entrepreneurs that once they've had their their children have found even greater successes greater heights and so I think there's a part of children that either galvanizes what you really believe in that people are just afraid of finding out and so I'll just say I'll just want to share that personal story with you guys because I think it's it's a window right into it's not crisis it can be just a big life decision and you should talk to someone totally and I feel like another thing you can do in therapy is understand for couples how you guys process decisions differently too and which I think is really interesting as well and that you know the way that you guys were raised differently like pops up like I've been married for just a year we're going through similar things or like I guess we have to plan our life now that we have all this free time on our hands and like I think I thought I knew when we were dating for five years I mean and things bubble up like as life happens and you're like oh that's interesting and now that we've done couples therapy and I understand the way he was raised was very different than me that I'm like huh and like it's just like a really interesting idea like we process things very differently sometimes and that's something you can understand in therapy of like just getting on the same page yeah it's a journey for sure what made you guys want to call the company frame so it was something that we've struggled with the name a little because we didn't want it to be you know to like therapy space or something you know we wanted it to be something that resonated and there was also gender neutral and I think for us frame hit because it's something that is a term that therapists use and it's something for me as a patient as a client you know it's all about framing your perspective in life and thinking like for example thinking that for example I was never great at math growing up and I was always told my brother is the smart math one and I'm the social one and like reinforcing that narrative and then going through therapy and reframing that whole narrative in my head of like oh no actually I'm really good at these things and stuff like that and for me that just hit and for sage I think it's like a little different in them yeah I mean it's definitely a similar like what Kendall just said it's that framing and reframing our perspectives and how we interact with the world and the people in our lives is part of what you do in therapy and reframing your thoughts because that is what can give you the power to kind of change how you're feeling and then also as Kendall said it's a term that we use in therapy so you can frame and reframe thoughts but also there is a frame to the therapy session and that's something that the therapist holds the frame which is kind of the time boundaries and the safe space and that's part of the therapist role and from my understanding this is a relatively new venture for both of you I mean you from my research you had to accelerate the opening of the platform because of COVID so can you talk us through what that was like in making that decision and when were you originally planning on opening up to the public so we were originally planning to open up in I think mid-May or June it was a pretty robust platform because we offer so many it's kind of it's a business in the box for therapists which we can get into in a little but when COVID hit it was like everyone was looking for resources and suffering at home and feeling so stressed and so we decided to expedite the launch of our digital discussions as I mentioned there's two different services and we really the vision was that they're together as an ecosystem and they feed into each other and we decided to launch with just one so that people had this free resource at home and we covered a bunch of topics that are relevant to COVID and then launched the matching like a month later. What's been the the user growth to date? I mean it's been really great it's I mean it's very early on so not giving any numbers but I think we're really excited about what we've been seeing both on the discussion side of just like a general interest and wanting to know what therapy is like which I think has been sort of influenced and shaped by what's going on in the world right now and then what's been exciting too is a steady growth and the therapist signing up and also people what's been fun to see is that our users are doing intro calls with at least two to three therapists which is fun like I wasn't anticipating them to sort of use this as like a shopping experience but I think it's the right way to do it because as I mentioned like it's so much about who you feel comfortable talking to and an algorithm can only take you so far and so it's been cool to hear from our users to say like you know I talked we talked to them and they say I loved all three but there was just one where I had this like insane connection with and I felt so comfortable with her so that's been really fun to see too. The question I have for for both of you so you have a two-sided market right Kendall I'll direct the first half of the question at you and then the second half at Sage how much like of your experience whether it was at YouTube or at Snap has informed how you view this app how you view the double-sided market and then from Sage's perspective what is it about therapists that are more than happy to jump in or you know what's the value prop obviously I think with COVID it's kind of like it's digital right and we can talk about that but Kendall from your side of it haven't been at Snap what has that been like in terms of creating this app and how do you view this from a technology perspective? Yeah I mean I feel like being at Snap was you know I feel like Google and I was at Google and YouTube and they're such bigger companies where when you're in product marketing you're a little bit more removed from the product because like there's like thousands of employees and being at Snapchat for almost four years I was really just working with engineers every day and product people which was great and I feel like something that influenced me was how much emphasis Snap put on user growth within organic user growth and how to derive that from your product versus using marketing and how can you get people to share within the product and it was something that I really thought about when we built this because marketplaces inherently you know struggle sometimes when they're trying to get new user acquisition and they have to rely so heavily on paid media and press and at a certain point that dries up or it becomes really expensive and it can really hinder the growth of the marketplace so I thought okay in an industry where it is so inherently private and people don't want to be like tweeting and sharing about their personal therapy sessions how can we create this product that can grow on its own and create these organic dialogues and for us that was one of the reasons why we did the digital discussions as a free tool is that people can experience what therapy is like learn about it and then also share about it and send a video to a friend like hey I know you just got dumped here's this this therapist talking about it and so that was something that I learned from snapchat and brought along with me how do you attract therapists to join the platform white types of incentives does the platform provide and how do you guys think about that as you guys try to you know really take this thing off yeah so in terms of meeting a need that therapists have you know Kendall and I have built this platform very thoughtfully and that's where my role as a therapist and my experience in the field has really come into play where I'm able to speak to you know what the needs of a therapist are in terms of how they run their business what their calendar scheduling type needs are what their billing needs are what the HIPAA compliant component is and so we've been able to build this you know again kind of kind of called it calls it a business in a box it's a one-stop shop for therapists for building their practice because they can do some basic practice management tools as well as getting new clients so it's you know they have the marketing and the back end office which is something that's unique and not anything that was out there in terms of getting therapists I've been reaching out to a lot of other therapists and then the thing it kind like Kendall said there's just a lot of natural sharing and therapists when they find something that's helpful for them they are eager to share it with their colleagues and then I know you guys just raised some money kudos to you guys how does it fit into your growth plans and so we talked a little bit about your strategy in terms of organic growth and being cognizant of you don't want to be spending too much money maybe on digital media given people probably aren't going to tweet seeing a therapist and so as you think about the levers that you have obviously we're talking about this on the podcast but how do you guys think about getting out and really sort of leaving a dent in the marketplace for what you guys are doing I think for us we took a really unique approach and I think for anyone out there is thinking about starting to start up like we're definitely not the first to market and I feel like that can feel scary sometimes but also can be a benefit because we spent a lot of time understanding talking to customers and figuring out what some of our counterparts you know aren't doing and I think for us for fundraising we went out we were actually a pre-seed company and we went out and raised money with the vision of our unique approach with them you know with investors being able to see what was already out there and seeing how we were different and we wanted to approach it differently and right now as a pre-seed company it's all about proof of concept product market fit and then we're going to rate you know we're going out to raise our seed probably at the end of this year at which point you know that money would be used to really help us scale the vision and get us out into multiple cities so right now our matching is only available in Los Angeles and how in terms of COVID-19 have you feel like you've attacked it at the right time just kind of on accident what has been the early feedback you guys are getting the early feedback is very strong and we're very excited for our next fundraising round I think for us mental health has always been important to Sage and I so every day is mental health awareness day in our mind I think what wasn't an accident was we spent a lot of time building in tools to make a telehealth platform the original vision was that people would do a hybrid approach where we I think like the modern consumer would be great if you could go see your therapist in person sometimes and then do a couple of video sessions I'm traveling this week I don't have time to drive in and I think COVID allowed us to easily pivot to just a telehealth platform which I think has been amazing and then on top of that like from a cultural standpoint mental health has become so relevant right now so I think we're looking at this time as an excited way to sort of like accelerate the growth and momentum that the culture has like our society is placing on mental health right now yeah I totally agree I mean now if anyone needs it now is the time and the stigmas are sort of being erased I think anyway or the appearance of that is happening I was I was also like when I was younger I started like a alcohol delivery app that did not work out but it was like right place right time and I remember working with the local vendors and I just like I feel like as a young kid I was always like young kid young entrepreneur like having physical space is a very tough business for many reasons and if you can create a solution that sort of extends beyond that it's generally a smart you know a smarter way and more scalable way so I kind of always thought well how can we solve this you know without being tied to one particular city and solving that and how can we create telehealth solutions so that people in Fresno or Burbank or someone you know the smaller places can still get access to good therapists even though they're all sitting in like Beverly Hills or whatever Santa Monica so I feel like we just 2020 sort of pressure tested our ideas in the right way and they worked out you know it seems to me that what you said earlier about how you had to pivot to being just a tele therapy app you know to me that opens up a lot of other doors so my brother for example he has a therapist and it used to be this whole ordeal where he would you know tap to go into downtown LA and see him and then travel back and it adds all of this time whereas now he's able to just do this over a phone call or or Skype or Zoom and you know he's just able to dedicate that hour three days a week to to therapy and then go on he doesn't have to add in the the commuter or anything like that and it seems to me like a no-brainer because from the outsider's perspective there's always something to be said for having that in-room person-to-person connection but I feel like most of what can be gained from therapy can also be gained by having an over a teleconference or a video call or whatever I mean is there any truth to this or am I just like you know completely wrong here I mean I'll just chime in with my opinion I think that a lot can be done in teleconference right or telehealth and that that it's been a huge resource and we've been so lucky as a therapist community to have this to be able to have continuity of care I mean imagine if I was seeing all my clients or you know my colleagues are seeing their clients and then COVID hits and then they're just at home by themselves no therapist you know no resources that would be horrifying you know as a clinician to have that happen so I think overall telehealth and then like you said being able to cut out all of the transport time being able to see a therapist that maybe is in a different price point or that if you're in a certain location in a remote you know part of California that you can still see a therapist who's in a more urban area without having to go in there is something to be said for having the in-person sessions and not having the barrier of you know the computer and the little bit of delay and the tech issues and then being able to have you know as a therapist being able to create the safe space because like I can make my office or my you know telehealth location as safe and quiet and comfortable and private as possible but i've no control over what's going on in your environment so as a therapist you know if i'm seeing for example a person who's in a relationship and they live with their partner their partner is going outside and taking a walk while they're in a session or they you know I have clients will sit in the car just in their parked car to have a session during this time because they need some privacy so I think there's some barriers like that but you know are are still issues and that it will be great when people can go in person but the advantage of having telehealth has been immense and I think as a community we're all very very grateful. I think Sage and I are built for telehealth or frame but we both have a soft spot in our heart for the in-person because so much of communication is non-verbal it's in your body language like I always go to my therapy session and I sit like that and she's like what's going on today like I don't even have to say anything and or the tone of voice and like she said so I mean I think we would both love for it to get to a place where people can go back in person but obviously it opens telehealth opens us up to a lot of things that other professions can do and as a therapist or a client you want to be you need to be able to feel safe when you're in a session and if you're worried about your health and being at risk you know as a therapist or the client you're not going to be able to be fully present and you're not going to be able to have a conductive session where you're you know making progress because you're going to be highly anxious or you know not able to engage so I think right now telehealth is the best solution. You know we've talked a couple of times during this podcast already about erasing the stigma of therapy and increasing the awareness of the importance of mental health is there any advice that you can give for how you know your average person might be able to maybe like you know 30 minutes a day or whatever it might take like steps that you can take to try and just make it better your own mental health. Yeah for me I would say I mean there's so many different ways to improve your mental health that extend beyond therapy you know as Sage always says movement is such an important part like if you're feeling stressed like just don't underestimate the power of going out and taking a walk when it comes to therapy though I think so many people assume going back to these like misperception misconceptions of therapy is that oh it's just this isn't a big enough problem that I should talk about like I'll just power through it and I think a lot of people hold a lot in that they don't necessarily have to and it could be something as insignificant as a fight you got in with your friend over text and it's bothering you and I think that those sort of things you hold in over time can really you know have a burden on you and so for my advice is again you know if you're interested in learning more about what therapy is we do have these discussions where basically people are going through their own problems on camera with a therapist and it does give you sort of like a bird's eye view and can help you understand sort of the thought process and the questions that therapists ask you to get you thinking differently. It's funny this is actually how I view the podcast and so every time I leave this situation I think the entrepreneurs and all of us feel so much better because we're all fighting some battle whether it's raising money whether it's finding employees whether it's getting more user growth user traction and so just having the conversation with someone like you it makes me feel better because I'm in this together right it's like no we're not alone whereas I think especially during COVID you can easily feel like you're on an island and you're in your head it's just you in your head and it's you in your head on a walk with a mask on it's just like like so dramatic like oh we're not alone like we're both victims it can literally be like fundraising sucked I did not enjoy it at all and like just someone else hearing that could be like oh thank god like I thought everyone liked it like I thought everyone was just going being like oh it was so easy I did two meetings and sometimes that's like what's really helpful is to just be able to say that and have your therapist listen and that's so powerful and that's what I'm trying to help people understand that it's like just not always about the big things it can just be about like venting can you guys give us a window into the business model and how it works for both yourselves and for the therapist on the platform as sage mentioned it's kind of a business in a box so it's a monthly subscription the therapist pay and it extends beyond the matching lead gen it's you know payment processing hippocomplain video tools calendar tools all of you know everything you need to sort of get your business off the ground and right now it's completely free as consumers to use it so the only thing you're paying for is the actual therapy itself and also our discussions are completely free too and how much is a let's say like an hour session I don't know if it depends depending on the therapist on the platform but maybe you can give us a range of what that costs that's another thing is that when you're not tied to physical location you can let the therapist set rates and it's really interesting like a lot of them have different agendas different rates and I think ranges from anywhere from $50 to $200 on our platform and all the therapists are asked to set a high demand high volume and low volume time so typically a therapist has times in their schedule that are harder to fill and they're willing to take a lower rate at that price point so there is flexibility with all the therapists on the platform as well there's like a demand-based pricing to it that's smart based on their calendar yeah and we really want to empower the therapist to run their own business like Kendall said so we you know when therapists ask me when I talked to them about it they go how much do I have to charge or is there you know we encourage them to set a rate that feels comfortable for them so you know don't set your low rate lower than you would feel comfortable because we're not you know it's not going to benefit anyone if you're underselling yourself or undercutting yourself at the end of the day when you guys think about your business I mean one of the obviously the terms is like chicken and the egg right for you guys it's a double-sided market so who what's what's what has been the most challenging to get inherently I think users are always the difficult ones right because they are the ones that have to pay whereas a therapist can be paid has that been true or have you guys seen maybe it go the other way we haven't really had trouble on either side yet which I guess is a good sign yeah that's amazing that's a great answer for all the people who want to invest listening yeah we really haven't there's been a lot of willingness to try it from the consumers and excitement and then on the therapist side they're also very curious about the way we've approached the problem for therapists to solve which has been great feedback I think that's always a problem that marketplace startups have is sort of like the give and take and I think that's something that we're really focused on for us this year since we are preceded and it's more about product market fit is really understanding what types of therapists we need versus just getting let's get 10,000 therapists like how many Hispanic therapists do we need how many female therapists what type of therapy do they do we need to be providing do we need more that specialize in substance abuse so that's sort of been something that I think we're still learning and it just depends on like who your core customer is which we're also still learning and sort of trying to understand the needs of that so I think to answer both sides you know have been going pretty well but I think something we're we're monitoring closely is when we do need to ramp up a lot you know what who are we ramping up with for the therapist and did you guys think about maybe applying to any accelerator programs at the beginning whether it was like YC or text stars or anything we're actually in an accelerator we're in two accelerators we're in one called Founders Factory which is based in New York and it's really great they are invested through Johnson and Johnson which has been a great partner of ours and been amazing I feel like they're celebrity now I hope every time I'm like when's the vaccine coming and they're like we can't tell you that kind of and then we're in an incubator with Imran Khan who was a former chief strategy officer at snapchat that is a little bit more under the radar for for snap alum sure that's amazing yeah I mean I assume that's helped tremendously so far how's that been going I mean I don't know if it's an in-person thing or you just do like weekly meetings or bi-weekly meetings it's really helpful I was always like you know hesitant or nervous about applying for the accelerators and stuff but it's been very helpful I think they both are such different styles of incubator but and even they'll joke with me every time I fight it they always bring up good points and sort of keep us on track and it's just been really interesting to hear different perspectives in a safe space and not feel like there's any agenda there where they're just you know just trying to help one thing I just thought of well I thought of this like 20 minutes ago but it just resurfaces like are there any like therapist influencers in the space that you guys could partner with yeah there are okay there actually are there's like this crazy trend where there's like the rise of the instagram therapists they range from anywhere from like 30 000 followers to a million followers and I think there's just a real like a crave for mental health content I mean Sage when you feel like I feel like there's like almost this pressure as a therapist like you have to have your own instagram yeah I mean a lot of therapists make an instagram form marketing essentially and to be able to connect with like their audience or you know with the client population in a way that's it's still personal but in it's also you know public and and anyone can access it so I think it's also a way for therapists to get their name out there and then also to be able to share quick insights and resources it's something that Kendall and I look at a lot you know I'm always sending her things that I find from therapists that I like you know I think it's there's definitely a therapist influencer out there and these are all like licensed individuals in some cases maybe they're just like motivational speakers I don't know yeah no they're they're all licensed therapists we've been working with several of them and it's didn't it's like the wild west of the instagram influencers I feel like I was just thinking of like Leslie Jordan who became super famous during this time but is like a old older comedian and has been a therapist for a lot of people just through comedy which is kind of funny we work with one that like is amazing Alyssa Menkow and she was telling I mean like she gets like you know hit up for sponsorships of like the most random things and she's like trying to decide like authentically for her brand as a therapist like she can't be like promoting like beef you know can't be like randomly like and here's this beef patty that I love when she's like talking about trauma like racial trauma so I feel like that's why it's sort of the wild bus not for me personally but I feel like I'm sure there are brands out there that are like how can we crack these influencers that have 100,000 followers in a way that's like authentic there's something like 100% wagyu beef to get me through the day we literally just have this conversation because we're like thinking about bringing on sponsors and it's like it has to be so relevant you know otherwise it's like an entrepreneur doesn't care about something like I don't even know like just something so not inside the bubble of entrepreneurship that it makes our job like do we really want to do that and there obviously there's an attractiveness because you're like well you know you're talking about real revenue but on the other side it's like you have to stay true to your audience podcast is kind of the wild west with advertising too I mean coming from the paid advertising space at youtube and snapchat yeah I think it all goes the way I think about it is like it all goes down to your why right it's it all goes down to like why have you created what you're creating and just staying true to that and I think people that try to come into your space whatever it is if they come in with honest intentions then their why matches and when it doesn't match it's pretty obvious and so then we just have to stay on course of what we're trying to achieve oh entrepreneurs could use beef I'm sure you could get one last question before we go it is my understanding that this is not the first company or the first business venture that you both have undergone together stemming back from a lemonade stand yes we started we were next to our neighbors we started a lemonade stand there's very little traffic that comes through on our stairs and you had the market cornered on the lemonade stand in that area dad bought all the lemonade lemons too probably the lemons yes well but it was successful we had 100 sales that's successful you can ask for well listen tell everyone where they can find you whether they're looking for therapy looking for a digital discussion or even are a therapist looking to go into a digital format tell everyone where they can find you you can find us at tryframe.com or on instagram at try.frame awesome well look thank you guys both for your time I love what you guys are doing I'm rooting for you I think people everyone needs therapy everyone needs someone to talk to and so I think you're poised for success at least I hope so thank you thank you so much yeah thank you very much for your time