How Depression Birthed My Startup

The inspiration of TooDeep began when I found myself dealing with depression and anxiety. All in the same season, my first major company failed, my dad had a life-threatening stroke while battling Prostate Cancer, and my mother was hospitalized due to Breast Cancer complications.

As I spiraled deeper and deeper into depression, the fear of judgement prevented me from reaching out for help from my family and friends. As a Black man, I grew up in a culture that tells us “men are not supposed to cry,” that we “should deal with problems on our own”. This enforces the idea that it is inappropriate for us to express that we are hurting inside.

Once suicidal thoughts began to haunt me, I knew I needed to release these feelings somehow. So I decided to create a place where I could release my emotions anonymously, through audio recordings without the fear of being judged — thus, birthing TooDeep. The real healing began when I opened up the platform to others and discovered that several people were dealing with some of the same issues I had. We have men in the app crying over breakups, women who are grieving the loss of a loved one, and people who are alone and feeling depressed.

The TooDeep app has helped each one of these people express their feelings to a supportive community, without any judgement. We have no clue who they are, but we certainly feel their pain and we care. Just knowing that someone else relates to your situation, and hearing an actual human voice can make a world of difference.

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