Today is World Mental Health Day 2020, which marks a time to reflect and consider the health and wellbeing of all of those around us – be it friends, family, colleagues or acquaintances. We acknowledge the achievements of communities and businesses across the world, working together to combat the challenges posed by the ongoing pandemic.

This year’s World Mental Health Day theme is ‘Reflect and Grow’. In celebration of today, Director and Co-Founder of Empeal, Aurobinda De, reflects on how far we have come in the face of uncertainty, our own challenges, and growth during recent tough times:

Fallen leaves and chill in the air is a reminder that we are coming to another Christmas. Time to reflect on the year gone by. I joined Empeal in November 2019, exactly a year ago and what an extraordinary year it was! We were very upbeat in February with valuable potential contracts which were all lost in COVID-19.

Within a couple of weeks businesses closed down and contracts were shelved. For a start-up, it was a heart breaking and draining experience. To pull ourselves back up and re-establish our position in the market was psychologically gruelling. But we did that - we had to.

We used market downtime to enhance our product, listened to the problems of our target market and adjusted our offerings to help them. This enabled us to build relationships and potential clientele. We weren't selling, but our marketing efforts made Empeal more visible. Ironically, the pandemic, which stopped us on our tracks in February, raised demand of Digital-Health significantly by August.

We built potential collaboration points and found a market niche, which not only kept us afloat, but we also managed to raise some capital. Bringing the best out of a negative environment is probably what is required for businesses to thrive. It's a lesson we learnt - it's a lesson that I am sure will help us grow in future.

— Aurobinda