So another black tech, green money.

We'll look and see.

It's so gad, so glad to be with all of you guys.

Really appreciate everyone who checks in every Tuesday, every week listening to this podcast, and so today the distinct privilege of welcoming Nina Westbrook, licensed merit and family Therapists, entrepreneur, advocate, and somebody I'm trying to get to be a techie.

She's building an app right now, launching an app, the Nevy App, the therapist designed emotional wellness app that helps people check in with how they feel and take small science backsteps to feel better in real time.

Welcoming, Thank you.

I feel honored to be here.

I feel like this is my first venture into the tech space as a tech entrepreneur.

So I'm a little nervous, but I'm excited.

Thanks for having me.

Oh, we are a welcoming group.

So you're in good hands here.

That's great.

So I wanted to start here.

And so there are a bunch of other apps out there in the therapy space and the wellness space.

What do you think those what do you think was missing from the marketplace to be able to provide you know, the scratch to some ish out.

There well from a clinical or mental health standpoint, if I'm putting my therapist's hat on, I think it's wonderful that there are so many tools and so many apps and people looking to create things to help people manage and cope and deal with, you know, the everyday stressors from my own personal perspective as being a therapist seeing clients and the limits that came with that along with you know, then starting my brand Bene bay Nina and being online and having a website and trying to share resources and moving my journey from in person to digital, and I feel like what was missing from my experience is similar to what's missing from a lot of app experiences, is that ability to meet each individual where they are in whatever ways that is.

It's hard to kind of create content and create information and share information for the masses, right because we're all living our individual journeys.

What works for one person doesn't necessarily work for the other.

I think there's a lot of mood tracking apps, there's a lot of habit tracking apps, and what we wanted to do and what I wanted to do as a therapist is just create something with neb that was different in the fact that it's not it's therapy adjacent, but it's not therapy and it's not a replacement for therapy.

And that's very evident when you're using the app.

It's truly a tool that's actionable and lightweight and it meets you where you are, which is what I think a lot of weonness apps in place and things are missing.

But the other component to that is a lifestyle component because we're busy, Like let's say, if there's so many things that are going on in the world, there's so many things going on in my own personal life, Like I don't have time to keep up and keep track with everything, So there's so much noise and information.

And what we wanted to do with Nevi that's different is kind of eliminate some of that noise and really focus and on the inter that like center the human who and the user who's using the app, so that we can simplify how that they can go about feeling better feeling better.

Yeah, And you know, I think especially in our community, certainly probably in other communities, there are those of us who wait until we're in crisis to talk about you know, we need to figure out something that's you know, helping us mentally, spiritually, physically all the things.

And you talk about mental illness from a daily not a crisis driven you know need.

How do you encourage us to be more proactive on this?

Well?

I always it's always been a part of my mission to just coming from a family of sports and having a sports background myself, and understanding the physicality and understanding how we train our bodies to perform and to how we alter our diets to create the best performance physically.

But we're not putting that same amount of attention and energy and intention into training our minds and understanding how we feel and fostering emotional wellness when really, if we're going to be living and thriving then we are we need to be physically well, but we also need to be mentally well.

And so placing this just as much significance on our mental health is as we do on our physical health is so important and that's something that we're always striving to teach, and that's something that I'm always striving to to share.

And I think that you know, as far as being proactive in our daily lives, I think that things have to be realistic.

We have to be able to set ourselves up to actually succeed.

And I feel like when there's too much on our plate and when we don't understand something, then it's easy to kind of veer off and like shut that part of ourselves down and not really go into or exploring that when there's so many other things that we need to be doing.

Yeah, you know, and I appreciate that somebody who's got expertise in the discipline is building something here.

Like you know, I was listening to a friend of mine talk on this panel one time, and they were talking about how like sometimes we just assume that technologists to build things have our best interests at heart.

That is not true.

And so to have you having studied, licensed, certifications and all the things to start there and then this technology is secondary, Like that means so much to me as an individual.

Well, talk to me about how you know this is a designed to be like the best tech in the world's designed to solve a human problem.

Absolutely, I think you won't have greech.

No.

I totally understand what you're saying.

And I think that I got to have Shinai Bobo on my podcast.

She's a futurist and she's incredible.

If you've never heard of her, yeah, okay, so she's she's well known in the AFRO text remarkable.

Yes, So she said something that really stood out to me, and the idea of like tech and AI and the people, like you said, who are actually building and creating this technology, their motives are not necessarily human centered, right, And so approaching the app and building the app from a clinical standpoint and putting the clinical implications first is something that I'm really really proud of because that's what the goal is at the end of the day, and the entire app and everything that we did had so much intention behind it in building the app and making sure we're always centering the user and making sure we're not doing any harm and making sure that we're actually helping and providing useful tools and useful insights that people can grow and learn.

And even if it's very very tiny, because we don't have to have these aha moments every day.

Nobody's having Aha moments every day, right, But if we're taking small little steps and learning a little bit more about ourselves and our emotions and understanding and becoming a little bit more emotionally intelligent every day, and growing.

Then that is a huge step in the right direction.

And so to be able to implement the clinical aspects of the app first and really center the experience around the user and the individuals.

That's I think one of the other things that really sets Nevy apart.

Yeah, and many apps as the ones I use and that you know, I want to talk about your experience.

Also, many of them center like habit tracking as the goal, like did you do X number of this today?

Did you take this many steps?

Did you you know, meditate for this long?

And you check the box and you get a you know, a fuzzy or or like whatever you get, and like you emphasize instead like emotional patterns, and so can you talk to me about the distinction and why it's important for us.

As human beings well, because we want to meet you where you are.

You know, the app is meant to meet you where you are.

We're not intending or interested in judging your progress or anything else that you've done up until that point.

I think that what we wanted to do is create long term behavioral change, long term mental wellness, make long term mental wellness achievable and attainable, and in order to achieve that there has to be understanding.

We can create habits and build habits and by doing the same thing every single day.

But if we don't know mentally or understand mentally why we're doing the things that we are doing and what we can do to help combat those feelings or change the way we feel and make it work for us, then we're not developing that emotional self efficacy.

And I think that that's what the therapeutic experience is like.

Right you go to therapy, you're meant to The goal is not for you to be in therapy forever.

You're meant to learn and to grow and to understand.

Because once you learn, grow understand, you're also at the same time you're getting those tools that you can implement so you're able to recognize what's going on with you emotionally and mentally, and then you're able to draw from your own bank and mentors merise of tools and things that you can do that you know work for you to help improve your mood and improve and emotionally regulate yourself.

And I think that's that's the same goal Nev shares with the therapeutic process.

Yeah, and I want you to.

Talk to me before we started recording you talking about you.

I'm a non technical founder and disciplines.

I know my stuff, but like the technology is not my thing, and so I wonder like how.

Like what was like the beta process?

Like how did you go through building software and not necessarily being an engineer, but like how did you communicate what you wanted to engineers?

How did you go through trial and error, failure and progress?

How did you talk to me about that?

You know, it's actually really funny.

It's not really funny.

I know that collaboration and anything is so important.

We have a wonderful, wonderful developer and tech team their company called Rush out of New Zealand and my business partners actually out of New Zealand as well or Australia.

I'm sorry.

And so we just had so many conversations, so many really really long meetings of me trying to explain as a therapist what we can have in the app and why we can't do this and why this technology is not fitting for this situation and as far as our testing we did, we you know, going into this process, I was advised to get very very clear about what the user journey was going to be like and what the experiences was going to be like.

So from Aaron, we invested a lot of money into actual testing, and not just on the beta testing, but before we even built the app, Before we developed the app and the features, we created an idea of what we thought would work based on a clinician led approach, and then we had other test We had users put or testers try out the app and give feedback.

I think one of the values of our of the app and the entire experience has been everyone's willingness to collaborate and be open to different ideas and communicate.

I feel like when you're working on a mental wellness app, even though there are so many different people involved, I could they're probably more than twenty five people who've worked on this app.

I think that everyone's willingness to listen and to understand and to share perspectives and openness was really great.

And because of that safe environment we've been able to create as a team, we were able to get the best feedback that we could from our testers, from everyone involved in the project, and that process was really really valuable to us.

It's something that we can we will continue through our founding memberships and getting feedback and really understanding what the users need and how we can better the app for them.

So, because it's like I say this all the time on Instagram or wherever, like I'm literally building an app for us, and I want users to understand and feel like they're part of the journey.

And if NEB is not, if NEB is not meeting that qualification and actually being the tool that we say that it is, then we want to know that and we're going to improve.

So feedback and user testing has been really really valuable for us as a as a company.

You know, what are the KPIs that show you that this thing is working or.

Is not working well?

Number One, we have a lot of founding members and people who are who are willing to take a chance and pay a lot of money to join this experience and be a part of our growth and our app from the start.

And I think that people's investment in understanding not only in the app, but their investment in themselves.

People want to feel better, people are searching for tools, and people are looking for different things that they can do to help to improve their lives.

And I think that through our testing process and through the amount of people that are showing up and wanting to be a part of our journey without even having seen the app yet.

I think that's a really big indicator that we are that this is something that people are really seeking seeking.

It appears to me that this is like a one time payment.

Is can you talk about how your business model is and if it's a one time payment, like how why did.

You choose that overlight subscriptions and talk to me about what it is.

So this this is a great question because it kind of ties into this whole idea of collaboration.

It's not a one time payment.

It's a one time payment for founding members and lifetime access.

And that was a pre launch promotion that we thought that we thought would be best for us because we do want to get our users feedback before we go to the masses.

We do want to collect that data.

For us, data is gold, and we want people who are genuinely invested in their experience and in neby to give us the data and the feedback and the surveys.

And you know, if you were to interview one of our founding members, they probably are tired of us by now because the amount of feedback we're gathering from their experience of being early users on the app is helping us to improve the app already before it's even gotten out to everyone else.

So I think that.

That So that.

Explains the founding members.

The app is definitely going to be a subscription model.

It's thirteen ninety nine a month or a one time or an annual payment, so it's of ninety nine dollars.

Yeah, that's good.

That's good.

I'm curious, like how did you learn to lead?

Like, because you know, coming from you know, kind of like a science psychology y'all know, you can explain like the background, the more medical kind of background, and then now you're in this chief you know, role business if you build business before, So I don't want to like you build this, I'm I.

Don't get used to it, So like how would you want to do it?

I'm how did I what?

How did you learn to lead people and lead an enterprise?

You know?

So that's a really great and interesting question.

I don't see it as leading, Like I'm such a collaborator anyone who you spoke to, anyone who's ever worked with me.

I think I know enough to know that I don't know everything, and that I if I'm going to be able to be the best or if anything that I'm working on is going to be the best that it could possibly be, that means that there are going to be that I can't do it by myself, right, Like I said, I'm not a tech This is my first tech venture and I know nothing about tech, or at least I know a little now.

But I know that putting the right people who share similar values in place to build our team together, I think that's really important.

And I think it's a part of leadership is knowing how to build a team that will work well together.

And you know, like I said, I come from a sports family.

I'm also a single, a sister to three brothers and no sisters, So I feel like I've been kind of leading and bossing my brothers around since I stepped on this earth, you know.

And so not only that, but I come from a background playing sports and being a part of a team and working towards a goal and trying to and sacrificing things and utilizing what the best of everyone and trying to pull out the best of everyone in order to achieve one goal.

And I think that, like there's so many different things in my life and my past and my history that attribute to who I am and my approach to leading the team that we have now.

But at the end of the day, I think that when people feel hurt and appreciated, then they're going to give you their best foot forward.

There's a stat that came out a couple of weeks ago and the said twenty eight percent of people.

Are using AI or have used AI for therapy.

At first, I want to get like your initial reaction to that, and then talk about what implications that could have.

Oh my gosh, when I first saw that, I wasn't surprised, but I was a little appalled.

No, I think that fortunately for mental health clinicians, I just don't believe that that.

I believe that as a human we have the best opportunity to understand ourselves.

And I think that the implications about using chat GBT or AI for as a form of therapy.

There's no hippa in chat GBT, right, So anything that you put any information that you share into the world or into those those programs or that technology is there for the grabbing.

And I think that in order to that's one of the beautiful things about the therapeutic experience is that you know that it's a trusted environment, and unfortunately, I don't believe that AI has quite gotten to the point where it is a trusted environment.

I recently saw Sam sam Oh I should know this, Yeah, I should know this as a tech entrepreneur.

I saw him having a conversation about how dangerous it is to use AI as your therapist, and he obviously we know who he is.

And so I think that there's the it lacks the the human touch number one, and I think that it doesn't have the security and the safety net around it quite yet.

That doesn't mean it won't happen in the future, but today it's it's not necessarily a safe place.

And also, again we're talking about the values and the information of the people who are providing that technology, and we don't know.

There's no way to know what information that AI is giving you and shooting back out you, shooting it back out to you because there's no person behind it, and the person you think or it feels that you feel might be behind it is not necessarily that's not a real thing.

Yeah, yeah, I wonder, because I've asked this question to a couple of other founders recently, it's like, how do you think about wealth, generational wealth and what you're building?

You know, because obviously, like you know, there is a need for what you're building, but I imagine I guess some point you have to feel like, Okay, the market is there's a market opportunity also, and I wonder, like how you think about that?

Wow?

I mean, I think that I'm extremely fortunate, and I think that's part of the thing that makes me special and the projects that I choose to work on very special is that I try to approach everything without the motivation of money because I have the luxury of doing that.

And when I'm able to do that, it allows me to think clearly, I think and put more intention behind what the actual impact I'm trying to create will be rather than the financial gain.

But when it comes to generational wealth, I grew up a lower middle class family and I always had what I needed.

I was a very I was very fortunate, and as a mental health practitioner and a therapist my values.

I just placed my values in people like I truly do.

I'm sure there are a lot of things that that play into that and my ability to do that, but emotional emotional you know, safety and connection and love and compassion and empathy and quality relationships.

These are these are the things that I I associate with wealth, time with loved ones.

And so I don't know what's going to happen, Like that's not something that is at the forefront of my mind.

I'm young, it's not something now ask me, ask my husband that same question, and he will have a totally different answer.

But we're I think maybe that's why we go together, like there's some balance here whereas you know, so I don't.

Know good, you know, I am.

I think a lot about.

We talked about like the gamification of apps, like in the dopamine head and I want to go a little bit.

Deeper to there.

You know, there are the reasons many apps are built the way they are is because in order to get you to open it, they got to think about what's going to prompt like what are those triggers that make you open this app?

And for many of us, it's that sugar USh, It's that you know, I'm going to feel good when I get that notification.

I'm going to you know, somebody wants to talk to me, you know, somebody's waiting for me that all the app is calling me.

What are the pressures you might feel to resist or think alternatively about gamification in that way.

Well, this might sound interesting, but a part of our strategy as a company is not to make people feel as though they are in need of Nebi.

Nebi is not We are not trying to create Nebbe addictions.

Neb is built to help you grow and learn and understand and apply simple things that you can do in your life.

And then there's gonna be a day where you don't need nebb anymore.

And that's where we are right now.

We will always focus on our why and making sure that we're saying true to who we are.

Of course we're gonna grow, we're gonna change, we're gonna expand, but there are certain things that we won't cross over into because we're gonna always stay true to our values and we're never it's when you open nebby, You're never gonna feel foggy or cloudy or overwhelmed.

That is not there our intention.

Our intention is to create simplicity and make life easier.

The dopamine that you're going to get from using the app is not going to come from opening the app.

It's going to come from completing the task that you get based on what you've locked and the emotions that you've locked.

You're going to feel better, but you're going to generate that feeling better, not Nettie, not the app.

The app is just a tool to help you live life outside of the phone.

Yeah.

I've read in other places where you talked about you know, things that you built are intentionally not for everybody.

But you know, I'm curious in how you consider user acquisition when it's not for everybody.

I think that research has shown that there are more people now than ever and it will continue to grow who are searching and in who are in search of mental wellness tools and resources and apps.

And I think that we are building NEVI for the masses.

It's accessible.

We want to be able to provide therapeutic like a therapeutic like experience without the pressure of therapy, without the financial costs and expenses of therapy, and also to go along with therapy.

I think that being able to appeal meeting people where they are, meeting each individual where they are, is our way of connecting and creating something that is for everyone.

Like I said, we're not all in crisis.

Everybody's not in right, we don't all need to call nine one one.

Nev is not your nine to one one call.

Don't if you're in a crisis with NEBBE is not for you in that moment.

It could be used as a tool after how and NEBE is like not necessarily for anyone who's constantly thriving, but who's constantly thriving in this environment, in this society right across the world, And so neb is built for everyone in between.

What did you learn from reviews of your competitors products or things that were already out there that helps you shape the messaging that you guys, you know, communicate to your perspective.

I feel like something that was really consistent is that there's a lot there's like an overwhelming amount of information and wellness information, especially since COVID, there was like a huge influx, you know.

Number one, there's a lot of a huge influx in reported depressions, anxiety and everything else.

Right due to isolation and many other factors, people are searching for and seeking out that mental health support.

And we got really oversaturated with a lot of information.

And NEBBY is about clearing out the noise, like you're not going to have a lot of noise from NEBBE, And I think that what was missing that was one thing.

There's a lot of noise, not knowing who to trust, what was real, what was actually going to work, and also not having something that was too clinical or sterile.

I think there's still a lot of stigma around mental health and wellness.

So how do we create something that feels more everyday and lifestyle and accessible without being overwhelming?

Sometimes there were other I hate talking.

I'm such a cheerleader of everyone.

It's hard for me to even call out a company.

But I will give you an example.

There's a product where you can track everything, or it's tracking everything for you.

Everything is being tracked, you're being told all this information for your like about yourself, but you're not being told how to actually do anything about it, like how do I fix that?

How do I change that?

So if you're tracking tracking but nothing's changing, you're just gathering data, like data without gathering data without action is not necessarily as helpful.

Or it's you're gaining education, but you're not feeling better.

It's not making me feel better.

Right, And there are apps where there's a lot of information, and there's a lot of scrolling, and there's a lot of content and everything is there.

You just have to go find it, right But who has time for that when you're feeling overwhelmed, when you need a reset, when you need like a quick something.

Then that that's not really tangible.

It's not something that we would prioritize if it feels like work, right, so keeping it.

We wanted to find something that that was simple and effective and evidence based and real and felt like it could truly be lifestyle, which is what wellness should be.

We should be incorporating mental wellness into our daily lives.

And I think my I think my last question is like me, because you touched on this a few times, and I want.

To ask more like directly.

It's like there are there's training you have which is like clinical in many ways, and now you're being thrust even further there into entrepreneurship.

Like you've been an entrepreneur, like you've been building things, but like now you like you like all it at this point.

Yeah, Like what is like the mental you know shift you've had to make over the last few months or years on this journey.

Oh man, it's been a it's been a time.

This is probably my most expensive venture, which also naturally comes with a lot of pressure but also time and energy.

To be the clinical lead for a mental wellness APP is a big fee.

I do have support where the process of developing a clinical advisory board, But there's always there's there's there's family, there's motherhood.

There's just any imaginable distraction.

I live in Los Angeles.

We're evacuated during the fires, the fear, the chaos, the neighbors are friends.

There's just so many distracts.

There's so many things constantly happening.

And then in the midst of building this app, over the past year, more and more find trying to find some peace and calm and actually implement the things that we are trying to share in the app into my own life.

I think has been a challenge.

But I do know that there's a season, and I understand there's a season for everything, and we go through different times in our lives where we're going to be pooled in different directions, and maybe in this time in my life has been that direction, and I feel it feels good.

It's very rewarding work to build something that is meant to impact people in such a positive way, it feels kind of like worth the sacrifice.

Black Tech Green Money is a production to Blavity Afro Tech on the Black Effect podcast network in Nighthearted Media.

It's produced by Morgan Debonne and me Well Lucas, with additional production support.

By Kate McDonald and Jada McGee.

Special thank you to Michael Davis and Love Beach.

Learn more about my guess other tech disrupt that's an innovators at afrotech dot com.

Video version this episode will drop to Black Tech Green Money on YouTube, So tap it in.

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Peace and love,