We Built a Crisis App in 24 Days That Has Helped 50,000+ People

Mikhail Kelim and Vera Kelim

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Published: December 18th, 2023

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Mikhail Kelim and Vera Kelim

Founder, Faino

Founders

Faino

faino.help/ru/main

from Waterloo, ON, Canada

started March 2022

Founders

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Tilda

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Sentry

MindMeister

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We are a married couple, Mikhail Kelim and Vera Kelim, and we are the two founders of Faino.

I am the CEO, Vera is a leading psychologist.

Faino started originally as a volunteer initiative designed to aid people in crisis situations. However, our product has unexpectedly expanded its reach, finding widespread use in everyday life scenarios well beyond its initial target audience.

Mikhail is a serial entrepreneur. He co-founded Prian - a leading Russian-language aggregator of foreign real estate, and Kolesa - a digital media focused on the automotive sector.

Vera is a crisis, parent, and child psychologist. She founded the psychological aid department in a large federal hospital for child patients and their parents.

Our goal is to change the culture of interaction with stress, as stress is something all of us can manage.

We are building digital solutions that help individuals quickly cope with stress, anxiety, and emotions 'on demand', and gradually improve stress resilience. These tools aim to help users regain the ability to make decisions, take action, or relax in both everyday life and challenging situations.

One of our users, Juliya, expresses it this way:

"I quarreled with my teenage daughter. I couldn't recall when we had such a fight last time. I used Faino. I felt better. Probably, I'll go and hug her❤️ Strangely, I knew all these self-help techniques but forgot them because of my anger. Faino reminded me how I should act."

Our initial product, called the Faino bot, is a free psychological support chatbot on Telegram designed for people in crisis situations.

It has been developed in collaboration with an international team of crisis psychologists. Working together, we have selected and prepared effective techniques for emergency psychological self-help. It is available in six languages, including English, Hebrew, Russian, and Ukrainian.

More than 53,000 people have used it, with 74% of them reporting immediate stress relief after using Faino.

Faino has been in operation since March 2022. Originally, we wanted to help everyone affected by war, including people in war zones, refugees, volunteers, and those who are physically safe but are experiencing stress that affects their ability to function normally.

Since its launch, we have received multiple user reviews, which prove our product is sought-after and efficient far beyond crises. Faino helps people pull themselves together before exams, interviews, or public speaking, not lose their temper during work discussions or domestic arguments, cope with procrastination, and sleep better after a difficult day. Thus, we decided to create a commercial version of Faino, maintaining the core functionality free for everyone in need.

Our goal is to change the culture of interaction with stress, as stress is something all of us can manage.

Ideally, as another user, Elena A., describes:

“'It is such a miracle, like a pocket friend. You don't even need to call your mom in stress and bother her. Here it is, so simple, like walking "hand in hand" step by step, it will put you back in order. It helps me, and I wish I had something like this before🙏❤️”

What's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?

Vera Kelim:

In my "normal life", I am a child and family psychologist. I also work with people who are facing crisis situations: the unexpected death of a loved one, being admitted to intensive care, the birth of a child with congenital diseases, and more. Many people know about my experience, and that I can be there for them in the most harrowing moments.

In the very first hours of the war, I was flooded with calls from people I knew. I also posted my contact information on social media, so that everyone who needed support could call. But it wasn't enough.

We want people to receive support, and to make it easier for them to navigate through their most difficult moments so that they can come out of them as mentally healthy as possible.

I spent days working around the clock with those who called, doing whatever I could to help. A huge thank you to my colleagues - numerous psychologists from various countries who also willingly helped people without charging a fee. That was admirable. But it wasn't enough either.

My soul ached, especially for those who needed moral support right now but could not receive it because of their physical location. Many of these people were either in cities that were under fire, in a bomb shelter, or at the train station waiting to be evacuated.

A few days later, my husband asked if there were any recurring patterns, exercises, or phrases that I was using. We discussed that crisis psychological support has very clear goals and that there are not that many methods to achieve them. The idea of creating an app or a bot instantly came up.

Unfortunately, we cannot eliminate war and trauma, and it is impossible to live a life without stress. But we want people to receive support, and to make it easier for them to navigate through their most difficult moments so that they can come out of them as mentally healthy as possible.

Mikhail Kelim:

Before launching Faino, I was in the midst of a gap year, following an exit from my former company. Having recently immigrated to Canada, our primary concern was settling into our new country. However, on February 24th, the war in Ukraine began, deeply shocking our family. Many of our friends and relatives in Russia, Ukraine, and around the world were directly affected by this. Like many, we were driven by a sense of duty to assist those impacted by this conflict.

With Vera's expertise as a crisis psychologist and my background as a tech entrepreneur, we were uniquely positioned with the necessary knowledge, experience, and network.

I may not have experience in creating chatbots, but I've successfully ventured into new areas to create products before. Moreover, my education in psychology enhanced my ability to engage productively with Vera on this complex project.

This gave me the confidence to try. Essentially, I founded Faino looking to make the most significant and positive impact possible. Simply put, given our backgrounds, not creating Faino would have felt inexcusable.

Take us through the process of building the first version of your product.

Mikhail Kelim:

We recognized the need to launch Faino promptly after the war in Ukraine started since early mental health intervention can be pivotal in mitigating the consequences of traumatic experiences. Only 24 days passed between the moment we decided to launch and us receiving our first user's thank-you note.

Initially, we had no team, only our resources. Yet, thanks to connections in our network, postings on social media, and engagement with tech and entrepreneurial communities, we assembled an international team of 20+ members within a week.

Psychologists, software developers, UI/UX specialists, designers, QA experts, translators, editors, and many others immediately volunteered. It was a miracle watching how many people were eager to help other people.

Our team was distributed in many countries around the world in different time zones, which allowed us to work non-stop. For example, I would set tasks for developers late at night, and in the morning, I would review and accept the work.

While crafting a chatbot might seem straightforward on the surface, ensuring its effectiveness and safety requires top-tier expertise and thorough testing. Before introducing Faino to the public, it underwent extensive testing by over 20 psychologists not involved in its development.

Following this, the chatbot was presented to test users to evaluate their perception and interaction with each exercise. This was succeeded by assessments from professional testers and further testing by over 250 volunteers.

Their invaluable feedback enabled us to address numerous issues, ensuring that we presented a robust, high-quality product capable of genuinely helping those in need. Only after Faino had successfully passed through this comprehensive testing process did we launch it for general use and share it on social media. Our experts and testers became our first ambassadors, playing a crucial role in attracting the initial user base.

Vera Kelim:

Faino was founded at 7pm on March 1, 2022, in a small café somewhere in the Canadian countryside, where my husband and I escaped to share our emotions about the war with each other since it was not possible to do it openly at home, in front of the kids.

There, literally on a napkin, Misha began to write down ideas from my crisis counseling practice and organize them into a coherent system. And it came together! As soon as we realized that something could be done, we started doing it. So the two of us co-founded it, and during the first week, many volunteers joined. The name, Faino, was coined just before the release.

Since the first of March, we have almost stopped sleeping. We reached out to both friends and strangers and received overwhelming support. We selected only exercises that I and my colleagues have used many times during "live" work. We also extensively tested and improved the texts included in each exercise, until all the requirements were fully met.

A key requirement and the main principle of a psychologist is "do no harm." Hence, any techniques that could potentially provoke an emotional exacerbation were rejected at once.

Another challenge was that we could only suggest exercises a person could do on their own and a huge number of techniques involved collaboration with a psychologist. Therefore, any exercises where a psychologist was needed to monitor the individual's state and choose the right intonations had to be rejected.

To ensure that Faino was widely understandable, we worked with psychologists who were fluent in multiple languages to convey meaning and intonation when preparing the localizations.

Describe the process of launching the business.

Mikhail Kelim:

Faino was launched when people needed it the most, which is why social media posts about Faino’s launch from Vera and our team members collected hundreds of reposts. In its first five days of operation, the bot helped 5,000 people.

We immediately gathered data on user behavior and feedback, ensured that the bot was working, and began promotion. The topic of psychological assistance was more relevant than ever in the media, and our network helped us secure several interviews. Also, familiar Influencers placed several popular posts.

However, the most powerful channel has been word of mouth:

People who want to help others and talk about Faino with people who could benefit from it
Individuals who have used Faino and recommend it to their friends and acquaintances
Psychologists who recommend Faino to their clients.

Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?

Mikhail Kelim:

As the Faino bot is designed to help people in crisis situations and our growth is predominantly organic, the most significant spikes in usage naturally coincide with global crisis events. For instance, over a period of two weeks, the Faino bot supported more than 8,500 individuals affected by the Israel-Hamas war.

The first and second versions of Faino were not created for ongoing engagement at all. The idea of the bot was to help a person "here and now," when they have no opportunity to contact a specialist.

Therefore, our focus was on effectively helping people in the moment. In the first version, 67% of users reported a reduction in stress levels immediately after using Faino. In the second version, that figure rose to 74%.

People in a state of stress find it difficult to pay attention to their state of mind and develop self-awareness. When we conducted the custdev, users said that Faino was too unobtrusive and that it did not send constant notifications to stay on top of the user’s mind - and asked us to remind them about Faino more often.

The very first experiment with notifications significantly increased retention. If we take the daily statistics of bot usage, then there will be 64% of users who reuse the bot. The variety of exercises and versions of exercises available for specific situations, such as when the user is sitting or lying down, also helps.

Tip: Don't be afraid to follow-up. We didn't want to seem intrusive, and we ended up having users ask us to send them reminders. As a result, 32% of users read and respond to our messages, of which 48% engage with the bot right away, and another 27% ask us to remind them about Faino later.

If you are creating something useful for other people, don't hesitate to ask for help - including free help.

How are you doing today and what does the future look like?

Mikhail Kelim:

The main idea behind Faino is to help everyone who needs it, so the basic functionality of the chatbot - the ability to quickly cope with anxiety and stress - has been and will remain free for everyone.

For the sustainable development of the project, funding is necessary for product improvement, as well as for promoting the idea of psychological self-help in crisis situations. This is significant and long-term work, which requires a permanent team, and budgets for research, development, and marketing.

In the initial stages of development, we are open to receiving government grants or support from private businesses. But strategically, we aim to become independent of external funding, because Faino's core philosophy is to help everyone, regardless of nationality, language, or political views - and that is difficult to do if you depend on outside organizations.

Our current goal is to create a social enterprise that will specialize in mental well-being tech and direct part of the profits to the development of a charitable product.

We believe this is possible because we have received a huge amount of feedback from users who find Faino helpful in everyday situations, such as passing their driving exam, preparing for a speech, avoiding conflicts at work, etc.

We see that the developed technology, with minimal adaptation, can be used in commercial products for both personal and corporate use.

Currently, we are conducting user research to determine the target segment for our first commercial product.

We have just launched a Hebrew version of Faino and are in the process of distributing Faino to Israelis. If we find volunteers for the localization of the Arabic version, we will do that, too. Following these steps, we plan to start looking for a social impact investor and a startup accelerator to help us scale up Faino's mission.

Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?

Mikhail Kelim:

Faino is about people's desire to help other people.

If you are creating something useful for other people, don't hesitate to ask for help - including free help. The world is currently going through a challenging time, but there are many people around who are willing to volunteer their time, expertise, and resources to help you make the world better.

Professional communities on social media and Telegram can offer significant support. For example, we found a development team for the first version in one day and a QA team for the Hebrew version in a few hours.

Thanks to all the volunteers, consultants, and organizations that supported Faino. Every day, thanks to you, many people receive real support in the most difficult moments of their lives. Your contributions help make the world a little better every day.

What platform/tools do you use for your business?

Mikhail Kelim:

We are currently working on a cross-platform mobile app, but we launched our first product on Telegram. Its main advantage is that there is a very short time gap between the moment the user finds out about the product to the moment they start using the product. For psychological help in crisis situations, this is critical. Moreover, custdev showed that in certain scenarios, users are not ready to download the app.

In addition, our servers are hosted on Google Cloud, and we use DataGrip from JetBrains to analyze user behavior. For error monitoring, we use Sentry, and our website is built on Tilda.

What’s great is that when we reached out to these companies a year after our launch, asking for support and free access, they all agreed. Thanks, friends! They didn't always have programs for projects like ours, but eventually, we got support.

One time, the issue went all the way to the VP of the company. By the way, special thanks to Yuri Bukhan, VP at Sentry - without their product, we would not have been able to promptly launch the second version of Faino.

In addition, we use MindMeister for rapid prototyping of the dialogue tree. Killing feature when adding a new element, as it instantly redraws the entire tree to keep it user-friendly.

Some of the tasks involved in user behavior analytics will be completed more efficiently if you do them yourself instead of delegating. To figure out how to do this, I used the learning platform DataQuest (they helped us with free access, too) and of course, ChatGPT.

What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?

Vera Kelim:

In the area of psychology and stress management, we can recommend to everyone the WHO's wonderful short toolkit, "Essential Skills in Times of Stress," as well as Dr. Guberman's famous podcast on mental health.

Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?

Mikhail Kelim:

In short, your mental health and work-life balance matter.

We have learned this lesson the hard way, and we would love for as many entrepreneurs as possible to hear our advice.

Faino has been the most challenging product for us in terms of stress and emotional burnout. For me, it's far from my first startup, and Vera is a crisis psychologist who interacts with people in the most challenging life situations. Stress is familiar to us, and we know how to prevent it, cope with it, and deal with the consequences. But not this time. We made and launched the product very quickly, but spent the next few months completely burned out.

Unfortunately, this is a typical scenario for startups. Uncertainty, risks, sleepless work nights, technical problems, failures, force majeure - it's all there in every business journey. And, from a psychological point of view, these are all stressors.

If you ignore this or approach it with the principle of "I'll focus on the business first, and then I'll figure it out," stress gradually accumulates, transitions into a chronic phase, motivation disappears, cognitive functions decrease, the quality of decisions and work efficiency decline, your health deteriorates, and at some point, you can no longer do what you recently considered was the most important thing to do.

We know this from our own experience and want to help others cope with this challenge. To do this, we plan to create a special version of Faino for entrepreneurs. In the meantime, please remember the main thing: your startup is you. Take care of yourself, since you are the most important part of your business.

Where can we go to learn more?

Faino - the free psychological support for people in crisis situations
Faino.help - the official website of Faino
LinkedIn Mikhail Kelim
LinkedIn Vera Kelim

Our goal is to change the culture of how we interact with stress.