The United States is facing a severe mental health crisis that disproportionately impacts people with disabilities. It’s estimated that 54 million people with disabilities are suffering from mental health disorders and, according to the Centers for Disease Control, adults with disabilities say they experience frequent mental distress nearly five times as often as those without disabilities. But mental health services are often not easily accessible, widely available or affordable.

Laura Randa witnessed first-hand how her college-age daughter, who has hearing loss, experienced increased stress and anxiety while struggling to read lips during the COVID-19 pandemic, when face coverings were mandatory and clear masks weren’t available in most classrooms. Fortunately, Randa was in a position to help.

Laura left her 30-year career in commercial leadership and C-suite positions at biotech and pharmaceutical companies, including Regeneron Pharmaceuticals and Novartis, determined to revolutionize mental health treatment for people with disabilities. Assembling a passionate team of experts in cognitive behavioral therapy, digital therapeutics and clinical psychology, Randa started Wilmington-based Toivoa and its first-in-class digital therapy platform, Rauha, a platform designed to close the treatment gap for people with disabilities living with mental illness. The 2-year-old Wilmington-based company won $27,000 in the 2023 Startup302 competition, coordinated by Delaware Prosperity Partnership (DPP).

Toivoa, a Finnish word that means “hope,” is initially targeting its efforts for people with hearing and mobility disabilities and includes dozens of accessibility functions such as color contrast, closed captions, keyboard mobility and multiple navigational options. By the end of the decade, Randa expects to hire upwards of 1,000 people and have 1,300,000 patient users on the platform.

Initiated by a healthcare professional and accessed by a unique patient code, the Rauha app provides fully-accessible, cognitive behavioral therapy – the gold standard of psychotherapy. Based on responses to a series of questions about their disabilities, patients receive adapted, personalized exercises and therapy from Dr. Samantha Gaiez, a New York City-based clinical psychologist with more than 15 years of clinical experience, and a team of psychologists specializing in people with disabilities. Every patient will be matched to a certified mental health coach who has shared living experiences with disabilities and mental illness. Together with a vibrant patient community forum, patients will receive personalized support and encouragement throughout their 12-week journey.

“We are on a mission to radically change evidence-based therapy for people with disabilities living with mental illness,” says Randa, who earned her master’s degree in public administration from the University of Delaware. “We look forward to bringing a high-growth digital therapeutic community to Delaware and collaborating with the county and state economic development teams to address critical health inequities in one of the most excluded and marginalized groups.”

Randa recently shared her thoughts on innovation with DPP.

I grew up in Delaware and have seen first-hand that Delaware is the home of innovative businesses, cutting-edge research and transformative ideas that are meeting and exceeding the challenges of the 21st century economy. Delaware has a large and robust ecosystem fueled by the spirit of collaboration across all stakeholders, especially government leaders, businesses and academic institutions. To successfully build an innovative digital therapeutic business in a globalized market, businesses need access to high-quality, high-tech and diverse talent. Delaware was a natural fit for Toivoa because the breadth and diversity of talent in the finance, tech, pharmaceutical and consumer industries offered in Delaware is unparalleled.

My father – my lifetime mentor, who was a long-time DuPont R&D researcher with 28 patents – taught me many things about being an innovator. He used to say you had to have five top skills to demonstrate as an innovator: associating, questioning, observing, networking and experimenting. These skills are fundamental when you are developing solutions to address a critical unmet need in a way that no one has ever done before. But this is just the start. As I have launched Toivoa, and throughout my career, I’ve learned that innovation is best realized by building passionate, purpose-driven, cross-functional teams and leveraging mentors who can help you “slow down, to speed up.”

A great entrepreneur must become an expert in their market by digging deep to understand the nuances of how innovation can have the greatest impact and make a meaningful difference. You must push yourself to continuously challenge the status quo and be open to ideas outside of your comfort zone and realm of expertise. I’ve learned that this is not just a key entrepreneurial skill, but also a very valuable life skill. Take the time to create company and product positioning and value propositions that are simple, clear and concise and that resonate across your key stakeholders. Test your concepts and products with your stakeholders at every step along your development path. Investing your time and efforts in these processes will help you build high-impact, focused communications and strategies, let you stand out in a crowded innovator market and accelerate your success.

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Christian Morris was working on a mixed-reality app that would allow users to view a musician or performer as if they were 3D in front of them and needed software that could cut the background out and leave just the subject. Despite a lukewarm response from people who reviewed it, he believed it had potential.

Enter his wife, who runs a successful Etsy shop but needed an inexpensive way to create product videos. With a few tweaks, the app helped propel her to the top 5 percent of sellers in six months. Morris saw small business owners – particularly ecommerce sellers – who don’t have large ad budgets for Facebook or Google but depend on their own social media posts to sell products as an untapped market for his artificial intelligence-based technology.

Rush Roto’s “simple and spectacular” AI technology doesn’t just add a background. It places the picture of an object into another image that can be turned into multiple campaigns in just a few seconds. That’s important for small businesses that rely on seasonal online selling and want to turn a single product photo into images for Halloween, the Christmas season, spring — or any other time or theme.

Morris put about $10,000 of his own money into getting the startup to the point where he could apply to business growth programs. He found early support in 2022 through Amazon Web Services (AWS), which selected Rush Roto as one of 25 startups for its inaugural AWS Black Impact Accelerator. The company won $125,000 in cash and $100,000 in Cloud Credits along with in-person training at Amazon headquarters.

Morris says the AWS program and Rush Roto’s recent selection into the prestigious Techstars Accelerator Powered by J.P. Morgan program – which included Rush Roto receiving a $120,000 equity stake – has opened a new world of possibilities in terms of venture capital funding, growth and connections. In addition, Rush Roto was a winner in Delaware Prosperity Partnership’s 2023 Startup302 competition, where it placed in the Delaware Tech-Enabled category.

“Success in programs like AWS, Techstars and Startup302 provide legitimacy and help us get our funding applications looked at, which can otherwise be very challenging,” Morris said.

Morris recently shared his views on innovation in Delaware and the path forward for innovators.

I know other Delaware founders have said it countless times, but our central location is key. Getting started with zero network connections in the tech world was challenging. However, I was able to expand my network at an exponential rate with just new tires, gas and determination. I joined startup communities in not only Delaware, but D.C., New York City and Philadelphia. I was usually the only Delaware resident in the room. That made me even more memorable.

I just did another pitch competition where I came in second in New York just a few months ago. And another one where I was going down to D.C., so there’s a plus at being able to hit multiple cities without having to hop on a plane. I also save money by not needing to rent cars and purchase hotel rooms in those states. In other words, being here also extended my company’s runway.

Last and most important is the real effort to support innovators here. After being a finalist in the Start-up302 competition, we received a letter from Delaware Governor John Carney. I don’t know if any founder I’ve met can say their state cares about what they’re doing at that high of a level.

Number one, by a large margin, is grit. Startup life is difficult. It will almost always take longer and be more challenging than you expect. “Unfair” is the default setting. You must learn to make peace with it, and then make your own luck.

Number two, focus. Focusing on the “why,” not the “what.”

Three, vision. You need vision to shift your “how” and “when” if needed. The reason you took action should be your north star. It’s easy to get caught up in your solution and forget.

When you get started, one of the most important things is to pick an idea worth pursuing by you. Not just one that is worth pursuing. You should have a true passion for the idea, not just potential profits. Those profits don’t leave the “potential” stage with most startups. You need to have a love for the why. Rush Roto’s why is serving underfunded entrepreneurs. I founded Rush Roto with the goal of using AI to make photography affordable to all businesses, to give time and resources back to the struggling solopreneur. Seeing Rush Roto do that gives me the energy to push through those tough days.

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Liam Fitzgerald believes many businesses have a lack of cross-departmental clarity, an inability for executives to make strategic decisions and a lack of overall workplace morale. This belief led to the creation – with co-founder Robbie Parisius – of Connect2Co, which describes itself as “the future of productive work.”

“As a founder, my objective is to improve communication and collaboration, implement sustainable practices into companies of all sizes and drastically improve scalability in startups for fellow founders to reach their goals more effectively,” says Fitzgerald, whose company vision is to “transform the digital workspace into something that is engaging and meaningful, data-driven and efficient.”

Connect2Co won a 2023 $100,000 Encouraging Development, Growth & Expansion (EDGE) Grant from the Delaware Division of Small Business to support the growth of a business-to-business platform that enables businesses of all sizes to manage, optimize and collaborate with other companies. The tool essentially enables customers to operate a digital workspace from one central location, eliminating the need for toggling between various applications such as Gmail, Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive and Salesforce.

Fitzgerald spoke to Delaware Prosperity Partnership about his views on innovation in Delaware and his advice to hungry innovators.

Why is Delaware a great state to be an innovator?

Delaware’s ecosystem of entrepreneurs and business professionals – and government entities driven by their ability to support small businesses and systems by providing access to vital resources and people – make Delaware a “Goldilocks zone” for innovation and innovators alike. Small businesses account for more than 98% of the businesses in Delaware, employing over 55% of the workforce. This supports the obvious presence of a breeding ground for entrepreneurs to provide value to each other in a multitude of ways.

In your view, what qualities should a successful innovator have?

• Successful innovators have core qualities that define their success:

• Understanding in the form of malleability. The presence of individual identity should not supersede an entrepreneur’s ability to listen to others in relation to feedback, criticism and support. Innovators must be sure in their mission and overarching objective but must simultaneously be willing to change course and pivot as their business or venture progresses. Communication and understanding are vital to improvement. Even if feedback is not used, shared perspectives give clarity to beautiful ideas and ventures.

• Innovators must be leaders. Successful entrepreneurs and thinkers have different personality types. Some can lead in a school of thought, industry or field. Some are great managers who can realize the dormant abilities of their team and empower them to excel personally and within their organization. Some lack these qualities, but lead in their relentless persistence, drive and hunger to solve problems and create/offer solutions. Ideally all three leadership qualities should be evident in the perfect leader, but the third quality (persistence) will inevitably allow them to penetrate the market and achieve the other two qualities.

• Innovators must have ideas or systems that are better than those that previously existed. This may be evident in the form of improvement to solutions, products and systems that already exist; innovative and cutting-edge solutions/products or services that do not exist; or the enablement of team members to realize their full potential and, in turn, bring their ideas to light. The ability to execute on these ideas is what differentiates thinkers from doers.

What advice would you give innovators just starting?

• Understand your why, then your what, then your how. Figure out your purpose for your venture, then what you will offer and then dissect how you will fulfill what you will offer.

• Plan with the objective to execute. You can write business plans, forecast your expenses and your revenue, create feasibility analysis and research statistics on your market, industry and customers, but nothing will come close to talking to your target customers. If I analyze what I did wrong and right, I can truly say that the best practice is to find an idea, talk to people you trust to establish preliminary validity of the idea, build part of the idea and start showing it to these people and getting users to test it.

• Rinse and repeat this process incrementally, and your idea will grow into a tangible thing. Your customer/communication base will also increase. Creating or building something people want enables you to figure out if an idea is worth pursuing. This should be done in a way that the person/group you are targeting is so compelled by the product that their want becomes a need. Turning wants into needs creates urgency and encourages retention. This, however, depends highly on the target market and customer segment you are selling to. Luxury goods are attractive due to their exclusivity and scarcity – taking advantage of the want factor. Commodity goods like toothpaste and soap are attractive due to their necessity. Services offered, solutions developed or products created, however, can initially be something the consumer wants that, after use, makes them realize they need it (such as iPhone, Gmail, CRM Systems).

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