Growing Together: What nest Has Learned as a Community
This article is written especially for people building or working in startups within digital mental health. At the same time, we believe that everyone in this space can benefit from these insights, regardless of experience level or organisation size.
As you might already know, nest is an informal initiative. This is a conscious choice. We believe that at this stage, informality creates the most value, especially for learning, connection, creativity and collective progress. By keeping things low pressure, we create space for natural and intuitive conversations that are not driven by performance, but by connection and care.
Inclusivity is another core value for us. nest is free to join because we believe everyone, from early stage startups to established companies, should have access to this space. By removing financial barriers and prestige, we aim to build a community where people meet as equals. nest is, above all, a place to connect people.
Now we want to share what we have learned together as a community, from our calls, from each other and from you. We believe sharing knowledge matters. It helps us reflect on where we started, how we have grown and where we are heading. As Mark Twain once said, “Knowledge becomes wisdom only after it has been put to good use.” For us, this means not just learning, but actively applying insights to build better, more responsible and more human centred mental health technology.
1. The Power of a Collective Approach
One of our biggest learnings is the value of a collective mindset. In many industries, people hesitate to connect with competitors, share insights or collaborate openly. Growth is often approached as something individual rather than shared.
At nest, we want to create space for collaboration. While personal and company growth remain important, we believe progress accelerates when we also invest in collective learning. By building trust and openness, we enable people to support one another, exchange ideas and grow together as a community.
2. Focus on the Process, Not Only the Goal
We also learned how important it is to set goals without becoming controlled by them. Goals can give direction, but they can also narrow our thinking if they become the only measure of success.
What we repeatedly heard in conversations is that progress often comes from staying close to the process. Listening, iterating, noticing what works and allowing intuition to guide early exploration. Growth happens when we focus less on perfection and more on experimenting and learning through trial and correction. It is about daring to go beyond perceived limits.
3. Diverse Perspectives Are Essential
Another key insight is that strong digital mental health tools are built through multiple perspectives working together. Innovation in this space benefits most when different types of expertise come together in meaningful ways.
We learned how valuable it is to involve people with diverse backgrounds throughout the process. Researchers contribute critical thinking and evidence based knowledge. Designers help translate complexity into accessible experiences. Clinicians bring safety and practical insight. Founders and builders contribute momentum and real world constraints. People with lived experience help ensure solutions truly resonate with real needs.
When these perspectives interact, ideas become richer, blind spots are reduced and solutions become more inclusive, ethical and effective. Diversity of thought is not optional in this field, it is essential.
4. Learning Happens Through Real Conversations
Having calls with people in this space creates opportunities for connection, collaboration and faster learning. These conversations help founders avoid reinventing the wheel and help experienced professionals stay connected to emerging needs, new ideas and evolving realities.
They remind us that growth does not happen in isolation. It happens through dialogue.
5. Cultural Sensitivity Shapes What Good Looks Like
We also learned how important cultural differences are in mental health. Communication styles vary across contexts and what feels normal in one setting may be interpreted differently in another.
For those working in mental health tech, this highlights a practical point: good design is not universal. Cultural sensitivity needs to be present in language, onboarding, support and the assumptions we build into products. A one size fits all approach rarely works.
6. Community Building Works Best When It Has Rhythm
nest works because it has openness, but also because it has rhythm. Informality does not mean chaos. It means flexibility, warmth and space, while still creating consistency.
Regular calls, occasional meetups and shared intentions help keep the community alive without turning it into a performance space.
7. What Building Well Looks Like in Mental Health Tech
Across many conversations, one theme kept returning: in mental health, moving fast only works when we also build thoughtfully and responsibly.
First, start with the people you are building for. Involve diverse perspectives early and continue involving them throughout development. Test ideas with users regularly, not only at the end. Early feedback helps prevent costly missteps and ensures tools are understandable, relevant and truly usable in everyday life.
Second, balance creativity with evidence. Innovation thrives when imagination meets scientific insight. Many teams shared how valuable it is to stay evidence informed while also remaining open to new possibilities. Rather than only relying on existing approaches, we can explore where there is still room to grow and what unmet needs remain. This curiosity helps the field evolve in meaningful and responsible ways.
Third, design for trust from the very beginning. Privacy, data protection and security are not just legal requirements, they are foundations of credibility. Especially for early stage startups, regulation can feel complex, but trust needs to be built intentionally from day one.
For teams looking to scale across continents, this becomes even more important. Regulations can differ between regions, which makes collaboration essential. Working closely with legal experts, local partners and regulatory bodies helps ensure solutions remain ethical, safe and compliant across contexts. Scaling responsibly means learning together and adapting, rather than assuming what works in one place will automatically work everywhere.
Finally, keep humans in the loop when using AI. This is increasingly important in Europe with the EU AI Act. Article 14 emphasises human oversight for high risk AI systems. In practice, this means ensuring teams can understand system limitations, monitor behaviour, recognise automation bias, interpret outputs critically and override or stop systems when necessary.
The principle is simple: AI should support human judgement, not replace it. Especially in mental health, responsibility and care cannot be automated.
Final Reflection
We’ll be sharing our reflections twice a year, so you can follow our journey with us and see how we grow over time.
These insights come from many places: our research, conversations within the community, events we attend, and our own experiences along the way. Each interaction adds something valuable. Whether you’re part of nest or discovering us from the outside, your perspectives help shape this shared learning.
We look forward to continuing this journey together.
