TLDR: Sunflower Sober started by building the best AI Sponsor on the market & powering over 21,500,000 days of sobriety. Now we are launching the Sunflower Clinic of Addiction Medicine to bring Therapy & Medication to our users, reimbursed by medicaid. We have over $153M worth of patients on a waitlist.

App: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/sunflower-quit-any-addiction/id1547099435

Clinic: https://sunflowerclinic.com/

Hello friends!!

Did you know that it is harder to build a 50 state SUD outpatient program that takes medicaid, than it is to put rockets into space?

The licensing requirements once you start treating substances as a primary diagnosis are quite frankly insane, state-level medicaid approval, county level MCO contracts, physical facilities in every state.

But we started Sunflower to solve hard problems.

Most people look at us and think “hehe, a mobile app, a sobriety counter”. When we raised our pre-seed with no product and no revenue I told our early investors that this is my version of going to mars. Sunflower isn’t here to just build a sobriety counter. We are trying to literally and objectively end addiction.

We’re on a mission to create one TRILLION days of sobriety, one day at a time.

So far we have powered over 21,500,000 days.

We built the first AI Sponsor, named Sam, who has now had over 7,000,000 messages with our users. More messages than any “entity” has ever had within a single lifetime about sobriety.

Sam is a critical piece to the sobriety journey. Almost 80% of surveyed users at d60 report Sunflower preventing at least one relapse, and 93.6% report a reduction in substance usage.

But we’ve always known that an AI Sponsor is only a PART of what people need to get sober. They still need therapy. They still need medication.

The problem?

When you are struggling with substance abuse (alcohol or otherwise), you often don’t have $10 in your bank account to pay for gas.

We have too many users that downloaded Sunflower because they can’t afford paying $125/hr for therapy. That can’t afford dropping $350 a quarter for Naltrexone.

Outpatient programs for SUDs are one of the most regulated spaces within behavioral health, and because of this, access to care that will actually take our users insurance (medicaid) is extremely limited.

This is why we are working to build the Sunflower Clinic of Addiction Medicine.

A 50 state telemedicine program for SUDs that actually takes medicaid. Now live in MI & PA with SUD facility licensing, state medicaid approval, and in the final steps of county level MCO contracting.

We are combining our best in class AI Sponsor with Mayo Clinic MDs and therapy leadership that built group programs at Charlie Health from 8 - 300+ therapists … our goal is to build the best outpatient program on the face of this planet & get it covered by medicaid nationwide.

So far we have over 37,500+ patients on a waitlist who have requested Therapy or Medication from Sunflower, representing a TAM of $153M waiting to be served.

We are going to solve one of the most important problems in human existence. A problem that globally we spend over $100B treating every year, and is the greatest shackle to the acceleration of humanity.

Thanks for following along with our story. Here’s some data. 🌻