
7 Cups Of Tea (YC S13) Connects People Who Need Emotional Support With Listeners - zackmiller84
http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/05/y-combinator-startup-7-cups-of-tea-connects-people-in-need-of-emotional-support-with-trained-listeners/
======
7cupsoftea
7 Cups of Tea founder here. I wanted to share a little back story with you on
this. I'm an entrepreneur and have had my own fair share of challenges both in
business and in regular life. My wife is a therapist. I'm incredibly fortunate
to have her support. It occurred to me that it'd be great if people could have
someone to talk with when they are struggling or going through a hard time. We
built 7 Cups of Tea to solve that problem.

We have a long way to go, but the initial signs are promising. I'd love your
feedback on how we can make it better. Thanks!

~~~
6thSigma
Very interesting business. Quick question - is there any meaning behind the
name? Why 7?

~~~
7cupsoftea
Thank you. Yes, the name comes from a famous Chinese poem titled "7 Cups of
Tea" The basic idea is that each cup of tea brings a greater level of healing.
Also, I just liked the name because it suggests meeting with a friend several
times and having a conversation.

------
paul
Having personally gone through some very difficult times, this is one of the
startups that I'm most excited about for the very simple reason that I believe
it has the potential to help millions of people in a very direct and personal
way. I've already started referring family members to the service.

~~~
clicks
It's wonderful to see the problem of depression being targeted in a new and
interesting way, but I'm very scared for the chance of this being exploited in
4chan-style raids. They've trolled everything from cancer community forums to
lgbt support forums to whatever else you can think of.

Are listeners first going to be vetted? Is there going to be some push in
associating listeners with their Facebook accounts, to have them authenticated
as the good folks. Any comments in general about making it resilient to these
types of attacks?

~~~
7cupsoftea
Clicks want to send me an email to further discuss? info at 7 cups of tea dot
com.

~~~
akulbe
Please understand me. No desire to sound negative. No wishes for anything but
the best. I am just curious as to what your business model will be for this?

~~~
markdown
If you look at the screenshots, listeners can charge a fee. So far it appears
to be all free, but eventually I'm sure they'll have a few professionals
(psychiatrists, etc) on there who you can pay to talk to.

The startup will obviously make a commission on that.

------
6cxs2hd6
From last October: Supposedly phone-based therapy works as well as in-person
for people with mild symptoms, and _better_ for more-severe.

[http://www.choosehelp.com/news/emotional-health/study-
phone-...](http://www.choosehelp.com/news/emotional-health/study-phone-based-
cognitive-behavioral-therapy-works-as-well-as-in-person-therapy)

And from last week: Ditto for online.

[http://www.examiner.com/article/internet-therapy-works-
just-...](http://www.examiner.com/article/internet-therapy-works-just-as-well-
as-conventional-psychotherapy-says-new-study)

I don't know if the latter is a result of your own PR effort or great luck.
Either way, congrats! :)

~~~
7cupsoftea
Thanks for posting these links. Nope, not a result of our PR efforts : ). I
think we'll see a lot more research support for online treatments.

------
bhousel
Wow, very cool. I was actually just thinking about this exact idea last night.
A close friend of mine is going through a very rough time and I spent a few
hours on the phone with him.

Mental health resources just aren't working for him, and I don't think he has
a lot of positive role models in his life whom he can turn to. And we live in
a time where many of the traditional institutions tasked with steering a young
person into adulthood (religion, education, family, etc.) are broken or
dysfunctional themselves.

This is definitely one startup that I would really like to see succeed. Good
luck...

~~~
7cupsoftea
Thank you. That comment means a lot to me. Good on you for taking the time to
support your friend. Truth is we all hit hard times in life and often we just
need a little extra support to get through.

Also, as you indicated, a lot of the old institutions just are not there to
provide as much support. I also always think of the role neighbors used to
play. I still have friendly conversation with my neighbors, but I would feel
really uncomfortable leaning on them for support.

------
larrys
Some of the "listeners" might be surprised to find out that they can be
located easily with google image search. I just did that for one person and
found their full name because they used the same exact picture elsewhere.

I guess the question (not reading any of the sign up materials) is is there an
implied expectation of privacy on the part of listeners (I see with the people
needing support there is an explicit statement of confidentiality) and should
they be notified of ways that people can find out who they are?

Edit: And things to do (picture and name wise) to prevent that from happening?

~~~
VLM
I'm having trouble thinking of even a hollywood movie plot where that info
could be exploited. Other than where the listeners are actually 4chan trolls
on a raid, in which case the pics are probably fake/stolen anyway.

~~~
gohrt
You can't think of how a person with a mental illness could exploit the name
and address of a caregiver?

~~~
hackula1
"Speakers" or whatever you want to call them, but also others. Just a brief
glance showed that lots of the listeners posted personal info about what they
have gone through. Not sure if I would want the whole wide web to know about
my personal mental history.

~~~
markdown
> Not sure if I would want the whole wide web to know about my personal mental
> history.

Wrong. You're absolutely sure that you don't want that.

------
soneca
Am I sensing a trend in more recent YC batches to select teams that want to
help people rather than find a market? Watsi, True Link, now this.

I mean, both are about building something people want, but they are definitely
different points of view of this goal. One is about what people are willing to
pay for, other is about what people could benefit from.

I most wholeheartedly welcome this trend (if it is in fact a conscious one).
Myself, I work very close to this new field of "social ventures/social
business/impact investment", the latest labels of a model that combine, at
once, social impact and profit. No judgmental ideology, just using market
forces to improve people's lives. Specially people with some kind of
vulnerability (in general, poor people, but as seen here, not restricted to).

Muhamad Yunus (Nobel peace laureate) is the most famous champion of this way
of changing the world, but he sure put some very rigid limitations on how to
manage the profit, which I think are too demanding and not particularly
effective. But it is a good way to think different about creating new
business: [http://www.muhammadyunus.org/index.php/social-
business/socia...](http://www.muhammadyunus.org/index.php/social-
business/social-business)

For an approach that I think is more effective, here are some good places to
learn:

[http://www.nextbillion.net/](http://www.nextbillion.net/)

[http://businessfightspoverty.org/](http://businessfightspoverty.org/)

[http://www.thegiin.org/cgi-
bin/iowa/home/index.html](http://www.thegiin.org/cgi-bin/iowa/home/index.html)

[http://acumen.org/](http://acumen.org/)

~~~
7cupsoftea
My sense is that YC and the partners have always been about making peoples
lives better. It might just be that entrepreneurs applying for YC are
beginning to realize that YC can be a great avenue to accomplish a lot of good
and also create a real business.

~~~
soneca
Maybe that. After a boom of entrepreneurs with ideas to impact their own world
or their own pocket, I see more "cause-driven" entrepreneurs starting up.

Congratulations for your work, I hope you achieve great success!

~~~
7cupsoftea
Thanks!

------
jyu
I volunteered at a hotline, answering phones for a year. Due to the nature and
potential consequences of the work, we were trained pretty thoroughly over the
course of 3 months before talking to any real callers. During my
conversations, I realized that many callers were lonely with no one else to
connect with, and that many had varying degrees of mental health issues. It
was one of the most challenging and rewarding experiences I have gone through.

Your callers are probably a different profile than the ones that called our
hotline, but I would be very cautious about giving out identifiable details in
the answerers' profiles. Also, knowing how difficult my volunteering work was,
I'd like to know more about the training process for your answerers.

~~~
overgryphon
Somewhat off topic, but would you mind sharing a little about what
volunteering for a hotline was like? I'm considering entering a training
program to volunteer for one in my area, but am not sure I am prepared for
this.

~~~
fishpi
I'm not the OP, but I've worked for Samaritans
([http://www.samaritans.org/](http://www.samaritans.org/)) in the UK. I'd be
happy to discuss by email at 7cot.10.fishpi@spamgourmet.com if that's useful
to you.

------
mberning
It will be interesting to see stats on how long listeners last. Compassion
fatigue is very common in fields where people work directly with those in
unfortunate circumstances (homeless, dying, drug addiction, etc.) I wonder if
systems such as this will burn people out faster or allow them to help more
people faster. Cool idea.

~~~
7cupsoftea
This is a good point. We have a hypothesis that there is a care surplus (like
Shirky's idea of a cognitive surplus) where there are lots of people that want
to give back, but they can only give back on their own terms (i.e., when they
are available and want to). We are very careful to not pressure folks into
doing too much. Long-term this has to be sustainable. We are developing a
strong listener community and that is helping people feel a real sense of
pride in what they do and like they are a part of something larger.

------
nadaviv
> I agree with this statement: "I am over 18 and I am not homicidal, suicidal
> or abusing anyone."

I can see how it might be legally required to add this disclaimer, but I would
at least direct them to somewhere else that can help them.

~~~
7cupsoftea
Excellent point. Thank you.

------
hpagey
This is a great idea. It might work very well with seniors. Seniors sometimes
( or lot of times) get very lonely and need someone who can listen to them or
talk to them.

~~~
7cupsoftea
This is an excellent point. We definitely plan to work with seniors. My
grandmother is 82. I try to call her 1x a week just to touch base. She looks
forward to the calls from me and my sister, but we get pretty busy and forget
from time to time. I think it'd be awesome if a listener on 7 Cups could just
chat her up a couple times a week for 15 minutes each time. It'd mean the
world to her. I think we have a real opportunity to work with nursing homes
and assisted care facilities on a solution for them.

Also, one interesting anecdote that I discovered when talking with experts
that work with the elderly. They said that often times elderly people will
complain about telemarketers, but they'll answer the phone because they are
lonely. They'll then end up buying things they don't really want just because
they were able to connect with another person.

I also wonder if we can find a way for elderly volunteers to sign up as
listeners. They've been through a lot and could help a lot of younger people
going through similar struggles. If anyone has any recommendations or contacts
at senior organizations, then it'd be great if you could share them with me.
Thanks!

~~~
gohrt
I would bet that you'd have more success signing up elderly people to be
listeners (giving them something worthwhile to do when they have limited
mobility and their family members are busy with work/school) than to tell them
to call your helpline as customer because their grandkids don't call them.

------
llamataboot
Having experience both in peer-support groups and as a trained mental health
practitioner, I can see some perils and some promise in this idea and am
interested in watching it evolve.

If anyone else is reading that wants to build something similar, I would love
a marketplace for online therapists with solid reviews, bio
statements/therapeutic orientation statements, clear pricing/insurance
information, etc.

~~~
bteitelb
If you are interested in marketplaces for online therapy, have a look at
Ingenio[1], which has been in this space for a while. Ingenio was acquired in
2007 by AT&T [2], supposedly for its patent portfolio, but it continues to
operate.

[1] [http://www.ingenio.com/](http://www.ingenio.com/) [2]
[http://techcrunch.com/2007/11/19/att-acquires-ingenio-and-
th...](http://techcrunch.com/2007/11/19/att-acquires-ingenio-and-their-pay-
per-call-network/)

------
josephpmay
Thank you. I need exactly this. Stupid question, but I can't quickly find the
answer on your website (you may want to add this to your FAQs): Does it cost
anything?

~~~
michaelwww
> Listeners can currently elect to charge a fee and if they do, the site takes
> a commission

------
gohrt
Seems like a service to provide medical care without a license. I wish we had
people working on ways to streamline licensing and efficient uses of licensed
resources, and fewer end-runs around the safety protections that licensing
provides. (See also: AirBnB, Rover, Lyft, Sidecar, ....)

~~~
deleted_account
But we'll miss out on all the future lols:

    
    
        Welcome to 7CupsOfTea! Connecting you to a specialist now...
        You are connected to Listener "Twogirlssevencups"
        <needshelp56> Hi, thanks for listening....I feel like my life is in shambles...
        <needshelp56> i just...I just need someone to talk to...
        <Twogirlssevencups> lol kil urself

------
overgryphon
The website comes off as shady, insinuating that the service is an equivalent
or valid alternative to therapy with a professional therapist. The way the
'listeners' are referred to as trained many times (which amounts to an online
course, which could mean anything- how rigorous is this course? Are any would-
be listeners turned away due to their performance during the course? Does the
course last longer than an hour?), and especially the sentence "While many of
our Active Listeners happen to be licensed professional counselors and
therapists".

It would be more honest to portray the service as an online hotline.

~~~
7cupsoftea
I understand your perspective. We are not trying to portray listeners as
licensed mental health professionals. We use the word trained to suggest that
active listening is different from the normal kind of listening that most of
us experience in our regular lives. ie, active listening is different from
having a normal conversation. People normally don't use summarizing,
paraphrasing and empathy regularly. Also, pointing to the licensed people on
the site is not meant to equate active listeners with mental health
professionals, but to simply highlight that there are a good number of
licensed mental health professionals on the site.

------
spitfire
"Founded by clinical psychologist Glen Moriarty".

What a fantastic name for the founder of a company providing moral support to
those in trouble.

------
fernly
I found the "browse a listener" page confusing and hard to filter. One, the
multi-column patchwork effect is visually messy and hard to parse. I don't
know how to fix it but perhaps a single stack of page-width rectangles?

Second, many of the listeners are "Unavailable" \-- there should be a way to
filter it to only the available ones. If a client wants to speak to a
particular person, it would be helpful to know they were unavailable, but for
a general browse, those entries are not helpful. (Just that many more people
who don't want to talk to me, <sniff>...)

Third, I couldn't see how the category filters (Addiction, etc) changed much
if anything. Is it that most listeners are ready to handle all those topics?

Fourth, the browse feature could benefit from a keyword search to cover those
categories you haven't thought of as filters -- e.g. I'd like to know how
many, if any, listeners call themselves "atheist" or "liberal".

~~~
7cupsoftea
Thank you for the feedback. We have the messages tool available so you can
message a listener to set up a time to connect if they are currently
unavailable.

------
chamza
I think this is a great idea. I want to offer some design feedback and advice.
This is just my opinion, but I hope it can be of help in some way.

-The testimonial scroll is a little awkward and hard on the eyes as it moves. My suggestion would be to have a fade in/fade out, or a much quicker animation

-There is quite a lot going on in the navigation bar (many different options + sub-options). My suggestion would be to narrow it down significantly to maybe 3 - 4 of the most important menu items.

-I think the "satisfaction guaranteed" thing can go. There can probably be some better messaging or use of real estate here to establish trust.

-I think there could probably be a better way to present the large image with text on top on the home screen (for example, see airbnb.com or screenleap.com). Visual design thing so it's kind of subjective.

Otherwise, really strong work. If you'd like more design help see my contact
info in my profile.

------
marincounty
I had a breakdown in my late 20's. The only thing that helped me was Time.
Stay away from Anyone who takes your Money away from you. Yes--many
Psychiatrists, and Psychologists have been conditioned into believing they are
helping you. They will take your last cent. My condition was extreme daily
anxiety, which morphed into depression; because my life fell apart. Things
will get better with Time. For some reason, the brain heals slowly. I'm just
commenting on Depression and Anxiety. This is just my experience; you might
have better results.

~~~
selter01
Time? Is this some service I am unaware of, or are you simply saying "take
some time to heal"

------
Sealy
I think this is a great use of technology that can change the lives of its
users forever. You can't get more disruptive then this.

I really hope it succeeds as I've become really worried about the number of
suicidal posts I've seen on HackerNews lately. I've noticed on 3 separate
occasions in the last month alone posts from severely depressed hackers
usually titled something along the lines of 'want to give up'.

While I think its great that hackers can come together to support each other,
I'm guessing most of us are not trained psychologists.

~~~
7cupsoftea
I think the support on this community is actually a huge strength. People in
general really try to help people when they post about feeling depressed or
suicidal. It is always great to read an update post several months later when
the person is through it and doing better. Our site can further help by taking
things a step further.

------
ColinHayhurst
Good to see this. Not a new idea but not seen anybody execute well on this,
yet. Have looked for and used a similar tool in the past, to refer friends to,
and act as a listener. paul is correct but might be underestimating your TAM!
I'm concerned that you might spread yourself across too "segments". Do you
have plans, or enough insight yet, to concentrate on beachhead?

------
l33tbro
Damn, I'm not in the States. I'd love to sign up to this and help people
looking to reach out. Hopefully they scale.

~~~
7cupsoftea
We will! Thanks :)

------
nicholassmith
Wow. That's an absolutely fantastic idea, in fact probably one of the most
interesting ideas for a YC company I've seen for a while.

There's a lot of risks involved, but if they do it properly and take the
security risks, and system abuse risks seriously from the outset it could be a
really useful tool in getting people help.

------
sengstrom
There is a science fiction story where there exists a network of anonymous
listening "terminals" \- supposedly anonymous for both listener and speaker
(in the end not so much for the latter). Anybody here remember a title that
describes that scenario?

------
egisspegis
I've clicked the link out of curiosity. Ended up chatting with one of the
listeners for 2 hours... Well, actually almost all the chatting was done by
me, listener was...listening. :) Man, it feels good to spill it out! Great
service, thank you!

~~~
7cupsoftea
Glad you tried it out and experienced a sense of relief! That is exactly what
we are aiming for!

------
asveikau
Mental health is too much of a niche market. We need people to focus on the
real problems faced by everyday people, such as: Which unlicensed taxi service
will get me from SOMA to the Mission the fastest? </snark>

------
Alex3917
My only criticism here is the name, as it's implicitly suggesting that it's a
good idea for people with anxiety issues to drink a lot of tea. (When in fact
caffeine generally makes anxiety/depression worse.)

~~~
cLeEOGPw
I think it varies from person to person. At least for me, coffee helps to
concentrate better, and as a result I work more effectively and am less
distracted by depressing thoughts, therefore at least temporarily reducing
depression.

------
tvladeck
I have a friend that was /very/ recently diagnosed with type 2 bipolar
disorder. She really needs people to speak with, and I'm excited to pass this
along to her. Kudos, team!

~~~
7cupsoftea
Thanks! We actually just formalized a partnership with the International
Bipolar Foundation.

------
yesimahuman
Interesting, and similar to [https://spillnow.com/](https://spillnow.com/),
which I think is targeted more towards college students.

------
anu_gupta
This sounds a little bit similar to The Samaritans, a charitable organisation
in the UK.

[http://www.samaritans.org/](http://www.samaritans.org/)

------
zackmiller84
These guys came out of Start Norfolk( www.facebook.com/startnorfolk ). Love
what they are doing! Great founder and team, serious solution to a huge
problem area.

------
joshaidan
I'm curious, what qualifications are required to become a listener? Do you
have to be a mental health professional? Do you have to live in the United
States?

------
gms
A number of startups sound exciting, but this may be the first one I would
also describe as heartwarming. I really hope you go far.

~~~
7cupsoftea
I appreciate that. Thank you!

------
joshavant
Very excited to hear from companies in the Southeast VA region - and TC-
covered, YC companies, no less!

------
jonas_b
I would be happy to be a listener, but I'm based in Scandinavia. Do you have
any use for me?

~~~
7cupsoftea
Jonas, thank you for your interest. Please stay tuned.

