A kind of madness

Mental Health entrepreneurship needs risk – and the will to bear It

I am firmly at the intersection of innovation and mental health. And as an entrepreneurship lecturer and impact investor what I’ve seen again and again is this: people come into this space driven by passion. That’s a strength. But passion alone doesn’t build impactful, scalable solutions. We need to talk honestly about what good mental health entrepreneurship looks like—and where it can go wrong.

I was the catalyst that set up Ember Innovations whose goal is to support mental health and addictions entrepreneurs to succeed—by helping them enhance and scale their impact. A few start-up principles have become clear.

Experience and expertise - two different things

First, mental health entrepreneurship attracts people with lived experience, not necessarily people with startup or commercial backgrounds. That’s great in terms of insight, integrity, and motivation—but it also means many founders haven’t been exposed to the basic principles of startup thinking.

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Here’s where I start when someone brings me their bright idea.

Principle One: Understand the problem before designing the solution

Too many entrepreneurs skip this step. They jump to shiny product design before fully understanding what users actually need. I advise all innovators to sit with the problem. Talk to users. Talk to expert organisations. Don’t assume your lived experience is the whole picture.

If your intervention is digital—and many are these days—it’s even more important to understand why so many mental health apps are downloaded once and never used again. It’s not because they’re all terrible. It’s because they don’t fit users’ lives, habits, or needs. Don’t become just another app. You’re not immune, no matter how clever your tech or how big your budget.

Principle Two: Every idea starts as a bundle of assumptions

Your app, tool, or service is based on a set of guesses: who has the problem (need), what the problem really is, how your solution works, and how you’ll reach your target users. These assumptions need to be tested— quickly and cheaply—before you pour time or money into building something polished.

That testing process is called market validation. Yes, it’s a commercial term, but it’s just as relevant to social ventures. It means deeply understanding not just your users, but also the system your idea will operate in.

Nothing exists in a vacuum. Especially not in mental health.

Principle Three: Acknowledge the risks—and build off-ramps

When you offer something in the mental health space, you’re not just offering a tool. You’re taking on responsibility. Yes there is risk in doing nothing, leaving people unserved —but also risk in doing something poorly. Your chatbot offering positive affirmations might work for someone in a low moment. But what if the user is in acute crisis? What happens when your tool is misused, or misinterpreted?

That’s why every innovation needs an “off-ramp”—a clear pathway that directs people to the right kind of care when your tool isn’t fit for purpose. A journal prompt or motivational message isn’t a crisis intervention. Don’t pretend it is. And don’t assume you’re exempt just because you’re not offering clinical therapy. The line between support and harm can be blurry—and social entrepreneurs need to err on the side of caution.

Principle Four: Don’t build the perfect thing—yet

Before building the sexy, resourced version of your idea, strip it back. What’s the minimum viable product (MVP) that people can use? What feature matters most? Build that, and then co-create with your users. Your best insights will come from people using it in the wild—not from inside your design sprint.

So where does this leave us?

WITH ONE BIG PROBLEM

RISK

Not the risk to users—that’s clear and must be mitigated—but the risk to entrepreneurs. To innovate, you must be willing to fail. But in the mental health space, failure feels loaded—morally and politically.

Fund more failure

That’s why funding models matter. Right now, we only fund what’s already safe, already proven, already known. And known to be inadequate. If we aren’t willing to fund things that might fail, then we’ll never fund true innovation. And nothing will change.

We need funders—government, private, philanthropic—who understand that risk is part of progress. The risk of doing nothing is already playing out in overwhelmed services and preventable harm. A better system will only emerge when we support new models, community-rooted solutions, and preventative tools. And yes, some of those will flop. That’s not failure. That’s how systems evolve.

Ponder this

Entrepreneurship isn’t just for Silicon Valley. It’s a process—a way of realising potential—that can happen in any context: inside government, NGOs, start-ups, or not-for-profits.

For it to flourish in mental health, we need three things:

1.Funding that accepts risk,

2.Systems that allow innovation to plug in

3.A culture that understands failure as a step forward—not a reason to retreat.

The last word: If we only ever fund what already works, we’ll never build what we really need. Have your say, drop your comments in the box below. Are you prepared to risk failure to drive change?

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