‍Rachel Chalmers:

Today. I couldn't be happier to welcome Dr. Angela Lim to the show. Angela is a serial health tech entrepreneur focused on innovative solutions and a former pediatric doctor at Auckland Hospital. She is the CEO and cofounder of Clearhead, a digital mental health company with a strong social mission to improve access to personalized care for everyone and empower them to maintain their well-being. Clearhead was one of the stars of the Community Safety and Wellness Accelerator, which is operated by AlchemistX in partnership with Alberta Innovates and the Edmonton Police Foundation. 

I'm also very pleased to welcome a past guest back to the show. Ian Bergman was Angela's coach for the Community Safety and Wellness Accelerator. And as I've stepped up to be the president of Alchemist Accelerator itself, Ian is the new Managing Director of AlchemistX. As such Ian will be the new host of this podcast. Ian and I will co-host this episode and then he will carry Innovators Insight into the future. Ian and Angela, it's so great to have you on the show.

Angela Lim:

Thanks for having me, Kia ora.

Rachel Chalmers:

Kia ora! 

Ian Bergman:

It's so great to be here. Thank you so much, Rachel. And thank you, Angela, for joining us. Angela, if you don't mind, I might just jump in and hit you with a first question.

Angela Lim:

Absolutely.

Ian Bergman:

Cool. So you made this leap from hospital pediatrician to co-founding a startup. Where did you find the courage?

Angela Lim:

It was not scary to make the leap. It was scarier to have stayed. I knew really in second-year medical school I didn't want to be a doctor. And it was this constant search… What is the value that I could add to the world that sort of allows me to play at my strengths and what I was passionate about? Which was improving access to care. And when I thought about how I was on this treadmill and it would be very easy to kind of just do the next 10 to 20 years as a doctor. And then you have the sunk cost fallacy and then you never get out. And this whole thing I wanted to do around making a bigger impact will never happen. So yeah, it just got – I was 28 at the time. It was summertime and it was sort of at the start of the new year. And I thought to myself, “It's now or never.” And I just made that leap of faith. And it happened.

Rachel Chalmers:

Medicine has got to be the only career where start-up founder looks like an easier path.

Angela Lim:

No, actually, I would say that running a startup is harder than doing medicine.

Rachel Chalmers:

Yeah, it's very challenging.

Ian Bergman:

So can you tell us a little bit more about what you are working on now, now that you have taken this leap onto the more challenging path?

Angela Lim:

Sure, yeah. I was super passionate about Clearhead, which I founded with Michael, my technical cofounder, in 2018. I think as we continue to go on this journey, the more conviction I have about what we're doing. So Clearhead is an online mental health platform. We use AI to provide personalized mental health support at scale. We do recognize there are limitations to the technology, and so we also weave in sort of being able to see professionals as well that you need to. And then we provide all of that support to employers, including unlocking data insights for them about what's going on and how we can support them to build a positive culture at work.

Rachel Chalmers:

How do you think about walking that line between letting employers express their natural and healthy concern for their employee's mental health and protecting the confidentiality and privacy of people who have mental health struggles?

Angela Lim:

Yeah, I don't think it has to be an either-or. I would say it's a both-and. So, for example, Clearhead as a platform fundamentally protects the privacy of the individual, so nothing identifiable will ever be shared. And so you feel it's like that safe space you can reach out to 24/7. But at the same time, the irony is, of course, employees are often in environments where they might not feel that they can speak up about what they're struggling with, but they don't want to keep being in that environment. So how can we ensure that we also support these employers to do their bit to change the environment while ensuring that the individual does not have to be the messenger that gets shot basically?

Rachel Chalmers:

I wonder whether your experience, having found yourself in a career that was not a fit for you, has made it easier for you to sort of embody that openness to change in the product?

Angela Lim:

Yeah, it's really interesting. I do think part of it is there is a personality trait to this. I have really since I was a kid, loved reading lots of books, loved traveling, and always looking for new worlds that I could immerse myself in and learn from. And actually, I just hired my COO, who is an organizational psychologist, and she, before she started, did a deep dive into the organizational assessment. And we have a team of about 20 people at the moment. And she said one of the key traits she picked up was just that openness to change and the agility to adapt. And that was something that she said is a secret sauce to Clearhead that we'll have to make sure as the team grows, we continue to protect. But a large part of it is us deliberately hiring against those values. Yeah, so that's his point around it being a little bit of a personality trait as well, but I guess the nurture/nature of it can continue as well.

Rachel Chalmers:

I guess I did want to go back to something you said earlier, that you acknowledge the limitations of the AI as a long-time user of mental wellness services myself, I'm acutely conscious that, you know, there are things that a machine can help you do walking through worksheets and so on. But there are things that you need the judicious intervention of a human for, like when a person is in crisis. Can you talk about how you build that sensitivity into the software?

Angela Lim:

Yeah. So as technology evolves, it allows us to continue to improve the sophistication of the responses. But the thing that we kind of make sure we do well, which is part of custom writing our algorithm, is making sure that there are clinical guardrails in place. So we're always fine-tuning the algorithm to make sure that, okay, in this situation, this person needs to speak to someone immediately, in this situation they can wait to be seen, in this situation, they can self-manage. And that triaging aspect is super important to, as you said, make sure that, in the context of health care, these are life and death that we deal with, that we do this properly. It's not just I throw a booking app out there and we can learn from that kind of thing.

Ian Bergman:

That's amazing. I want to explore just a little bit more of the beginning of your journey. We often talk about innovators and corporate innovators,  they see these problems in the world and they want to tackle them. Right? And you jumped out and decided to try and do that. How did you pick this particular problem? Where did that sort of passion and inspiration come from?

Angela Lim:

It just seems to me it probably weaves your question together. So I worked in the hospital and because like I said before, I was searching for what I could add value to since I was in medical school. I have been involved in health technology for more than 10 years, even at a ministry nationwide level around rolling health technology projects out. And one of the things that I recognized was just that in large organizations, they were very risk averse. And so, yes, we were incrementally improving on things, but we were not improving it to a rate or level in which it would truly move the dial. We would still, 20 years later, be facing the same problem. And so basically the reality was the only way for me to see the change I wanted to see in the world was to kind of step out. And then from the first principle, figure out, well, what is the problem I'm trying to solve? What is the outcome I'm trying to achieve, and how am I going to work backward and get there? And to answer your question about mental health, I wanted to... What drove me was to make an impact at the largest scale possible. And there are many things in health like obviously heart failure, diabetes, etc., that lots of people are affected by. But mental health is the one thing that everyone is affected by at some point in their life. And so I felt that if I innovate it there, it would make the biggest difference. And a reminder as well. Like I started this in 2018 before this was fashionable to do so. I did it when nobody wanted to invest in it. Not VCs, not the government, not private employers. Nobody wanted to solve this problem. They just thought it was the individual's problem. And I was like, No, this is a systems failure and we need a systems approach to solve this.

Rachel Chalmers:

Ah, the days before the pandemic; we were all so innocent.

Angela Lim:

We were. It's true.

Ian Bergman:

Oh, I'm just giggling because, yes, we miss that bygone era. 

It is a wonderful story, right, to be able to recognize that when you're sitting inside of a system, you can't always make the adjustments that you want, Right? And you can move out and you can come up with your idea and then impact the system from the outside. So tell us a little bit about the progress that you've made. Right? Because to help the people that you want to help, you do have to partner with the system, as you say. Tell us a little bit about that.

Angela Lim:

Yeah, it's super interesting. I assume both of you would have heard of Crossing the Chasm, and sort of the diffusion around innovation. And the reality was the first couple of years were hard for Clearhead. We took a couple of years to find a product market because initially we tried to sell to the government and that was probably my first mistake. My first mistake was assuming that the government would be early adopters of a technology that even now is still slowly getting social societal acceptance in terms of the use of AI in the real world. And so because of that, we did not make any money for the first two years and we had to kind of say, “Well, let's pivot because we're going to run out of money and the company will die.” And so then we moved into this corporate well-being space. And so in terms of what we've seen since then is just amazing traction. And, in the two years since we've been running, we went from like no customer, no revenue to 15% market share and 9X our revenue in just one year and we're still completely bootstrapped actually. And so I'm so proud of what the team has been able to achieve in doing so. But what it just demonstrates is this clear product market fit where the customer is fully the solution out of your hands.

And now the only thing for me right now, it's like, “Oh, there's so much growth opportunity. The only thing stopping you right now is more capital.” So I could hire more people and get the job done and make sure that we make the biggest impact possible. So I'm excited to see that. And then to your point about partnerships, it's really in the last six months that all the major players you could think of, like big pharmaceutical companies, large insurance companies, large private hospital companies, and these are companies that have millions of patients are now coming to us and saying, "Hey, we'd love to partner with you. How can we get there?" And I'm just completely excited about that next phase of the company because I think I see it all in chapters or phases. And if you have a child, you probably see as they grow from just being this bundle of cuteness to like starting to talk, starting to walk. And so I think we're now at that toddler phase. So maybe, coming into our teenage years where people are like, “Okay, actually you know what you're talking about, let's try to work together and amplify the impact we can make as an ecosystem.”

Ian Bergman:

That's amazing. I think that that narrative is going to resonate with the folks that have children of their own or watching them sort of blossom. But it's also just great – It's just great to hear you talk with passion and conviction about the customers starting to approach you. Right. Isn't that such a nice signal of doing something right?

Angela Lim:

Yes, It's funny because I'm on YouTube all the time listening to people share their startup experiences because it is so hard. And I think one of the things that have helped me through all of this is even when you're succeeding, even when you have product market fit, it still feels like you're being punched in the face. And I think it's because I could ground myself in that: Good things take time. Good things are hard, and that's why most people don't do that. And then actually holding on to the fact that I'm driven by my passion and that I'm seeing results. And this is easily a 10 to 20-year journey. I'm only at the beginning. I think that's what grounds me and that's what keeps me excited.  And the reality is, when you first start out, especially if you're a startup founder, you think that, “Oh, you can't tell anyone about your idea, someone would steal the idea.” And then as you kind of go on, you realize that ideas are relatively abundant.

It would be rare for me to share that Clearhead is solving this mental health crisis. This is how we're solving it. And for people to go, “Oh yeah, I would have never thought of that. It would have been rare to do that.” But to be able to assemble a team, execute against your plan, achieve it in a capital-efficient way, to demonstrate results that give enterprise clients confidence. That is hard to do. And then when you realize that you become less afraid and you become less afraid about sharing it because you realize that it's only through working together that you can achieve these gains. And you also realize that me talking about my idea or you looking at our website, you are only seeing like 1% of everything else that's happening behind the scenes that make the magic. And so I think that those are the reasons why I have only become stronger. My conviction about Clearhead’s ability to truly solve this problem and become a global market leader.

Ian Bergman:

That's amazing. And you're kind of bringing us into a natural segway, right? There are a lot of people out there who are sitting in organizations pondering ideas that they have and are thinking, "Oh, should I take the leap? Should I go create a startup of my own?” Do you have any sort of advice or encouragement for somebody who's thinking about doing that right now?

Angela Lim:

And I will say two things. I'll share the warning first: The startup life can be incredibly glamorized, and if that's what attracts you, I would caution you to kind of think twice about whether this is what you want. Because as I said to you, even when you are succeeding, it will feel like shit. And the second thing is asking yourself: If you don't do this, do you believe that someone else would? Because then if you feel that whatever you're trying to do can be easily replicated, you feel anyone could do this, it might not be worth doing it because then you go down this incredibly competitive route and then you have to then have the perseverance to say, "I'm the one that's going to outcompete everyone else that has also the idea and intuition." And finally, just to say, "I don't wish this on my worst enemy." I say this all the time... "I do not wish this on my worst enemy." You have to really want this. So if you're sitting right now listening in, and you’re like, “I have this great idea, but I don't know if I'm the one to do this and I don't know if things get hard, I wouldn't persevere,” you know? “What about all those moments when the money's going to get tight? Will I be able to kind of push through that? Will I be willing to put my own money on the line for this?” If you don't, at least give yourself that thought exercise and psych yourself up enough to go, “If that situation comes to bear, I will push through, I will grit through it and persevere.” Then I would say, think twice about doing it because it does happen. There is a huge sacrifice. I don't get to see my family as much. I don't get to see my friends as much. I don't get to have as much personal time to do fun things. My life is all consumed by the startup, but this is a choice that I am consciously making and I'm not making it with any resentment. This is incredibly fulfilling for me and is a core part of my identity and it's why I exist in the world.

Ian Bergman:

Thank you. You ask a startup founder for advice and encouragement and you get a little bit of a warning and that's a good thing. But you know, Angela, what I heard you say, is also something along the lines of, "Be sure to search for that inner conviction, search for is this thing going to be part of your personality and your identity?" Is that fair a fair reflection of maybe some of the encouragement you would say?

Angela Lim:

Yeah, because I'm speaking to you now, still on a high about what we're doing, but there are moments where it's really low. And I have many moments, especially the first couple of years before we had any sort of positive feedback that we're on the right track. And where I asked myself, like, “Why am I doing this? Like, you know, like I feel like I'm trying to add value to the wall and nobody gives a shit.” I'm going to swear here, you know. And, then in those moments, you have to dig very, very deep and go, "Why? Why am I doing this?" I am going to also add the caveat that we were very lucky to have an angel investor right from day one. So in those moments, there were two things I leaned on. One was my cofounder. So when I am low, he tries to prop me up and when he's low I try to prop him up. So I definitely suggest doing this not alone. These moments get very dark and lonely and nobody will understand it because most of your friends won't be startup founders. And the second was there was just money in the bank as it just came down to like, “Why would I throw the game now if I still have moves to make?” And until you feel you've run out of moves, you should always keep making it because you never know what one move would then open the next door kind of thing. So yeah, I think to kind of summarize that, we talk about product market fit a lot, but there is also this whole thing around founder market fit. Like why are you the person to solve this problem? What is it that only you could understand, only you could bring with your knowledge, your skills, and your networks that will knit everything together and have sufficient momentum to go from 0 to 1?

Ian Bergman:

Thanks for sharing. So. When you are looking back and you're looking at the span of your career to date and the things that you're doing. What are some of the things that you're most proud of?

Angela Lim:

I am most proud of the team I've built. I guess the third thing I forgot to mention is that I've built a team that I love to bits. And I mentioned earlier in our chat about we did this organizational assessment and one of the things we picked up was the culture of the organization being open and adaptable to change. But the other thing that we also really picked up in the organization assessment was that the highlight for most people is the people they get to work with. Everyone is incredibly smart. You know, there is something about working with players who are aligned in values and vision and you are working like a coordinated Navy SEAL team. And to do that, you have to have an incredible amount of trust and vulnerability with each other, but you rely on each other to kind of do things that you can't do alone. And I think they say something like: “If you want to go fast, go do it alone. If you want to go far, do it together,” or something along those lines. I'm a huge believer in that, and it's been really fun from that perspective. So that's the thing I'm most proud of. The second and along those lines is making sure that the well-being of my people is maintained like none of my team works more than 40 hours a week, even in the crazy hecticness of the startup. So we practice what we preach.

Ian Bergman:

You've given this great advice in the sense of pride. It's the obvious pride that you've taken in building an incredible team. I always love the flip side story. If you had a do-over, what would you do differently? Do you have anything you want to share there?

Angela Lim:

Yeah. I mean, this is also just a lesson for most startup founders to learn, which is very much around... I think sometimes we think that all we need to do is, “Oh, I see this problem in the world, I've built this super cool product and therefore it will all work out.” And one of the things that I wish I did over it would be to be intentional about the business model from day one. I think what I started with was we wanted care to be accessible to everyone. And, for us in New Zealand, it's with socialized medicine and it's the same in places like Canada and Australia. We thought that the best person to purchase our solution was the government. And I think if I understood how government works and the procurement processes, I wouldn't have held on to it for as long as I did, which was two years at which in the lifespan of the startup, we could have made way more traction if I had just pivoted, for example, to corporates much earlier. So I think that would be the one portion that I wish I was more deliberate about is just clearly understanding and validating my business model, even if it's just one customer. Just one person was willing to pay for your product and then you can figure out the rest. But to spend two years not making any money, I would say it's a silly move. Yeah.

Ian Bergman:

Absolutely. So, Rachel and I talk fairly frequently about the trade-offs of working incredibly hard, working smart, and working on something you're passionate about. But I think, you know, we've all been in a position in our lives where we maybe have found ourselves working too hard, maybe have found ourselves on the edge of burnout. You talked a little bit about your team culture in 40-hour weeks and being sane and smart. But you know, how do you think about avoiding burnout? You're running a mental health and wellness startup. So so talk to me about burnout in your life.

Angela Lim:

You know, when I talked about how it's incredibly hard there, I am not immune to burnout and we've run very long bootstrapped with the level of scale that we have. So we are inching towards burnout and recognizing that means that you can put things in place. One, of course, is just to make sure I start capital raising, which I have just started last week. So here we go. And then the second is just making sure you set boundaries. The boundaries you draw will be very personal. Some people can survive on 5 hours of sleep and they would still be bouncing around and be all good. And some people need that eight. So a lot of things with mental health and well-being, including managing burnout, start from whether you've taken the time to deeply understand what you need and making sure you protect that. Nobody can tell you what that is, only you can. And then for me, the two basic things that I do is I make sure that I meditate every morning just to kind of set myself in a moment of calm. I run a few times a week just to kind of release all that energy and feel good with endorphins, etc... And then I take time to spend at least a couple of nights, either with friends or family just to kind of reground myself in that perspective. So those are the things that I use as a way of just taking a break from work. But I acknowledge that I don't do the 40-hour week. I am almost always on, even at a party, which is funny.

Ian Bergman:

It's a lot of mental energy there, but it's really good advice. And I want to come back to something that you just said. You mentioned a couple of times, but you just started capital raising.

Angela Lim:

Yes, that is Yeah, it's the investors are a hard beast to crack. But you know, like I think ultimately it's like you just need one who is who understands where you want to go and can see the conviction that you have and want to be a partner around on the exciting rocketship you're on.

Ian Bergman:

It's amazing. Is this a motivating experience for you? Is this a little bit of a terrifying experience? It's definitely an experience, right?

Angela Lim:

Yeah. I mean, it is terrifying. I am obviously capital raising in a time where free money is gone, you know, interest rates have gone up. There's a lot of uncertainty and people are trying to figure out where they want to allocate capital. And if they do so. But I can't control that. I can't control the wars that are happening. I can't control the financial markets. What I can control for sure is around being able to demonstrate the metrics that will be exciting to investors. Telling a good story and how I'm going to get there and give them conviction. And I have the right team and strategy to win against a competitive landscape. That's all I can control. There is, of course, a broader piece around gender inequality in the VC world, where less than 2% of capital goes to female founders, and even less goes to ethnic or people of color. So, again, I can't change my gender or my ethnicity, but what I can do is demonstrate that we've been able to achieve things above and beyond what the general benchmark is. And that's all I am going out with, and hope that people can understand what I'm trying to do in the world. And I'm excited by what that would mean if I was successful.

Rachel Chalmers:

That's such a healthy mindset in two ways, both in, you know, only concerning yourself with the pieces that you can control and can influence. And in understanding that fundraising is just a search. It's a search for the one fundraiser who is, you know, let's assume out there who is waiting for this pitch, who has an investment thesis that says Clearhead is a company that needs to exist in the world and you're just looking for that person.

Angela Lim:

It was pretty funny. I talked to one of the veteran investors. I don't think he's as active investing anymore, but it's Randy Komisar. He does a little bit of advising to me and it's been super cool because I connected with him a year ago and so he's seen my journey from when I first started thinking about investing, getting investment to now actually going out there. And he said to me “You know, you've 10X in your learning. You know, when I met you, you were passionate about your thoughts were all over the place. I had to kind of rein you in and now you're passionate and you're almost clinical about how you think about how you solve the problem. And that clarity of thought is what will make you a good founder.” And he said to me, "Look, ultimately what you've achieved in the last year, that's the hard bit." The getting investment he called the MBA exercise. I don't know if I would say that so much, but maybe let me get my money first and then I can say it's an MBA exercise. Yeah.

Ian Bergman:

Well, how should folks be following you on this journey? For our listeners who want to engage, connect, or follow your journey from fundraising and capital raising and beyond, what's the best way to do that?

Angela Lim:

I'm pretty active on LinkedIn, so if I'm there, it's just. Angela Lim running the company, Clearhead. If you're interested in employee well-being solutions, do not afraid to plug my company, we can help you. And just follow us on social. We provide little nuggets of gold there, and hope to be able to 1) encourage where any founder that is listening to your podcast to keep going if this is what you believe in and hopefully also shed light on the reality of what it means to run a company. And so it's buyers beware if you're looking at coming in.

Ian Bergman:

And you know, we have this wonderful audience of innovators who are always looking for opportunities to improve operations and, you know, within their organizations and partnerships. So, folks, keep your eyes out for opportunities to talk to someone like Angela and Clearhead. 

Angela, let's look forward let's look beyond your capital raise: We're curious about what you think the future looks like for you personally. And then also as you look at your industry?

Angela Lim:

Personally, I am ready for my next chapter. I think the North American market is exciting, so I plan to move there in the new year. So that's a bit of a change on my end. I think, unfortunately, that the mental health of people is only going to get worse, and that's just because of the level of uncertainty that we face in the world today and also the changing demographics And that expectation. When you look at millennials and Gen Z, they are bringing their whole self to work and they are also expecting support for that whole self at work. So it's not just “I hate my boss,” but “I don't know if I find purpose in my life. I don't know if like my relationship with my mom is going well.” They're bringing all of that. And most managers and people leaders are not prepared for that at all. And so we are excited to build to have a solution to support that. And that to me, means that if we know every company is going to be struggling with this and every individual was going to be struggling with how to maintain resilience and well-being in what's going to come over the next five to 10 years, I find strength in being part of the solution and not the problem.

Ian Bergman:

Amazing. Thank you. Rachel, what else should we have asked Angela here?

Rachel Chalmers:

If you could wave a magic wand if everything in the next five years in the industry goes your way, what does the world look like?

Angela Lim:

Oh, yeah. I was thinking a little bit about what our brand stands for, and I realize our brand stands for Empowering Growth. So maybe if I give you a couple of more famous examples, Apple, for example, their brand is about thinking differently, and Airbnb is about staying anywhere or belonging anywhere or something along those lines. And so Clearhead is about empowering growth. And when I thought about what that meant, what it means is that through our product, we empower the personal growth of individual users to be able to develop themselves mentally, spiritually, and emotionally in terms of the skills that they have to deal with the uncertain world that we live in. It means the growth of companies, because if you can empower your people, then they are the magic of what makes great companies. And then if and then of course, because we also have a therapist network globally, you know, empowering them to make a bigger impact because we've stripped out all the inefficiencies that come from their practice through working with us instead. And so that was, for me, a recent crystallization of what the clear hit brand stands for and doing all of that through guidance. You know, you don't you're not alone in all of this. We will guide you through this process. It is hard. It's the things to do as simple, but they're not easy to do if that makes sense.

Rachel Chalmers:

Thank you for that very clear-headed vision of the future.

Ian Bergman:

Well, Angela, so I'll turn the same question back over to you. This has been a really fun and wide-ranging conversation. We've had some great topics, and I think there are some great takeaways for our listeners. What else should we have asked you or what else would you like to throw into the ether while we're together today?

Angela Lim:

No, I think. I think you were able to tap my motivation, what I'm excited about, where I see my role, and the role of Clearhead in the role. And I hope I've given enough concrete examples and tips for people listening as they run their startup or think about running their startup, or think about partnering with startups is that it is hard to innovate from within and so be open to looking at the ecosystem and giving startups a chance to to be a meaningful player in the ecosystem.

Ian Bergman:

There's a wonderful closing sentiment for the Innovators Inside podcast. It is challenging. There is innovation that is all around us. It's happening here with Angela and with Clearhead. Angela. We can't wait for you to come over and join us in North America. Continue to grow your business and your traction. I'm really excited. And thank you so much for joining us.

Angela Lim:

Thanks, Ian, and thanks, Rachel. It's been a blast.