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
Rapid growth propelling grand ambitions for PopBookings
Only weeks after releasing its latest product, event staffing tech firm PopBookings is hiring staff and looking for capital to accommodate for rapid growth. In the last six weeks the Kansas City-based startup has added thousands of users to its platform on which staffing agencies can hire and manage temporary labor for specific events. Now…
Video: Foosball and whimsy are integral to the RFP365 ethos
Kansas City foosball virtuoso Stuart Ludlow knows his way around the fútbol table. With a strike rivaling a Black Mamba’s, Ludlow’s instincts and supple wrist on the foosball pitch puts to shame most any adversary. But perhaps equally as cunning is Ludlow’s savvy to integrate the table game into the workplace culture of RFP365, of which he’s a co-founder. Founded in 2012,…
MIT-modeled mentorship arrives in Kansas City
A new MIT-modeled mentorship program is available to Kansas City entrepreneurs. The Enterprise Center in Johnson County is now accepting applications for its new mentoring program, the Growth Mentoring Service, which adopts the approach of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Venture Mentoring Service. The free, two-year program is welcoming all entrepreneurs who meet its guidelines…
LaunchKC, the $500K grant competition, opens applications
The popular LaunchKC grants competition is back for more and is now accepting applications. LaunchKC — which attracted nearly 500 applicants in its inaugural 2015 competition — dishes out 10, $50,000 non-dilutive grants to tech entrepreneurs from around the globe. “We are searching for the best and brightest startups or early stage technology businesses to apply…