Who is Tina Beilinson Keshani?
Tina Beilinson Keshani is the Co-Founder and CEO of Seven Starling, a digital platform making high-quality mental healthcare more accessible throughout the motherhood journey. She is a strong believer that companies can be a force for good in the world. After spending six years at Warby Parker, Tina’s experience lies in scaling high growth startups and building customer-centered digital care experiences. Tina has a MBA from Harvard Business School and a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Denison University.
What is Seven Starling?
Seven Starling is a digital platform making high-quality mental healthcare more accessible throughout the motherhood journey. With specialized therapy, peer support, and medication management, Seven Starling uses the most effective, proven methods to treat common maternal mental health conditions like postpartum depression and anxiety.
What inspired you to start your company?
I’m originally from Kazakhstan and my family was granted asylum and immigrated to the US when I was six years old. In order to make ends meet, my parents became entrepreneurs by necessity and prioritized hiring other recent immigrants in our community. Seeing them take control of their own destiny while giving back was deeply inspiring to me. I always knew I’d take the entrepreneurial path of my own — it was just a matter of when.
My Co-Founders Sophia, Julia, and I met while we were studying at Harvard Business School. We bonded over our shared passion for the women’s health space and saw maternal care as one of the biggest problem areas of the women’s health space: the US has the worst maternal health outcomes of any developed country and the highest cost of care. My Co-Founders and I had close friends and family who were going through the motherhood journey and we were shocked by the lack of support available to new mothers during the postpartum period and beyond.
What is the most important life, career or startup lesson you’ve learned and who (or what) taught it to you?
Don’t be afraid to make big changes! It’s important to realize when iterating around the edges is not enough to achieve your desired outcomes. The best startups are comfortable constantly reinventing themselves and adapting to their customers needs. Disrupt or be disrupted!
How will your company change the world?
Seven Starling is a digital maternal mental health clinic that specializes in treating common perinatal mood and anxiety disorders like postpartum depression and anxiety. Our model combines specialized providers, group support, and medication management (as needed) to drive best in class outcomes, where 92% of our patients felt better within 2 months.
Our mission is to reduce the barriers for women to get the mental health care that they deserve. We see a huge opportunity to become the trusted partner for women’s mental health across other critical life stages, including parenthood and beyond.
What is one thing you wish you’d known at the start of your startup journey?
Focus on the problem, not the solution. In the early days, it’s so easy to get attached your vision of what the solution should be instead of what your customers are saying. This is especially hard when you’re not yet launched / pre-revenue. As much as you can, try to ruthlessly test your MVP, even if it’s just walking prospective customers through a demo landing page and getting their feedback. Document your key insights and focus on what the data is telling you.
Why do you do what you do?
More than 1 in 3 women experience anxiety or depression in the prenatal period, and 85% of those suffering from these conditions don’t receive treatment. Without necessary treatment, these mental health conditions can lead to worse birth outcomes, negatively impact an infant’s development, and delay or prevent working mothers from returning to the workplace, which contributes to an additional $14B in healthcare costs each year. Last year, the CDC reported that the number one driving factor of maternal death in the US are untreated mental health conditions. We must do better.
Where do you go for inspiration?
Our patients and providers! We conduct ongoing interviews with our patients and providers to identify issues and identify new opportunities for expansion.
Why Graham & Walker Loves Seven Starling
Tina, Sophia, and Julia are the right people to be solving this problem, and each brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise. These are outstanding founders whose skill sets complement each other well. We also believe Seven Starling could be a leader in the women’s mental health space and significantly impact women and caregivers while they navigate the most meaningful transitions in their lives. We’re proud to have Seven Starling in our portfolio!
