Pune/Bengaluru: A good therapist can change a life. But finding that good one can be surprisingly difficult. Aloona experienced that challenge firsthand, and her search eventually became the foundation for Mindbun, a Bengaluru-based mental health-tech startup serving Indians and NRIs across 27 countries.
Aloona grew up in Dhanbad, Jharkhand, was raised by her aunt and uncle from the age of six months, studied mechanical engineering and completed an MBA before joining Tata Administrative Services (TAS). She subsequently spent around a decade working with early-stage startups.
Aloona said she had been battling depression since her early 20s and had several poor experiences with therapy. In one instance, a therapist advised her to stop eating non-vegetarian food, while another therapist spent most of a 60-minute session talking rather than listening.
She also tried US-based platforms, including a session costing around ₹5,000, but said the therapist struggled to understand the Indian context.
“I think somewhere in my early 20s I might have seen a therapist here and there, but I had really horrible experiences, to be honest,” she said.
After years of unsuccessful experiences, Aloona said she had reached a point where she believed therapy did not work. A friend eventually persuaded her to attend one more session with her own therapist.
“And then I did one session with her and it was incredible,” Aloona said.
She stayed with that therapist for three years and said the experience “really changed my life in ways I could not imagine.”
The experience also made her question why it had been so difficult to discover a therapist who was a good fit.
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From One Therapist’s Website to Mindbun
Aloona realised that India had many experienced therapists who did not have a significant digital presence.
“I’ve realized that India actually has a lot of people who are in their 30s, late 40s, who are incredible therapists,” she said, adding that many “are not on Instagram” and “don’t have a website.”
She initially created a website for her own therapist. The intention was not to build a startup at the time. The website received an unexpected response, attracting around 200 signups over one weekend.
Her co-founder Gautam had also worked with her previously and had been referred to the same therapist by Aloona. Aloona had led marketing while Gautam had led engineering at their previous startup job.
Mindbun Sets Three Mandatory Therapist Quality Criteria
Mindbun began with five therapists, with quality as its primary consideration. The platform now has 75 therapists, all onboarded through a referral-led process.
“We started with 5 since the primary thing was quality,” Aloona said.
Every therapist on Mindbun is required to meet three core criteria beyond the basic qualification of a master’s degree in psychology.
- The first is at least 100 hours of supervision. The supervision requirement also continues after a therapist joins the platform.
“So we’ve sort of mandated that everybody that we have should have a minimum of 100 hours of supervision already,” Aloona said.
- The second requirement is personal therapy. According to Aloona, this helps therapists understand and work through their own patterns and develop a non-judgmental approach.
“The other thing is they should be in personal therapy,” she said. “Unless you do that work in your own therapy and you resolve those issues, that is how you learn to not judge.”
- The third requirement is two years of post-master’s training in the therapist’s chosen modality or approach.
“So we mandate that whatever modality they are choosing or approach they are choosing, in that they should do 2 years of training,” Aloona said. “Not like weekend workshops, 2 days, 3 days.”
Referral-Only Therapist Onboarding
Mindbun’s therapist onboarding process is deliberately selective. Candidates must first be referred, followed by three interview rounds with senior clinical professionals and document verification.
“The first person referred. 3 or 4 people,” Aloona explained. “Then we have 3 rounds of interviews,” followed by document verification before a therapist is onboarded.
The platform’s therapist base is largely made up of practitioners aged 35 and above, with women accounting for around 90% of therapists.
“A large percentage of therapists are based in metros, but there are some in tier 2 cities as well,” Aloona said.
Mindbun also has Indian therapists based outside India, including in Europe and the Middle East, to support its NRI audience.
“NRIs is a very big percentage of our audience,” Aloona said. “We also have therapists outside India, so Indian therapists, but we have therapists in Europe, we have therapists in Middle East.”
She said the experience of having lived in India while also understanding life outside the country is important for serving NRI clients.
Mindbun Has Grown Without Paid Marketing
Mindbun was bootstrapped by its founders, with each founder contributing around ₹1 lakh to ₹1.5 lakh initially.
“We started with a very small – I think each of us put like 1, 1.5 lakhs, something like that,” Aloona said.
The company has also deliberately avoided paid marketing.
“It was a very, very conscious decision to never do any paid marketing,” she said. “So we said that if the product is good, it should sell itself, especially in the category that we are, and we should not have to do paid marketing.”
Initial customers came through WhatsApp groups, while subsequent growth has primarily come from word of mouth. LinkedIn and Reddit have also contributed to organic discovery and referrals.
“From there, I think largely growth has been through word of mouth,” Aloona said.
Mindbun is currently growing at around 30% month-on-month, according to the interview notes.
Session-Based Business Model Keeps Therapist Earnings High
Unlike models based on fixed therapist salaries and large platform cuts, Mindbun operates on a per-session margin.
“For us, it is the opposite,” Aloona said.
“So on every session we take a margin,” she explained, adding that the model is designed to ensure therapists earn enough to invest in their own education, therapy, supervision and training.
“Because if the therapist does not make money, then the therapist does not have enough money to expend on their education,” she said.
Mindbun also gives therapists control over their schedules. Therapists can limit themselves to around four or five sessions a day, take breaks and decline clients when they do not feel comfortable working with them.
“So we were very clear that, okay, you will do 4 sessions, 5 sessions, whatever you’re comfortable with,” Aloona said.
The company is profitable and does not have immediate fundraising plans.
“One, we are in a very healthy place financially. We are profitable,” Aloona said.
The founders could consider raising capital later if Mindbun expands into areas such as therapist training or mental health assessments.
“But eventually if you want to enter, say, other things, for example, training therapists is an interesting area,” she said.
“Assessments is another area where a lot of people wonder, do they actually have ADHD?”
Mindbun Has Served More Than 1,500 Clients
Around 18 months after launch, Mindbun has 75 therapists, more than 1,500 people who have taken therapy and around 1,500 sessions every month.
“It’s been a year and a half now,” Aloona said. “So far we have 75 therapists.”
She added, “Over 1,500 people have taken therapy,” and “We have 1,500 sessions every single month.”
The platform’s client base is concentrated among people aged 28 to 40 in metropolitan areas, alongside a significant NRI segment.
“We have people from 27 countries, US, Europe, we also have people from like Japan and Singapore, Middle East, everywhere,” Aloona said.
Around 45% of Mindbun’s customers are men.
“45% of our customers are male,” she said. “Which is very interesting. We didn’t expect it to be that high, but a lot of men are coming to therapy, taking therapy.”
Despite the therapist base being around 90% women, Aloona said both male and female clients often prefer female therapists.
“Both men and women, when we ask them who you want to talk to, they prefer talking to a woman,” she said.
Anxiety, Burnout and Stress Among Common Concerns
According to Aloona, anxiety is the most common issue among Mindbun’s clients, alongside burnout, stress, work-related concerns and relationships.
“Anxiety, literally everybody has,” she said. “I mean, burnout, stress, work, relationships, I would say equal, equal.”
She also said clients rarely arrive with only one concern.
“I think what is interesting is everybody comes with 3 to 4 issues, 5 issues,” Aloona said.
The platform also sees connections between mental health concerns and physical symptoms. Aloona said around 60% of people coming to Mindbun experience some effect on their physical health, citing sleep, appetite, weight and lower back pain among the examples.
“I would say 60% people that are coming to us, in some way their mental health is also affecting their body,” she said.
AI Is Changing How Clients Search for Therapists
Mindbun is also seeing the influence of artificial intelligence in how potential clients approach therapy.
Aloona said more people are reaching the platform after conversations with ChatGPT and arriving with specific expectations about the therapist or therapeutic approach they want.
“Increasingly, people that are coming to us are coming after talking to ChatGPT a lot,” she said.
As a result, Mindbun’s team increasingly spends time explaining the matching process and helping clients understand whether their expectations align with the care that may actually suit them.
“So they are coming with a very set expectation of this is the therapist I want, this is the approach I want,” Aloona said.
She added that ChatGPT-generated expectations may or may not be appropriate for an individual client.
“Sometimes it may be good for them what they – what ChatGPT has told them. Sometimes it may not be.”
Quality Remains Central to Mindbun’s Growth Philosophy
For Mindbun, growth is secondary to ensuring that clients are matched with an appropriate level of care.
Aloona said the company would rather refer a client elsewhere than accept them when it cannot provide the right quality of care.
“The day we go and say, okay, this person came, but we are not able to map them to the right quality of care, which will help them make progress, then I would rather not map them and not take their money,” she said.
She added that Mindbun has already referred clients outside the platform when the team believed offline care would be more appropriate.
“There have been clients who really liked the therapist, but we’ve referred them outside because we felt offline will be better for them,” Aloona said.
