The TeleWellness Hub Podcast

Meet The Startup Working on Making Mental Health Care FREE and On-Demand

• Martamaria Hamilton

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Guest host Sandhya Nagabhushan,  LPC interviews Marta Hamilton, founder of TeleWellness Hub, as she shares her journey creating a revolutionary digital platform connecting users with mental health providers and their content in one centralized location. This provider-built platform offers a unique approach to mental wellness accessibility, showcasing therapists as individuals while giving clients free access to find their ideal provider match.

• Telewellness Hub instantly connects users to mental health providers and their content without barriers
• Marta's motivation stems from her experience as both provider and client in the mental health field
• Building a tech startup requires significant resources and learning to navigate the tech industry
• Setting intentional boundaries between work and personal life is essential to avoid burnout
• The platform humanizes therapists, allowing potential clients to get to know providers before scheduling
• Telewellness Hub's vision includes transforming the broken mental health system through provider collaboration
• The platform differentiates itself by being built by providers for providers, preserving practitioner independence

Thank you for listening! Visit TeleWellnessHub.com to explore our platform and connect with mental health providers who match your needs.


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Speaker 1:

Thank you for coming on board today to listen to our podcast. Today we have our featured speaker, Marta Hamilton, who is the founder and creator of Telewellness Hub, a digital platform startup revolutionizing the experience of access to mental health and wellness providers. Telewellness Hub instantly connects users for free to mental health wellness providers and their full range of content, offering on-demand access and flexible options for provider appointments and their services beyond therapy educational videos, podcasts, provider-created products and resources all in one powerful digital hub. Welcome, Marta, thank you for coming on our show today.

Speaker 2:

Thanks so much for having me and for this wonderful introduction.

Speaker 1:

Yes, thank you. And before we get started, I would like to hear a little bit from you and your personal journey of why you do the wellness work that you do.

Speaker 2:

That is a good question. I'm used to asking that question to others, so it's so interesting kind of having that flipped right. I think my why is a combination and, I think, cumulative experience as a student, as a provider, as a therapy client, as someone who has walked life as a single mom, as a mom, as a wife, as a sister. I think mental health and wellness touches so many aspects of our lives and it's such a critical part of, for me, of living right.

Speaker 2:

This sense of like wellness is so important and it's unique to every individual and unique to different phases of life and different aspects of ourselves. And I just found that I really felt that there is nothing like knowing that you can impact someone's life, like the work that you're doing is creating this meaning and instilling hope for their future, and that is a really priceless experience. That's. You know, unless you're a provider, you don't necessarily you can experience it perhaps in other ways, you know, as a friend, helping other people navigate, but as a provider, it is so rewarding to really get to experience that shift, that change, that inspiration, that hope, and that is why I keep doing it instead of something else right, because we all have these options for what we do in our career and I just I feel really confident that I am aligned in the field that I've been.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely, and if I could just mirror your sentiments, being a therapist myself, it's such a rewarding feeling to be in the field to heal others, to make an impact on their lives, and even in with through our podcast, having others listen to the different providers and the different guest speakers and how the impact of wellness recovery affects their lives every day. It's just such a rewarding experience. So thank you for kind of explaining a little bit about your journey. I want to hear more from you, marta, on specifically did you anticipate the kind of the power or the how much Telewellness Hub has taken off? The power or the um, how much tele-wellness hub has taken off? Did you anticipate it would be this kind of such a? Um, huge experience and a huge platform to give others to speak on these topics?

Speaker 2:

Honestly, if I was very honest.

Speaker 2:

No, I think I stepped into tele-wellness hub a little bit naive of what, of what all, what it would entail and where it would lead me and the types of conversations and platforms that I would be connecting with.

Speaker 2:

I thought I saw a need for us as providers, for a tech-centered a health tech-centered platform that allowed us to make a greater impact when it came to our clients, whether it's through offering a transformation in how we do our work, right to be able to see more clients, to be able, beyond our zip code, right like other directories, or to be able to offer services outside of one-on-one therapy, to be able to showcase that we have workshops or products, to be able to showcase our multiple disciplines that we might do if we are doing coaching and therapy or consulting and therapy, and so I thought let's just see if we can make this, and there have been lots of ups and downs and learning curves and a lot of resources, time, my mental space, like I'm always thinking about telehealth, and I did not anticipate that it would lead me to, you know, pitch competitions and discussions with investors and learning, really being in the kind of the tech field, being in this tech startup world.

Speaker 2:

It's so different than private practice, so I didn't I, I just kind of leaped into it, not really, not really fully knowing what it all would entail, but it's been a fun journey so far, yeah.

Speaker 1:

Awesome and with all the different hats that you just kind of pointed out, you know, being a single mom, being a sister, being all the different roles that you've taken on Tell me what keeps you grounded in this realm, in this industry?

Speaker 2:

That is a good question because I think there are days that it changes. I think I have a wonderful family, like I'm very close. I'm very fortunate that I'm very close to my, my family, my parents, my, my brother, who works in the tech industry, so he's been really helpful, like in marketing and giving me his insight, even when I don't want to, like I don't want to necessarily hear it right, like, hey, your website is down or you need to fix this link or you need to do X, y and Z and it's things. It's it's encouragement and balance and having people who are looking out for your, for, for what you're building, but also for yourself. I have an amazing husband now, um, I, you know, I have my daughters, and so I think I've had to be really intentional about how I used my time.

Speaker 2:

I think, once I learned to really block off chunks of time that I knew were going to be for either myself like making sure I went to yoga, for example is like that's what helps me or I literally had a block off, like walking my dog and just being outside walking my dog, listening to music for fun, listening to podcasts for fun, and being really intentional about, um, staying connected with, with people that know me, um, and people that I I care about, being able to ask them what's going on in their life, right, and friends, family.

Speaker 2:

That has been what has been really helpful in um, helping me feel less chaotic, because when you're on your own business whether it's private practice, right, or you're launching a different startup it's so easy to never turn it off, like there's always something you could be doing right, like there's always something you could be doing. And I think, by being really mindful of my time, I think that was like the best way for me. Like, okay, it's time to turn off that part of my brain, it's time to turn off that part of my like role and it's time to turn on just, you know, going to yoga time, to just family movie night. It's time to just be okay with not being productive right now, because in slowing down, I found that I became more productive because I wasn't working from a place of burnout. I was able to work from a place of, you know, a refreshed mind and spirit.

Speaker 1:

I love that you speak on that because I think in today's society we're always built to just go, go, go and you know school work, take our kids to other activities and it's always such a fast paced kind of competitive environment and to produce and excel. So I love that you kind of brought that intersect there like being mindful and understanding that our time is very valuable and to turn off those you know, leave work at work, and to leave whatever obligations that may be ruminating in our head, leaving it at work and not taking it home with us. So I love that you kind of illuminated that experience and how it works for you. Did you imagine that you would, five years ago, looking back on this project? Did you imagine that it would take off the way it did and expand the way it has? And what are your dreams maybe for?

Speaker 1:

the next vision on board.

Speaker 2:

So yeah, five years ago this wasn't even necessarily on my radar yet, but like close to five years it was I knew that I wanted, like my private practice was very focused on integrative services. My private practice was named integrative solutions center.

Speaker 2:

So, my idea was I really wanted to bring um. I had neuropsych, I had counseling, I had yoga. I just I just really believed that there was I guess it was in the works that an approach to helping any potential client find the care that they needed in one central place. That was always something that I had envisioned and it just ended up being through technology. I did not anticipate the on like. We were able to onboard 700 providers. We've had interest. What's been the hardest thing for me, if anything, is not being able to anticipate, I guess, from like, the technology standpoint, how much I needed to create. Well, first of all, it it takes cost a lot of money to create a custom web application. I I didn't anticipate that. If I'm honest, I'm gonna just be really candidly I thought oh we can do

Speaker 2:

this, like on WordPress or make a website, and I learned it is not that easy, like this is a whole platform, and so I had to, I had to really so. I had to. I had to really so in order to, in order to execute the vision and the dream and what I know this can be in the future. I had not going to. I cannot, I'm not going to charge them right now. I need their input. Let's build something with their input.

Speaker 2:

I had to be okay with that because the vision for what's to come is like so amazing. I I had to learn from you know where we started to where we are now, because we went through iterations where we realized, okay, we need a platform that's as powerful and built on the same technology as Netflix and Airbnb, because, for all these listings, for all the searching and I had, and that's what we did, like we're, that's what, what, that's what's happening right now in the backend and I'm very excited because it's going to be. It's going to be amazing. It's going to be a mix of providers being able to really find freedom. There's other platforms out there, but I think what makes Telewellness Hub different is that it's built by a provider for providers and like even us as providers, coming together right To have these conversations and and really showcase individual providers so that you're not another number in a big tech company.

Speaker 1:

Exactly.

Speaker 2:

You're not like a contractor or an employee of Telewellness Hub. You run your practice and you have the freedom that you want. And basically, I have this. I now have an amazing technology team that has worked for like big corporations who can build the platform that we all wish existed, so as providers. So I'm I'm very excited for what's to come, because now we will have the ability to, I guess, keep up with, keep up with these other platforms with keep up with these other platforms in in the health tech space that maybe aren't created by providers and they have their, their usefulness and I'm grateful for them in many ways.

Speaker 2:

But I think, like, for our future for mental health and wellness, we need someone who's and I call it's not just me, it's not me, it's like a collective, it's all just me, it's not me, it's like a collective, it's all the providers who have, like seen a part of the vision and are on board Like collectively. We need us together to create this platform so that we can mobilize and be able to to have a voice in in the mental health and wellness industry, so that we can also, in doing so, empower our clients, because we know their needs, we know what needs to be done in this mental health system that is very broken. It's very broken, and so that's my dream, that's my vision, and I I see it coming to life slowly, like brick by brick, because it was know I'm not backed by like a big venture capitalist firm that you know it's been slow and steady, and but now we're here, so now it's it's time. The big reveal is going to be huge.

Speaker 1:

Well, we're so excited to be on board with this tele wellness hub podcast. As you know, I've been a guest speaker a couple of times and many of my friends are fans of this platform and kind of the vision that we have on board. I'll just have to say it's been a humbling experience to be part of this community as well, because you know it's such a demand for what we need having providers connect with others. The topics that you speak about on these podcasts are really like hot button issues and things that people can really relate to on everyday levels. Just out of curiosity, where did you kind of get this? Where did you kind of get this passion for this intersect, for this, for this platform?

Speaker 2:

Well, I think you know I've been a private practice owner myself. I've been a group practice owner myself. I understood the pain points and the struggles of being able to share your voice while you're also seeing clients. Right, like that's, your main priority is your client. And you know, sometimes there were days I was in session back to back eight to eight. You know those were my long days and on Wednesdays, wednesdays, I saw clients eight to eight and you know you're just hoping you have time to eat lunch and you know, call people, make your documentation and respond to insurance and questions that they have and different things with different providers. I just thought like wow, what an amazing person, colleague.

Speaker 2:

I felt like really inspired and encouraged and motivated by each encounter that I thought if we, if we can just showcase and highlight and give, give a spotlight to this person of what they're doing where they don't have to do worry about like how do I go about that myself?

Speaker 2:

Right, because, like I said, like you're just trying to figure out, how do I make lunch for myself, like make time for lunch sometimes, I mean truly if we can figure out a way to make it easier for providers to do the wellness work that they do, and also easier for potential clients to get a glimpse as to what a provider is like, like even their mannerisms, right, like when searching for a therapist, you're like I don't know, I guess I'll Google them and you don't know what it's going to be like working with them.

Speaker 2:

But how nice to get a little inside glimpse as to you know what they, what their expertise is because they talked about it on their podcast episode their history, their viewpoints. It brings an openness that I think is necessary in the mental health and wellness field to take away some of that stigma, to make it approachable. And it's a platform where potential clients don't have to pay and sign up to register. They can freely search and find their ideal provider. So in doing that, that's a win for a provider too, because you want to have the ideal client find you and you want to be the ideal provider for your client. So, um, there's just a lot there for for what's driven my passion. But I think my experience as a provider, um, in private practice and as a therapy client client myself, ultimately is the main thing that has propelled this forward.

Speaker 1:

Yes, and to your point.

Speaker 1:

I really love how Telewellness Hub really just gives an opportunity to humanize us as therapists, because I think sitting in the client role, they don't get to know too much about the therapist. It's not actually a dual relationship here, it's actually one relationship that's very one-sided. So when you see our speakers on Telewellness Hub, you really get to know them on a personal level, what they're passionate about, what their dreams are, what humanizes them, and I think that I love how we have that opportunity to get to know the therapist on board. So that is the right fit for both the therapist and the client. Well, martha, I want to thank you so much for being on our podcast today and being on our wellness journey. As always, you've been a leader in our field and I really appreciate you coming on board to share a little bit about how you got started with Cal Wellness Hub. And thank you, listeners, for being part of our show today.

Speaker 2:

Thank you so much, it was a pleasure.