What would you do if you were tasked with solving the youth mental health crisis in America? I’m personally not sure I’d know where to start — but Alex Mathew has some ideas.
Listen to our conversation with Alex Mathew - a 16-year-old trying to solve this very problem with AI plushies.
You can watch on YouTube (or Spotify/Apple) - Like and Subscribe so more people can discover Merge!
Alex’s story is a great example of what can happen when curiosity meets opportunity. At 16, he’s already examining the education system and rethinking childhood development. Experiencing a typical public school taught him the baseline experience for kids raised in America. Now, at Alpha High School — where studies are condensed into three hours a day, Alex leverages his time to explore technology and builds his new startup.
Together, we discuss his journey so far. He shares his passion for helping solve mental health, his approach to validating ideas early on, and his experience with non-dilutive capital and microgrants.
This episode is a peek behind the curtain of some of the problems we hear about often when it comes to GenZ, but might not know a lot about. Enjoy the conversation.
In our conversation, we go over:
(05:28) – Leaving public school for an alternative education
(10:46) – How personalized learning unlocks ambition
(18:39) - Bare bones approach to shipping his product
(20:28) - Alex’s big picture goals
(21:32) - Why is this new generation anxious?
(30:40) - How tech is improving childhood education
(34:20) - Core learnings from 50 user interviews
(42:57) - Thoughts on 1517’s Medici Grant
Find Alex on the internet:
Twitter: https://x.com/alxmthew
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alxmat/
Alex's startup, Berry: https://plushies.so/
Hosts:
Julian Weisser: https://x.com/julianweisser
Ari Dutilh: https://x.com/aridutilh
Merge Club:
Merge is a club for microgrant recipients working on big ideas. Meet new builder friends and make progress on your project:
Are you looking to apply to grant and fellowship programs? Use our Grant Guide: https://merge.club/guide
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