In this episode, we sat down with Kevin Dedner, Founder & CEO of Hurdle Health. Based in Washington D.C, Hurdle Health provides culturally intentional teletherapy to eliminate barriers that make it harder for people of color to get mental healthcare. Hurdle Health raised $5M in seed funding, led by Point 406 Ventures and Seae Ventures. F-Prime also participated in the round.

We discussed:

-Kevin’s personal struggles with finding culturally responsive mental healthcare as the motivation for founding Hurdle.

-Hurdle’s emphasis on training its therapists in cultural humility to provide more efficacious mental healthcare for low to moderate-acuity patients.

-How minority founders must build a solid business plan instead of only following a vision and nurture mentor relationships to raise capital and overcome systemic barriers for launching successful companies.