What makes her story stand out isn’t just her impressive accomplishments, but the genuine warmth and humility that define her path toward making a meaningful impact on the world.
Before venturing into the world of entrepreneurship, Elena dedicated three intense years to Innovify, a startup studio specializing in launching startup for founders in London. However, despite this being her dream job, she noticed a problem that the majority of professional in London have – therapy access. She was quoted 250GBP for a therapy session. This led her to dive deep into the world of psychology herself, —a journey that would eventually give birth to an extraordinary concept: Selftalk.
Elena’s dream of becoming an entrepreneur had been quietly simmering within her, and the time had finally come to turn that dream into reality. With valuable connections and experiences from her past job, she crafted a meticulous plan to scientifically and practically validate her Selftalk idea. Drawing from her initial job experiences, she engaged with 100 individuals in a vital process of user validation.
Her journey with Selftalk started with an intense validation process. Her co-founder Viorica and her did an in-depth analysis of Selftalk competitors, and the scientific validation. Only after, they started to manually create therapy audios that would be send to users over WhatsApp and later they would collect feedback through Google Forms. What’s truly interesting is that they even started selling these scripts, demonstrating not only users’ inserts but also their willingness to pay. Read more details on this article that Elena wrote on Linkedin.
September 2023 saw the launch of a dedicated B2B app designed to enhance employee well-being—a crucial moment in their journey. However, the B2B path came with challenges in terms of product market fit – the user growth was to slow for the team to take product decisions. So, they pivoted to a B2C2B model. B2C2B (2) — also known as bottom up — has helped companies like Slack, Zoom, Dropbox, and other software companies break into B2B. This model is now more and more popular among startups in digital health, where founders go for reaching a critical mass of B2C users and after moving into B2B selling to insurance companies, employers, and other organizations. For more on building digital health companies.
Selftalk’s distinctive value proposition lies in offering easy to access and affordable therapy know-how to those who can’t find a therapist, can’t afford one or struggle to trust and open up in traditional therapy.
Selftalk team is grateful for all the support from the local startup ecosystem. For example, Dreamups was the first team willing to test their well-being program for companies, also thought the programs of Startup Moldova and Technovator, the Selftalk team attended several important conferenced, a highlight being Tech Crunch Disrupt 2023 in San Francisco.
The founder has a big vision for Selftalk Platform, currently they are developing their B2C offering, but in their future plans, they have a B2B offering for companies, that will include a dashboard with real-time insights on employee’s wellbeing, and also, platform for therapists, allowing them to create therapy journeys based on their methodologies.
When asked why she chose the startup life over corporate, Elena believed in the possibility of making a global impact through entrepreneurship.
Selftalk’s main target market is the English-speaking market, primarily the US and the UK, with plans for expansion into other languages.
Elena’s journey with Selftalk is not just a tale of innovation and determination but also one of genuine humility and warmth. Through her firm dedication, Selftalk is changing lives by making therapy accessible to all. In a world where mental health is more critical than ever, Selftalk’s journey serves as an inspiration, reminding us of the incredible impact that one person, one idea, and one Selftalk audio can have.
Join Elena Oprea and Selftalk on their remarkable journey as they continue to empower lives through innovation.
Meet the team behind Selftalk app –
Elena Oprea – CEO, Vladimir Melnic – CTO, Viorica Vanica – CMO, Maria Damian – CFO, Iurie Bivol, Dan Andoni
