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Fares Ghandour was inspired to create a mental wellness platform following his own journey with mental health. He noticed gaps in the affordable, accessible, quality care offered in the local dialect of the Gulf region.
Gandur teamed up with entrepreneur and clinical psychologist Dr. Naif Almutawa and software engineer and product manager Aymane Sennnoushi to launch Thuhun in June 2021 to develop a “technology-enabled care business.” produced.
In March 2022, the Riyadh-based company will release self-help apps for better sleep, stress reduction, work-life balance, meditation and self-awareness. This app is curated by Khaleesi experts and offers content in the Khaleesi dialect.
“Information in Arabic on mental health is scarce and should not be,” Ghandour said.
“It is a matter of providing accessibility, quality, affordability and normalization of mental health care that is culturally relevant and speaks to people in their native language while maintaining credibility.”
Technology can help improve people’s access to mental health care, but Tohoon is now challenging a hybrid model of clinical psychology and counseling clinics offering face-to-face and virtual appointments.
Plans are underway to open a clinic in Dubai in February and in Riyadh in the second quarter of this year, Gandur said.
It starts with 4 rooms, expands to 10 rooms, and finally 20 rooms.
According to a June 2022 PwC Middle East survey, about 15% of people in the Gulf experience mental health problems, yet more than 75% of those who need mental health care seek it. not.
The Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated the burden of mental health problems locally and globally, but there are only 2.85 psychiatrists per 100,000 population in the six GCC member states, the report said. rice field.
Studies estimate that leaving mental illness untreated results in an estimated 37.5 million lost productive days per year, worth $3.5 billion.
Tuhoon is primarily targeting the Saudi market, offering mental health services relevant and relevant to the country’s demographic, Ghandour said.
In Saudi Arabia, the Arab world’s largest economy, 80% of people with severe mental disorders are not seeking treatment, the Saudi National Mental Health Survey said in a 2019 study.
Watch: Why Abu Dhabi school students wear their clothes inside out
Furthermore, it was shown that 34% of Saudis meet the criteria for mental health status at some point in their lives, yet only 4% of the Ministry of Health’s budget is allocated for mental health.
“There’s an opportunity there. It’s a big untapped, untapped market,” says Ghandour. “It’s not about demand, it’s about the supply of quality mental health care.”
Tuhoon’s target clients are individuals and businesses that provide services to their employees. Customers include telecom operator Zain, health insurance company Bupa and Riyadh Bank.
The startup recently partnered with the National Center for Mental Health and palmHR to conduct a study on workplace health that surveyed 50 HR managers and 4,000 full-time employees in private and public institutions across the Kingdom. .
Approximately 4 in 5 employees have experienced at least one mental health issue in the last 12 months, with the most commonly reported issues including burnout, anxiety and stress I understand.
78% of organizations do not measure employee mental health, and 82% of organizations do not have a dedicated budget for mental health services.
Women are 50% more likely to report poor mental health than men, and women’s participation in the labor force has doubled in Saudi Arabia, the study found.
This is reflected in Tuhoon’s customer base, where about 65% of its current users are Saudi women, Ghandour said.
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Overall, the startup has recorded 100,000 signups on the app and about 1,500 weekly active users, he says. The amount of multimedia content one user consumes in his week has reached 1.5 hours of his and is on an “increase trend”.
He says the demand for self-help content in the app is “huge,” as evidenced by a 30-day user retention rate of 26%.
“Most users love the app, but they also want to talk to someone. Starting our clinical care venture is about responding to a user’s request, and that’s where the demand is today.” he says.
“As countries like Saudi Arabia become more urbanized, with urban growth and increased engagement in the workplace, there are contemporary challenges and balancing with traditional norms creates anxiety. ,” says Ghandour.
Within the GCC region, post-Covid demand for mental health care continues to grow as fears of a global recession loom, he said.
Tuhoon’s business model revolves around app subscriptions by individual and corporate users, providing employee mental health workplace assessments, workshops, content recommendations, and in the future, clinical care as well.
App subscriptions cost $40 per user per year.
In terms of funding, the startup is in the seed stage and has so far injected $2.5 million into the business, from its own funds, angel investments and backing from venture capital firms Wamda and UAE-based Nuwa Capital.
Funds are used to create content, hire talent, and develop the technology behind the app.
Tuhoon aims to grow to about 20 clinics within three to five years, primarily in Saudi Arabia, backed by licensed professionals and standardized and regulated mental health care, with There are 20 rooms, Ghandour says.
The startup expects to raise more funding in the future depending on the performance of the initial clinic.
Investment in the digital health sector is on the rise, with mental health accounting for the largest share, Gandor said, and is unlikely to slow down over the next decade.
“It’s a serious market that needs disruption and enablement. Technology can play a role,” he says.
Who are your role models?
A person who managed to get over it while suffering silently.
Why is it important to build a business that has social impact, both personally and professionally?
I believe that entrepreneurial spirit in the Arab world is intentional and socially impactful. Investing and starting a business in this region will help create and disseminate a culture of innovation and risk-taking, and contribute to social impact in terms of enabling societies to emerge and progress on a global scale. bring. This reduces reliance on less competitive public sector jobs and increases the appetite for innovation. Over the past nine years, through his career as a VC investing in his startups in the region, and through his work with various nonprofits, he has always felt that his work has some form of social impact. was Organizations in Jordan and Lebanon. Tuhoon is an extension of that spirit.
What new skills have you learned since starting your startup?
human skill. I learned how to better identify good talent early on, how to incentivize and motivate my team, and how to be open and honest with my colleagues. After co-founding Tuhoon, I became more sympathetic to non-founder talent. I was primarily a VC interacting with founders and senior executives, but now I can interact with deeper teams.
How has the Covid-19 pandemic impacted your business?
It helped highlight the importance of mental health care. It has also facilitated the adoption of digital tools in mental health, such as teletherapy. Today, more than 60% of his telemedicine consultations in the United States are related to mental or behavioral health.
How is your product different from other mental health/wellness resources available locally and globally?
We are… focused on building an end-to-end suite of products and services in the mental health sector in the Arab world. Our first product, the Tuhoon app, is the first app with premium his audio content provided by the region’s leading expert and psychologist, making it culturally relevant and relevant. , presented in an attractive way. We want to build a brand that offers a wide range of clinical tools and services with high quality and reliability.
What changes should patients expect from digital mental health care in the next decade?
With so many comorbidities and complex mental health conditions, it is inevitable that the industry will move towards more specialized and deeper care. This space will grow to encompass more products and verticals I hope that. Startups that offer a single service have to adapt to it. I believe there is a greater impetus for a hybrid care model of behavioral therapy, mental health care, and primary care. It redefines the patient experience in ways that go deeper than self-help and teletherapy on a stand-alone basis.
If you had the chance to start over again, what would you change?
Of course, we would have focused first on clinical care and then expanded to potential clinical services, as they are the most valuable services in the industry today. Start the service. The two markets are very different.
Where do you think the company is headed?
Next year we will make a bigger push towards clinical offerings in the UAE and Riyadh. We hope to have three physical and virtual clinics up and running by the end of the year. We also have greater engagement with employers and hope to secure a few more Saudi banks and companies as clients. Within five years, we hope to operate 20-25 clinics and provide integrated digital services to help patients manage their travels more efficiently.
What is your next big dream?
I would like to be involved in mental health research. Most mental health disorders today do not have distinct medical conditions that can be tested to produce the most effective treatments. As long as the true cause of many of these disorders is unknown, it becomes very difficult to address pharmacological or psychological treatments. Years ago. Mental health needs that “penicillin moment,” and for that, we really need to understand what causes these disorders in the first place.
Update: Jan 30, 2023, 3:30 AM
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