NAME OF THE ORGANISATION
„Mindletic“
WHAT IS THE INITIATIVE ABOUT?
“Mindletic” is an online emotional health fitness club! The vision of this initiative is to increase self-awareness, to be able to predict and prevent deviation of the emotional health norm and to achieve emotional balance rather than short-term happiness. With “Mindletic”, everyone can train their emotional muscles individually, with a community or with professionals. Unfortunately, the topic of emotional stability is still not very public and stigmatised, so this initiative encourages people to take care of their inner world, at least with the help of an app.
When and how did this initiative start?
In the spring of 2020, Ieva Vaitkevičiūtė, the founder of “Mindletic”, took part in a “social business hackathon” in Vilnius which brought people from different fields together to create solutions to the problems that arose during the pandemic in 2 days. Ieva took up the topic of emotional health. Volunteers from different fields also wanted to work on this topic, so they formed a team.
The app started out very simple. The design was created in 15 minutes and implemented by the volunteer programmers. You could note how you were feeling at that moment, try simple breathing exercises, and consult psychologists. This hackathon was the beginning of the birth of “Mindletic” and the further development of the idea.
Two weeks later, Ieva decided to participate in “The Global Hack”, an international event where she further developed the Mindletic idea with like-minded people from different countries. During “The Global Hack”, they were developing the app and already had partners and users, so they started to look for people who were interested and willing to invest in these services. This idea was noticed and appreciated – the emotional fitness club initiative won second place in the competition out of the 15,000 participants and received a financial cushion for its development!
What prompted the initiative?
“Mindletic” was born out of Ieva’s passion for technology (IT) and psychology. She wanted to combine these two interests and create a digital solution that encourages everyone to strive for emotional balance and thus foster a more peaceful lifestyle.
What is the target group? How are they reached?
“Mindletic” focuses on people experiencing anxiety during the pandemic. Most users are adults who can take responsibility for their own decisions.
Initially open to individuals, the initiative started working with organisations in July-August 2021. Since then, the focus has shifted towards working with innovative employers. The first clients were “Swedbank”, “Simplika”, and “Public Health Office”. A large number of users was achieved with the contribution of the organisations and their employees.
Of all fields, they are working mainly with IT companies, as they are constantly changing, updating, and employees need to keep up to date, which creates a lot of tension. Therefore, these companies see the most value in giving employees the opportunity to nurture and strengthen their emotional health.
When considering the future and other user groups, they currently do not intend to include minors, as they work with professionals and their emotional health, which is anonymous data. Working with minors would involve parents, so there would be no anonymity. However, “Mindletic” is thinking about working with students by giving them access to certain features of the app.
How did the pandemic affect the initiative?
The first step which led to the creation of the “Mindletic” initiative was a hackathon which invited participants to create solutions to the challenges that had arisen during the pandemic. Besides the topics which Ieva was interested in, at that time, she experienced an anxiety attack and decided to find a way to help people experiencing more anxiety and stress during this intense period. In a sense, the pandemic sparked an idea that had been brewing for some time.
How did the pandemic affect you personally?
Ieva, the founder of start-up “Mindletic”, believes that a pandemic gives us a new perspective, like any other shocking event. The pandemic has given her the opportunity to develop a project she has been thinking about for a long time. It was the right time and the right place. Of course, it gave her a lot of stress and panic; however, it also gave her more opportunities to start an activity to which she couldn’t devote time before and the audience wasn’t prepared either.
What are the difficulties faced in implementing the initiative?
One of the first obstacles to developing a start-up vision was bureaucracy. Setting up the organisation was hard. There was a lot of paperwork involved in the legal extraction of the idea. Also, it is difficult to consistently build partnerships. There is a lot of enthusiasm in the beginning, but over time partners change their minds and back out.
In a start-up there is not much time to think of coherent, big strategies; you have to act fast – react to situations and change. Things that work, things that don’t work, and changes are closely observed. Start-ups have a big market; they live on a small income (mostly investments) which gives them limited time (how long you can grow the business). The lower the investment, the less time the initiative has to show positive trends and potential for growth.
Positive results
Ieva mentions that in the beginning, it was incredible to see that the project was reaching people from other countries. It was a nice kick to know that it is something that matters and is relevant to others. The anonymous feedback questionnaires are also a great motivation to move forward. It is very nice for the team to see where value is being created, and, of course, constructive criticism encourages them to make improvements.
Why is this initiative relevant?
During the pandemic, many people experience stress and anxiety caused by uncertainty. So it is necessary to strengthen your emotional muscles just like your physical ones.
We asked a representative of the initiative:
How can young people help each other during the COVID-19 pandemic?
Working together to tackle a challenge or just coming together is already a solution. Common challenges especially bring people together. Proactivity and looking for opportunities are always good solutions, not only during the pandemic.
ORGANISATION
Start-up “Mindletic” is currently working remotely from home. The team consists of 20 employees so far. Every morning they meet online for morning coffee in their “remote office” (Gathertown app). Everyone has different responsibilities: there is The Product Team (which further develops “Mindletic’s” technology solutions), The Operations Team, The Publicity Team and The Partnerships Team.
