OpenMind 2020 in reflection: A year of gratitude, patience and openness to change

Thank you to all those that have supported OpenMind since our inception in 2018 and through the challenges of this year. There are too many of you to name, but know that I am truly grateful to you all.

What a year it has been. Like others, it has felt like an emotional rollercoaster. For OpenMind we have definitely had numerous low moments, however, there have been great moments too.

I have had to ask for help many times, and I can wholeheartedly say we could not have got through it without the support network of friends, family, advisors, mentors, partners, clients, wellbeing partners and various communities. 

We’re here, stable and have some exciting plans for 2021. Part of these plans includes merging with LUX to create an even better experience for all our users and importantly creating more opportunity to make wellbeing much more accessible to both workplaces and individuals. More on this later. 

Reflecting on the last 12 months: Some stats that amazed us

We've believed in collaboration and partnership since day 1. This year has certainly accelerated this more than ever. We have formed over 200 partnerships with wellbeing partners across the UK and organisations that focus on adding value back to their existing workplace clients by now offering wellbeing services through our partnership.

• Over 1 million minutes of wellness consumed by registered attendees of OpenMind delivered sessions
• 1000+ sessions delivered
• 25,000+ registered attendees to sessions
• 1000s of pieces of positive feedback and wellness check-ins
• We co-created a programme with our friends at Connected 2 to support lorry drivers who are often isolated in their cabs driving for hours at a time. This is still in Beta but is providing value and ongoing support. The Connected 2 team are driving (pun intended) this forward to support drivers' wellbeing and build a supportive community. 
• 90+ Charity / pro-bono sessions delivered, with over 2000 participants from over 300 organisations. Thank you to all our partners for supporting and volunteering their time.

Projects we hadn't expected during this time: focusing on Local Teachers

"kind to your body. kind to your mind. kind to your community"

In collaboration with KIND and 10 local wellbeing partners, we created content for their campaign in London and Manchester.

Centring around local communities and teachers is what we loved about this KIND campaign, it is all about creating a connection to local wellbeing partners. 

Sticking to our purpose, values and mission 

Our commitment to our mission kept us going. It allowed us to take the risk to keep adapting, moving forward with the services we offer and creating positive impact. With this year having been so turbulent, we see that workplace wellbeing will only continue to become more essential for employers and employees. It will be pivotal to use technology as an enabler, to remove barriers and reach people in need.

Focusing on value and people first. We listen. We listen and understand a workplace's unique challenges around inclusion and wellbeing, and then offer suggestions, guidance and strategy to fit their budget. If that means using OpenMind services, great! In some cases that may mean not right now, but that's fine too. On multiple occasions, we've signposted to 'competitors', where they might be able to offer a better option for the required needs. We focus on how we can have a lasting positive impact, not a quick sale. HR Directors and/ Wellbeing Leads come back to us, to be a sounding board to check their ideas and strategy. 

Understanding the key barriers to entry for wellness services. Both to workplaces and individuals, it's TIME and MONEY. If we can solve these barriers, we will see more leadership support and investment into wellbeing. Our mission from the start, has been to make wellness accessible to all workplaces and people.

The emotional rollercoaster: Entrepreneurial life…. the good, the bad and the lonely

When I decided to focus on building a technology-enabled wellness company, I knew full well about the potential costs and challenges we would run into with tech. I was focused on the mission and continued. There are so many people and companies that supported us and me in different ways this year. I can only express gratitude to you all.

• Whether that was phone calls of support, helping us with marketing and creating videos, coaching, mentorship, someone to vent or talk too.
• All the clients that recognise our value, trust us to support their employees and continued to partner with us - big and small. I'm pretty transparent so most know how much it means to us.
• Importantly all the wellbeing partners that are going on this journey with us.
• The continued trust from our developers and product partners at ucreate – Neem our main developer (I don’t know where we would be without this man! He has been the glue on the tech side) as well as Sahil and Dan! 

The lows

• 11th March 2020 where we had received emails/calls to cancel sessions due to Covid.
• Prospective investors pulling out at the start of Covid. I lost my confidence in raising capital and I had to choose between trying to invest all of my energy in raising capital or focusing on keeping the business going and pivots.
• Just missing out on an Innovate UK grant and not being eligible for most other available grants.
• Running out of cash in the bank when we spent a little more on development than we should have. But a risk worth doing to ensure we kept relevant and moving forward.
• The uncertainty of Covid made it hard for our clients to plan or some were not ready to adopt virtual sessions. 

The good 

• The impact we've had – the feedback, sentiments, gratitude.
• The communities and people we’ve met.
• Honing our resilience and making it through. 
• New hope as we merge and having the opportunity to create something even better!
• Being invited to multiple enterprise tenders. Learning from them and validating our proposition.

Merging and building something even more impactful

We are completely obsessed with finding product-market fit and how we can better support you (employers, employees, wellbeing partners) since our inception and this has directly shaped our development journey. 

With Covid, we have seen the wellbeing market become flooded with various wellness subscription-based offerings, apps and other stuff – some really good, but some questionable around the value, quality and impact. Covid has lead to a number of pivots for everyone, for us it has led us to merge with LUX Rewards – to create LYFE. 

LYFE will empower OpenMind's values of community, accessibility and impact. OpenMind will be a defined Product within LYFE.

What does this mean for us? We can continue to build, grow and support you and others who may not have access to wellness services. There are lots more exciting outcomes but we'll save this for the New Year. (OpenMind services will continue as normal in January).

Feel free to follow the OpenMind Linkedin to stay up to date with updates :).

Personally (Ash)

My own mental health and physical health certainly has been tested, I am a big believer in the impact of social interaction on sustained mental and physical health. Something I think many people can resonate with.

This year I joined a community called Positive Transformation Initiative led by Dan Brown focused on creating positive impact for young people, returning citizens and veterans. This has been fantastic to be part of and to see impactful projects develop.

I am very excited for 2021, not only because we are looking forward to sharing what we have in store with OpenMind / LYFE to move the dial forward with accessible workplace wellbeing, but also because I am looking forward to getting married in the summer :).

Wishing you all well and I look forward to speaking with many of you in 2021.

Ash