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Name: Sandro Kraljević

Company name: NAOMI mental wellness

Colour of your eyes: Green

How many people are in the team: Three – two psychologists (Nikolina and I), and Marino (a med student), our operations manager.

What is the difference between you and Steve Jobs: I don’t like comparing myself to anyone – I am an Aquarius, after all, ☺ But I really admire Steve for his vision and for everything he’s done for the world.

Discussion on the product/service

Can you describe your product/service to us?

Naomi is a mobile app that helps companies take care of their employees’ mental health. It’s completely anonymous and available 24/7. Naomi gives you much-needed psychological and emotional support and can help you when you’re feeling anxious, depressed, lonely, or under a lot of stress. She’s asking you carefully formulated questions to help you find solutions to your problems, by incorporating natural language processing (NLP) and mini-games within her interface.

How did you get to an idea to start with this?

Us three founders noticed that nowadays employees are facing a whole range of psychological and emotional challenges, with COVID-19 pandemic and WFH (work from home) regime being the catalysts of that. Mental health and employee wellbeing suddenly became concepts of great importance. Therefore, we decided to combine our psychological and technical knowledge and create a solution that can be available to every employee when he needs it.

What are your plans for the future?

Currently, we are working very hard on our sales process and looking forward to signing contracts with the first companies (we have several of them in the pipeline). Also, our English version of the app is soon finished, and we’re looking forward to testing the USA market

Rather Ginto or Whiskey?

Whiskey.

Personal conversation

What is it like to run a business and what do you like the most?

It’s extremely stressful, but on the other hand so creative and fulfilling. The ability to create something from nothing and to make your ideas a reality can hardly be compared to anything in this world.

What are your biggest obstacles?

I would say the amount of time needed for the market to recognize the benefits of our app – everything else we got under control ☺

What advice would you give to other people that are interested in starting something new?

I would advise them to sit down and really ask themselves if they are able to live with the high amount of uncertainty that waits ahead when they set off on that journey.

What would you advise a founder to do?

First, ask yourself why you are doing this. What is it that you want to achieve with this project? Also, write down what it is that you do, what problem are you solving, and in which way – it must be 100% clear.

What would you advise a founder not to do?

You don’t have to do everything by yourself. Find people you can trust and who have the same vision as you and ask for help when you need it. Delegation is a handy skill to have when you run a business.

What is a key factor to success?

Success is an individual concept which every person should define for themselves.

How to teach a frog to smile?

With patience and persistence, of course, ☺

FRC program

Can you tell us something about your experience in the FRC accelerator program?

We are very proud that our business idea got recognized as a potentially legitimate business and extremely grateful to all FRC team members for all the advice and connections they provided for us. 

What is your favorite spot on the planet?

My home with my family.

What was the most important takeaway from the program?

The most important takeaway we got from the program is useful perspectives on the business and startup world in general from people who have more experience than us.

Would you suggest other founders apply?

Yes, definitely.

Who was your favorite FRC team member? Why?

They are all so special it’s impossible to pick only one. But together they make a great team! ☺