Mental health startup StartTalking announces partnership with QuikTrip
October 14, 2016 | Meghan LeVota
Editor’s note: In response to readers’ desire for quick-hitting stories, Startland News is launching a new segment, “News Flash,” to enable more coverage. Let us know what you think!
Lenexa-based StartTalking has announced a pilot partnership with QuikTrip that will make its service available to all 3,000 QuikTrip employees in the Kansas City area.
The mental health startup will provide its telehealth and online therapy services via QuikTrip’s employee assistance program, confirming the firm’s value, said founder Mark Nolte.
“We’re still very much in startup mode, but this validated our business model and proved that it can be done,” Nolte said. “We’re grateful for the opportunity to learn a lot in the pilot about what works, what doesn’t and what protocols to take in the future.”
Launched in 2014, StartTalking was inspired by Nolte’s own struggle with depression. The software provides immediate online counseling and therapeutic sessions through online messaging and encrypted video. His software is designed to catch depression and anxiety in its early stages, before things get critical.
A Liberty-based behavioral therapist from Clinical Counseling Associates Inc. will be providing the online therapy to QuikTrip employees. The therapist and Quiktrip employees will be able to access the video platform on their smartphone or laptop with StartTalking’s technology. Nolte said that QuikTrip was interested in his firm services to help cut down on travel and absentee costs.
A medical device salesman of more than 20 years, Nolte said the market for telehealth psychotherapy is around $2 trillion, and that Americans spend about $24 billion on psychotherapy.
2016 Startups to Watch
stats here
Related Posts on Startland News
Ruby Jean’s juices unity, entrepreneurism with Troost opening (Photos)
Chris Goode is helping change what Troost Avenue means to Kansas City, pastor Stanley Archie said Saturday morning at the grand opening of Ruby Jean’s Kitchen & Juicery. Troost has been a place of division, he said, noting years of racial segregation along the corridor where those with a “permanent tan” weren’t welcome west of…
The Jam KC offers space for musicians to get loud, turn up
In a small, Midtown Kansas City room brimming with musicians and their instruments, Allen Monroe peers over his 1963 Hammond B-3 organ at a handful of onlookers. A toothpick concealed by a thick grey mustache emerges as he smiles, preparing to deliver a gentle jab to the artists around him. “Remember, you don’t have to…
Video: Operation Breakthrough helping kiddos reach their full potential
Founded in 1971 by two nuns, Sister Corita Bussanmas and Sister Berta Sailer, Operation Breakthrough serves more than 450 children daily with a mission to provide a safe educational environment for children in poverty. The has adapted through the decades to meet the needs of Kansas City’s low-income community, Operation Breakthrough CEO Mary Esselman said. Implemented…
Coding at age 3? Operation Breakthrough connects STEM to program’s circuitry
Two small boys are standing on stools at a workbench, pretending to talk on outdated handset telephones. They might not yet know how the phones work, but they’re clearly familiar with how to take them apart. And they do. A few feet away, three children from low-income families are on iPads beginning a new lesson.…