Current daily life is marked by speed and hyperconnection. The dominance of constant stimuli channeled by platforms like social media does not invite introspection and, on the contrary or precisely because of it, emotional distress is a constant for many. The aftermath of the pandemic and the taboos uncovered around mental health have contributed to giving visibility to the problem. The startup Liseners has emerged from the Barcelona entrepreneurial scene as a tool to respond to this situation, and with one goal: to provide resources to its users to manage their problems through active listening and emotional support.
And how does it propose to offer this active listening? Through online sessions with its team of liseners. The platform's listeners work to ensure that "the user leaves the session feeling liberated," which is done via video call with or without camera, details the company's CEO, Gonzalo Comella. At 21 years old, he has promoted the startup to make a service available to others that he himself would have wanted to have in his adolescence, he tells The New Barcelona Post. "Back then, I was failing in school, and that leads you to develop your own complex. Someone who made me see that one's worth is not based on having a degree, but on life experience, would have helped me. I hope I can provide what I couldn't have."
Comella started entrepreneurship at 17 and, after promoting several initiatives linked to the financial sector, he realized the need to address an emotional distress so common in society: "We hit the nail on the head: everyone deserves a space for quality emotional support, but not everyone can afford psychological care." In order to "democratize active listening and emotional support to make it accessible to everyone" at an affordable price, he decided to promote Liseners as an alternative to traditional psychological therapy. His team is driving the initiative from the incubator that the Swedish foundation Norrsken opened in autumn in Barceloneta, with a model reminiscent of that of the Teléfono de la Esperanza. Liseners aims to offer a differential service through its commitment to technology and the possibility of choosing the interlocutor.
In this sense, the platform offers the user multiple liseners with diverse profiles and experiences, and they can choose with which of them to develop the session based on the nature of their needs. These are varied profiles, but with a common denominator: "They have a life experience or some particularity through which they can provide a good listening service." This added value is provided by experiences such as having suffered a loss, a disorder, or an illness, as well as situations related to self-esteem, family, and personal development, among many others.
Comella assures that, by providing the user with profiles that may have lived similar experiences to their own, "it ensures that the level of empathy is much higher, and that the type of listening offered by the lisener is much more aligned with their situation." This life experience is a sine qua non condition to be a listener on the platform, but it is not the only requirement to be one: new liseners must complete a two-session training with one of those who already have experience on the platform. This training is indispensable, but from a non-intrusive perspective: "We don't want to interfere to such an extent that the sessions are protocolary; each lisener has their own way of listening and their own style, and that is precisely the richness of the project."
Users can rate their interlocutors, and the company ensures "a service of extreme quality" taking into account their scores. The platform is designed to offer both one-off and continuous sessions, in a confidential and "judgment-free" space. Users pay close to 20 euros per session and, of that, the listeners receive about two-thirds, while approximately one-third goes to the company.
The platform offers the user multiple liseners with diverse profiles and experiences, and they can choose with which of them to hold the session based on their needs
After developing the platform during 2023, Liseners began operating a month ago, and has offered about twenty sessions, a figure it expects to increase as it accelerates campaigns and tools to promote the service. Comella sets the company's goal at invoicing between 150,000 and 200,000 euros in its first year.
In parallel with the increase in users, the workforce will also increase. The startup team is now made up of Comella, a psychologist, a business expert, and the marketing director, who has recently embarked on the project with a percentage as a partner. Depending on how the initiative evolves, Comella plans to incorporate a technology manager and a finance manager. The team's current intention is to validate the business model in Spain, and then study the possibility of opening it to Southern Europe and Latin America. They will evaluate this during a learning process they have just undertaken and through which they aim to reach the maximum number of users to offer a virtual refuge of empathy and active listening.