The Founder Files with Ash Horovitz: Turning Personal Struggle Into mynd’s Greatest Strength
Welcome to The Founder Files, an inside look at the women building the next generation of category-defining companies. These conversations capture founders in moments of becoming. No polished retrospective or glossy highlights reel. This is where we catch ambitious women in motion: when the decisions are still hard, the outcomes still uncertain, and the lessons are still fresh enough to actually be useful.
Ash Horovitz knows what it's like to be struggling on the inside, even when everything looks fine on the outside. Anxiety that feels debilitating. Panic attacks that come out of nowhere. The loneliness that comes from feeling like you’re carrying it all alone.
She wasn’t, and the more she spoke about it, the more she realised how many people were showing up every single day carrying more than anyone could see. For Ash, mynd is the app she wished had existed when she needed it most.
The problem she’s solving is one most of us recognise but rarely tackle proactively. Mental health support, as it exists today, is largely reactive, showing up only once things have already escalated. Ash is building in the gap between "nothing" and clinical care, where design, psychology, and human experience intersect.
In this conversation, Ash shares why vulnerability isn't a liability when you're building something deeply personal, why depth matters more than speed when the stakes are human, and what it really looks like to build a product that started with your own story.
Q. Tell us about mynd in your own words. What are you building, and why does it need to exist?
“mynd is a personalised mental wellbeing platform designed to support people in real, everyday moments, particularly within the workplace.
The idea came from my own experience with anxiety and panic attacks. On the outside, I looked like I was functioning, but internally, it felt overwhelming and isolating. What I struggled to find was something practical for the moments in between, when you’re not in crisis but you’re also most definitely not okay.
Most mental health support today is reactive. It shows up once things have already escalated. But our emotional lives don’t work like that. They move constantly across a spectrum.
With mynd, we’re building something preventative. A platform that helps people check in with how they’re feeling and guides them toward simple, evidence-informed tools like grounding, breathwork, journaling and reflection. We focus particularly on supporting people in the context of work, where stress, pressure and emotional load are often part of daily life.”
“The goal isn’t to replace therapy. It’s to give people practical support earlier, so they can better understand what they’re feeling, regulate their emotions and build resilience before things reach a crisis point.” - Ash Horovitz
Q. What does building this business actually look like right now? What's consuming most of your energy this week?
“We’ve just hard launched mynd, so right now the focus is really on listening.
Listening to our new users, understanding how people are actually experiencing the platform, where it’s helping and where it can be improved. A lot of my time is spent looking closely at how people move through the product and refining the experience, so it genuinely meets them where they are emotionally.
At the same time, we’re starting to work with more businesses that want to support their teams with preventative mental wellbeing tools. My week tends to be a mix of product refinement, learning from user behaviour and building partnerships with organisations who believe mental health support should be preventative, not reactive.”
Q. What do you know about mental wellbeing that most people are still sleeping on?
“Mental wellbeing exists on a spectrum. The moments where people struggle often happen quietly, after a difficult conversation, when the mind won’t switch off at night, or when stress slowly builds over time.
“The opportunity in mental health isn’t just treatment. It’s prevention.” - Ash Horovitz
If people have simple tools to understand their emotions and regulate how they respond to stress, it can dramatically change the trajectory of their wellbeing. That’s the gap we’re trying to close with mynd.”
Q. What's the hardest call you've had to make so far - and would you make the same decision again?
“One of the hardest decisions has been how honest to be about mental health.
There’s a version of this space that is very polished and optimistic, where everything is framed around productivity, performance or ‘feeling better quickly.’ But the reality of mental health is far more complex than that.
From the beginning, we decided mynd needed to reflect the messiness of real emotional experiences, not just the tidy version people are comfortable talking about.
That decision influences everything from the language we use to the stories we share through the platform. It can feel vulnerable at times, but it also feels necessary. And yes, I would absolutely make the same decision again.”
Q. What's the one thing you wish someone had handed you at the start - a framework, a rule, a piece of advice - that you've had to figure out the hard way?
“I wish someone had told me that building something meaningful takes longer than you expect.
When you’re creating something in mental health, especially something designed to genuinely support people, you can’t rush the process. You have to listen deeply, test ideas and evolve the product based on how real people interact with it.
Early on, it’s easy to feel pressure to move faster or add more features. But what I’ve learned is that depth matters more than speed.
Taking the time to get the experience right has ultimately been one of the most important decisions we’ve made.”
Q. As a founder, what does your own mental wellbeing routine look like? Any habits or rituals you'd recommend to other founders?
“For me, it starts with self-awareness.
Because of my own experiences with anxiety, I’ve learned to notice the early signs when my stress levels are rising. That awareness gives me a chance to intervene earlier rather than pushing through until things become overwhelming.
Practically, that means small things like breathwork, journaling and taking moments during the day to pause and check in with how I’m feeling.
I also think movement and time away from screens is incredibly important. Founders spend so much time in constant cognitive load.”
“Mental wellbeing, for me, is less about big changes and more about small, consistent practices that help you stay connected to yourself.” - Ash Horovitz
Want to follow mynd app’s journey?
If Ash's story resonated, mynd is worth having on your radar.
The app has just relaunched, and whether you're a founder navigating the emotional load of building something, or someone looking for practical support in the everyday moments, it's worth exploring mynd.
mynd is also running a beautiful content series on Instagram called Real Moments with mynd: honest, grounding snapshots of what mental wellbeing actually looks like in everyday life. Follow along heRE.
And if you want to stay up-to-date with Ash's journey, she's one to watch on LinkedIn.