Digiburn: burnout treatment

Burnout syndrome is a worldwide health and economic problem, that only doubled after the 2020 pandemic. All over the world university and college students, young and senior professionals, entrepreneurs, healthcare workers, etc. are having trouble coping with work-related stress, resulting in a multitude of symptoms ranging from mild depression to coronary heart disease, type 2 diabetes, etc.

On the economical side, burnout adds between$125 billion and $190 billion in healthcare costs. On top of that, the syndrome costs employers the 'wonderful' estimated price of$322 billion, globally. Furthermore, burnt-out employees are 2.6x more likely to look for employment elsewhere, and hiring a new employee costs employers 34% of the yearly salary for said position.

Companies constantly overlook burnout and fail to view it as an organizational problem, causing pointless 'solutions' like free gym memberships, office pool tables, and other nice-to-haves that do nothing to solve their employees' burnout in the long run, thus, if at all, only pushing the inevitable a bit further down the line. 

Entrepreneurs slide down the slippery slope of overworking and lose their balance, which also could lead to burnout - a problem that is both individual and organizational. 

The world has found itself in a vicious cycle. Organizations are struggling to take care of their employees properly and individuals are paying the price with their health. It's high time for an easily accessible solution to bring change.

Digiburn is Europe's first burnout-centric self-help treatment app. To put it in simpler terms, Digiburn understands the main burnout factors of its users, tailoring down the problem and providing personalized, actionable steps to treat/prevent burnout. Digiburn builds on the premise of a validated grading algorithm, integrated data analytics for progress tracking, and tailor-made interventions for a deep behavioral change. The result is a holistic approach for long-lasting change and a life of joy and fulfillment.

The three-month therapy consists of 3 stages, which get more challenging as you move up:

1. Exploring key areas of physiology and improving resourcefulness. 

2. Taking action.

3. Building precise thinking patterns and doing identity work.

The app lets users track their progress and re-evaluate to keep a close eye on their state.

Digiburn helps users understand and cater better to the needs of their mind and body, ultimately allowing them to design the best version of themselves.

Digiburn could be helpful to anyone in the labor force of the world. Every one of those people is in a position to potentially be underserved by their employers or just their environment. Getting treatment is out of reach for many of our potential users, for some, it's just too expensive, for others it involves long commutes. We bring that burnout treatment to all of these humans and more, providing them with a chance to get balanced with a helpful push from us.

While Digiburn's target could essentially be anyone, we are still at the beginning of our journey, so we have to have some main target customers. As of our current state, we target:

1. Young professionals - driven to get the most out of their potential career, but often get left hanging by their organizations in terms of their mental health.

2. Senior professionals - individuals in the second part of their career, who have taken on many challenges and potentially bit more than they can chew.

3. Entrepreneurs and Freelancers - people led by their own desires and aims, working alone, or leading a team. People whose only form of company structure and task management is their own discipline and devotement, sometimes leading them to overwork, hence burnout.

4. Students, who are overwhelmed by unbelievably high expectations.

Digiburn's AI finds the users' main areas of stress, plus their main bad habits. It helps them understand these issues and/or why they are happening and empowers them to change their own reality. Digiburn aims to help the user switch their mindset and be the best version of themselves. Digiburn helps the user deal with the problem, by providing them with tailored solutions, carefully crafted by clinical psychologists.

Our solution brings burnout treatment help to those inadequately provided with it, if at all. And unlike any professional, Digiburn is actually here for them 24/7, at the tip of their fingertips. All that is required is a bit of self-reflection and a pinch of dedication.

Digiburn's team is multinational. We are based in Bulgaria, but the other half of our team is based in Austria and Denmark. There is also an age range of about thirty years in our team, so we have a firm grasp of different issues. Almost every one of us is in communities, technically prone to burnout. We all work in a start-up. For some of us, this isn't a source of income, but something we devote attention to without getting fast returns. Another part of the team is enrolled in university while working. Because of our solution and our deep understanding of the issue, no one of us is currently underserved. That would be odd. But a major part of the team has had a close relationship with burnout, either from their own experiences, or the experiences of a close person. 

We don't think that's enough knowledge, though. Every day we try to educate ourselves more and hear a different story from someone. The number of people who have gone through burnout is, frankly, huge, so there is always more to learn. 

Talking about burnout and especially admitting to having gone through it publicly is very taboo because some employers notoriously take it as a sign of weakness. We don't stand for that, so we stream and upload interviews with so-called "Burnout Triumphants" from all over the world to our YouTube channel, in the attempt to spread awareness, make people more comfortable talking about it and show the world that burning out doesn't mean someone is weak or lazy, actually the opposite. The people we've interviewed are some of the strongest, most agile people we've talked to and we hope we manage to show that in the videos.

The app is carefully crafted to keep the user first. Naturally, we try to get feedback from 'burnoutees' as much as we can, and their opinion has the most weight for us.

Being selected as Solvers would mean we get to join a beautiful community of like-minded individuals, who think about the future. The networking potential there is enormous. We'd have the ability to hear even more points of view and make our app better. We always strive to look at the problem and the solution from different standpoints, and Solve can bring that to us.

A mentor or partner could give us a totally new lens through which to look at our target market. The value of someone who understands our market better than us is big. 

Of course, exposure can help us a lot. Early adopters are crucial for early on feedback and support.

We also look at Solve as an ability to get funding. We're a start-up after all, so additional funds are always needed.

Our holistic approach to burnout in the form of an app is a world's first. Digiburn will bring accessible burnout treatment to everyone. 

The digital therapeutics market is growing rapidly, presenting the world with big opportunities for accessible healthcare. Getting treatment whenever, wherever. 

We want to build a community around burnout treatment and awareness. Our first goal is helping people, so we hope new ideas and solutions pop up, giving even more options for people in need.

We have three impact goals. The first one, and the one we are currently working towards, is to raise awareness. We want to make sure everyone knows about burnout and has a brief understanding of why and what it causes. 

The second one is to educate people. We want more people to have a deeper understanding of burnouts ins and outs, causes, symptoms, behavioral changes, etc. 

We are going to achieve awareness and education through creating a strong community on the internet, where burnout content, literature, and ideas are flowing around, making people more educated. Social media presence on all types of platforms will help for awareness.

The third and final goal, that will only work if the first two are achieved is prevention and treatment. Through awareness and education, we hope more people create different solutions, more people look for help, and more organizations change their ways. We imagine a world free of burnout, where people live in a balanced way, where employers care for their workers, and where burnout is a completely normal topic to be open and honest about. 

The way we measure our impact is through engagement with us in any form. With every follower we gain, each view on our burnout interviews, every new like, or comment, we have raised awareness. We have achieved the goal of making people talk about burnout. Every new download of the app will mean we're moving on our third goal. Every install represents a human ready for change, striving to improve the way they look at life, ultimately bringing us closer to the world we want to live in.

Digiburn's app provides personalized challenges, strategies and actions for its users to complete, as well as useful information about burnout and general well-being.

By increasing awareness and education about burnout, we hope to remove most of the stigma surrounding it. If the general public starts to understand burnout, naturally more of them will try to self-reflect and assess. Undoubtedly, most times awareness leads to at least some type of action. By Digiburn being available and well-known, which is a goal of ours, it will be an easily accessible tool to reach for. According to this article, a good work-life balance leads to more happiness at work and better employee performance. Not only do workers feel more confident, because of their newfound balance, but companies also benefit by having more effective employees, as a result of an increase in overall confidence.

To incentivize organizations to take care of their employees through Digiburn, it's easy to bring up research that shows employers, who invest in mental health see a return of $4 for every dollar invested. 

Provided Digiburn makes both these outcomes happen, fewer people will be burning out, and more people and companies will be taking proactive measures against it, steadily guiding us to the mission of a burnout-free society.

Digiburn's solution to burnout syndrome is a smartphone application. Our tech stack is:

 Javascript

• Typescript
• React Native
• Node.js
• Firebase Cloud Platform
• Gitlab CI/CD

We respect every human being and try to create the best environment for everyone in our team. 

Digiburn consists of people from 3 different countries (Bulgaria, Austria, and Denmark), aged 18 to 60 years old. Age, cultural, social, ethnic, and racial diversity are really important for us and we will surely diversify more, as soon as we have the need for new workers.

Our team is a great support group, where humans matter and everyone is heard. All team members are respected and welcomed to share ideas, provide feedback, or just talk. We are all equally important to the solution and we make sure everyone feels that way.

We have female leaders in our team, and every one of us is compensated according to our needs and tasks, regardless of age or gender.

We pledged Ukrainian refugees to join our team, and we will always continue to try and provide opportunities to marginalized communities, or simply communities in need.

Our solution provides people with accessible burnout treatment. Digiburn is a burnout self-help app that is there for its users 24/7 to assist them in finding their work-life balance. We provide value through expertise, and personalized content, carefully crafted by professionals to fit unique needs. We have something innovative. Digiburn gives users burnout treatment without hourly rates, stigma, or long commutes. After certifying it as an actual therapeutic through a clinical trial, the app will be the most accessible way to treat burnout syndrome available.

Quoting our first paragraph: "Burnout syndrome is a worldwide health and economic problem, that only doubled after the 2020 pandemic. All over the world university and college students, young and senior professionals, entrepreneurs, healthcare workers, etc. are having trouble coping with work-related stress, resulting in a multitude of symptoms ranging from mild depression to coronary heart disease, type 2 diabetes, etc." All workers can benefit from Digiburn, and a lot of them need it.

Digiburn can be downloaded from the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store. The 3-month treatment costs €24 as a one-time payment. In the future, users will have the ability to get post-burnout support for a small fee.

We plan to get funding through grants, raising investment capital, and selling our product. 

We have been looking for investment for the past 3 months, and currently, we have a letter of intent from a private investor.