About WeMingo

Photo of Johannes in front of a public restroom in Berlin Hi, I'm Johannes. I'm a software developer and the founder of WeMingo. I'm all too familiar with paruresis from my personal experience. In 2014, I started my journey to gain back freedom — initially through books, later through an IPA workshop and practicing with Pee Buddies. Today, I'm doing better and have reached a level where I can live comfortably.

I believe that online therapy has a big potential to improve people's lives. I started WeMingo in 2016 to ensure that new insights in that field are benefitting others with paruresis.

The Beginning

To secure initial funding, I participated in the Hasso Plattner Institute's business plan competition with two partners, Pavle and Moritz. Out of 27 initial teams, we made it to the top 3 after several rounds.

Unfortunately, we didn't quite make it to the prize money in the end. What remains is this team photo with the obligatory restroom symbolism 😉 Team photo from the HPI business plan competition

This was followed by many more presentations, including at the Charité Entrepreneurship Summit, in front of health insurance companies, and other competition juries. Photo from the Berlin-Brandenburg business plan competition presentation

Telling my story repeatedly probably had therapeutic value as well.

Berlin Startup Scholarship

In October 2016, our funding efforts finally paid off when WeMingo received a Berlin Startup Scholarship of 18,000 EUR. This allowed me to focus on developing the self-help program for a year.

European Social Fund logo ESF Berlin logo

In addition to financial support, I was mentored during the scholarship by the "Clinical-Psychological Intervention" department of Prof. Dr. Christine Knaevelsrud at FU Berlin. This department developed the TK Depression Coach, so I was able to benefit from their extensive experience in online therapy.

WeMingo has been available in German since September 2017, and the English version was added in July 2018.

Paruresis.de

Since early 2018, I've also been managing paruresis.de and its associated forum. I've since modernized the site technically to ensure reliable and, above all, secure operation in the future. I handle support and continuous maintenance of the site, and the revenue from selling the self-help program allows me to cover the server and domain costs.