October 10, 2021 (San Francisco, CA) - Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States faced a mental health crisis. In 2017-2018, nearly one fifth of the population experienced a mental illness, which marked an increase in 1.5 million from the year before.  Mental healthcare, however, can be expensive and inaccessible. People often have trouble finding the right mental health provider for them, a challenge which increases for people with marginalized identities. In response to these challenges, Blackstone LaunchPad Fellow Jonathan Wang founded Shimmer, an online mental health platform that provides support groups led by peer coaches. After completing the Spring 2021 LaunchPad Fellowship, Jon and his team recently participated in the Summer 21 batch of the prestigious Y-Combinator. Past companies to come out of Y-Combinator include Stripe, Airbnb, DoorDash, Dropbox, and Twitch.

Shimmer has its roots in a mental health crisis close to home: Jon founded the company after seeing the severe effects a lack of mental health solutions had on his community back home.

“I was in medical school at the time,” Jon explains. “I tried to volunteer, I did research, but I just didn’t feel like I was making an impact. I wanted to build something that could help people who are struggling and prevent a lot of the terrible consequences I was seeing amongst my friends.”

He decided to start a company that tackled an area of mental health that was rarely addressed: preventive care. “A lot of services exist that focus on the moment of crisis, but preventative care isn’t as well developed. That’s where the innovation is happening. That’s where we’ll save the most lives.”

Members who join Shimmer are carefully matched with a group of six to eight peers with similar backgrounds and experiences. These groups meet weekly via video chat for hour-long sessions led by a Shimmer’s cohort of diverse peer coaches, called Shimmer Guides. Focused on peer support, the groups aim to create a safe space where people can connect and feel supported. 

Though Jon was interested in entrepreneurship as a high school in Minnesota, his interest remained dormant during his undergraduate years at Stanford and the start of medical school at UCSF. Once he decided to reconnect to his entrepreneurial roots, Jon turned to the UCSF Blackstone LaunchPad for support getting his idea off the ground and participated in the tech focused Spring 2021 Fellowship. 

“The Fellowship was really helpful because we got to meet other founders,” Jon says. “Meeting other founders and feeling like we’re all in the same place was cool — student founders have a unique identity. We have to think about whether we leave school, and we have this combination of ambition and scrappiness that’s unique. It’s definitely motivating to have peers to meet and share what’s going on.”

The Fellowship helped prepare Jon to participate in Y-Combinator. “You learn how to build a business through Y-Combinator. We came out of that so much more knowledgeable, especially about our challenges. We’re readier now than ever to innovate so that we can build a startup that changes how mental health is consumed.”

April 23, 2021 (San Francisco, CA) - IIAM and Shimmer, both UCSF student/trainee-founded ventures, were recently awarded and participated in the Blackstone LaunchPad Fellowship. They were selected from more than 125 nominations across 30 colleges and universities in the U.S. and Ireland. Fellowship founders received a $5,000 grant to support their time working on advancing their technology ventures, as well as other resources, support, and mentorship to help them advance their startup ideas over the 8 week course. The program included regular LaunchPad Campus Director coaching sessions, weekly entrepreneurial workshops organized by Future Founders, as well as two weeks of mentorship sessions with Blackstone employees and Techstars advisors. 

“The UCSF LaunchPad is proud to support UCSF students, postdocs, residents, and recent alumni in their entrepreneurial endeavors,” said Jeni Janci, Director of the UCSF LaunchPad. “The Blackstone Fellowship is a great example of the valuable resources available to propel UCSF ventures by offering development support, expanding their network, and giving greater exposure to investors.”

IIAM (Important Information About Me), founded by UCSF Resident Physician Nikki Jiam, MD, is an innovative and comprehensive patient portability profile mobile app empowering individuals with neurodevelopmental disabilities or complex medical needs. IIAM addresses and organizes all of the pertinent information needed during an initial interaction and long-term clinical care, as determined by the end-users themselves. With a pro-active approach, IIAM provides people with disabilities with a self-generated voice, promoting patient safety and care, and minimizing miscommunication and misunderstanding across all aspects of life. For more information about IIAM or to participate in a clinical pilot study, please check out iiam-health.com or contact Nikki at [email protected]. 

"Through the Blackstone LaunchPad fellowship, IIAM has been connected to other healthcare student founders across the nation through our peer small groups and our UCSF LaunchPad director (Jennifer Janci)," said Dr. Nikki Jiam. "These meaningful relationships provided a critical network for us to exchange resources, seek advice, and to celebrate achievements."

Shimmer, co-founded by UCSF medical student, Jon Wang, is the gateway for young adults seeking mental health services. Shimmer’s facilitated, Slack-like mental health community creates a space for vulnerable conversations and lasting relationships through weekly facilitator-led video sessions, self-improvement workshops, and fun community events. Learn more and join the community at shimmer.care.

Jon Wang noted that "Today, 79% of young adults with mental health issues do not access care. The fellowship helped us structure our process of understanding this problem and what type of solution could provide the most benefit for those in need. Through countless interviews and pilot studies, we come out of the program with a strong belief in our uniquely constructed video-first support communities as an essential part of one's lifelong journey of self-improvement."

The LaunchPad Fellowship convened from March 1st to April 23rd, 2021.