Ronja and Olivia smiling towards the camera at a park.

Stories > On a Mission to Provide Easily Accessible Mental Wellbeing Service for Students

On a Mission to Provide Easily Accessible Mental Wellbeing Service for Students

9.9.2024 | Entrepreneurial journey, Student experience

After facing challenges in accessing mental health support, students Olivia Saukonoja and Ronja Teppo founded Stigma Technologies Oy, a platform offering peer and expert support for students. Their entrepreneurial journey, shaped by the HUBS Pre-incubator, taught them key lessons in turning ideas into solutions.

Contact person

Raúl Berlanga Zarate

Coach

raul.berlangazarate@tuni.fi

+358 44 328 7726

linkedin Raúl Berlanga Zarate

This story was written based on an interview with Olivia and Ronja, conducted by our HUBS Pre-Incubator coach, Raúl.

After personally struggling and realizing just how difficult it is to get mental health support as a student in Finland, Olivia Saukonoja, a 5th-year IT student, thought something needed to be done. Although she didn’t act on this thought right away, it never left the back of her mind. Meanwhile, her friend and colleague Ronja Teppo, a 4th-year student of computing sciences, studied the behavior and commitment of students around mental health apps during her bachelor’s thesis.

While participating in the HUBS course Building your Entrepreneurial Portfolio, the pair heard about the HUBS Pre-incubator. The two friends founded Stigma Technologies in the summer of 2024. The idea was clear: to create a low-threshold service for students to easily and quickly get peer support and expert advice for mental well-being issues. With studies in Human-Technology Interaction and Software Engineering, combined with minors in Sustainable Entrepreneurship and Psychology, the two students felt perfectly equipped to combine entrepreneurship with their studies.

A journey full of learning

Finding the right solution requires understanding the problem all too well—this is something Olivia and Ronja picked up during the HUBS Pre-incubator. The most important lesson, however, came in the form of simply talking to people. You shouldn’t sit down and hide your idea from the world. Learning how to talk to people about your idea, without giving away your secret recipe, is a skill every entrepreneur learns sooner rather than later.

Talk to your end users about your idea and listen to them. You need to network, dare to ask people for help—most of them gladly will.

Some lessons are learned faster than others. Olivia and Ronja admit that prioritizing, especially at the beginning, was particularly difficult for them. They felt like they focused on too many things at once, which eventually took their attention away from developing the actual service.

HUBS Pre-incubator as a springboard

With strong drive and determination, the HUBS Pre-incubator was merely the start of the road. The team applied for the HUBS Sustainable Entrepreneurship Grant. Having successfully participated in the Pre-incubator gave them an edge, and they were selected as recipients of the grant. At the same time, the team applied and was accepted into TRES’ Summer Founders Program, where they received mentoring and support for setting up a company. Additionally, they applied for The Dock program, run by the city of Tampere, which has given them access to further mentoring and office space at Platform 6. In addition to all of this, Stigma Technologies has been accepted to the upcoming Fall 2024 batch of Red Brick Accelerator program.

The students’ dream is to create a service that truly provides help and has a positive impact on students’ lives, and in the process, hopefully become full-time entrepreneurs. Their vision is to create a platform where a student can access peer support, but also receive advice from trained professionals. To achieve this, the team has already grown. In addition to Olivia and Ronja, they have been joined by a group of psychologists who produce content for the platform.

The startup world and advice to fellow students

Before Stigma, the startup world was relatively unknown to the young students. Everything felt new. They have taken a real liking to the positive and encouraging atmosphere. In addition to building their own company, they have organized an event called Coding Sauna for Women at Tribe Tampere’s premises.

They now fully understand how much work, responsibility, and risk-taking come with entrepreneurship. They have not shied away from the challenge—quite the contrary. They have always admired people who have the courage to become entrepreneurs. And now, Olivia and Ronja have taken their first steps on that journey.

If entrepreneurship sounds interesting to you, you should gravitate towards like-minded people. As a student, HUBS’ courses and TRES’ events are the easiest way to do it.

Olivia and Ronja encourage other students to enroll in HUBS’ courses and perhaps even give entrepreneurship a try. They believe that as a student, you have very little to lose and much to learn. Plus, you won’t waste your time, as you can earn study credits along the way.

Thank you Olivia and Ronja for sharing your story!