Co-Founder Psychology

We are going for Exist funding and looking for cofunder.

We are Joyful, a digital self-regulation companion focused on burnout prevention and supporting therapy transfer into everyday life.

We are building a world where mental and emotional support is accessible to everyone. A world where people better understand their needs and emotions—and where less unprocessed pain leads to less violence and harm.

Many people experiencing burnout or emotional exhaustion have forgotten how to rest and enjoy simple things. Suppressed emotions and unmet needs lead to poor well-being and destructive behavior.

Joy App exists to help people rebuild a healthy relationship with themselves and experience joy in small, accessible things. By helping users understand their emotions and needs based on their behavior, it turns emotional awareness into simple everyday training.

The product combines psychological insights with technology to help individuals build sustainable habits for emotional wellbeing. Joyful aims to empower users to better understand their stress patterns and apply therapeutic techniques outside of clinical settings.

What you would do

• Own the professional logic. Mapping emotions to needs, choosing the micro-interventions, the schema modes in the daily review, the language in the app.
• Build the content. Intervention library, psychoeducation, microcopy — short, warm, free of diagnostic vocabulary.
• Draw the line. You help decide what we deliberately do not do: no diagnostics, no crisis intervention on our own, but clear routes into real help. Feature requests have already been rejected for exactly this reason — that is the stance we are looking for.
• Review what the AI says. Parts of the app phrase things with a language model. You define what may come out of it, and read samples from the approval queue.
• Bring in the evidence. Sharpen the model of change, plan evaluation, write the specialist parts of funding applications and publications.
• Talk to professionals. Clinics, therapists, training institutes — wherever Joyful will later need to connect.

What you should bring

• Psychology as a student — ideally at master's level, bachelor's possible — or a completed degree. Both are equally welcome here.
• Serious engagement with behavioural therapy and schema therapy, beyond one lecture: further training, an internship, shadowing, a thesis, your own deep dive. Tell us where it comes from.
• You can translate technical language into everyday language without distorting it. That is the most frequent task here.
• German at native level — the app speaks German. English for the literature.
• An appetite for deciding rather than completing a defined task. And the willingness to overturn your own decision after a user test.

What we offer

🤝 Equity, not just pay

We are talking about real shares. Amount we discuss openly in person — for us the two belong together.

📅 A clear frame 12 months, financed through the EXIST funding which we apply together. EXIST program offers 2500 EUR if you have Bachelor or Master Degree, 1000 EUR if you are a student and 3000 if you have your PhD.

Extending is the stated goal and depends on the next funding phase — we will always tell you where we stand.

🏠 Remote from anywhere

Asynchronous by default, core hours by arrangement. We are based in Wiesbaden — if you are nearby: all the better, but it is not required.

🔬A funding context

EXIST bring structure, a network and a link to academia.

⚡ Short paths

Few people, one decision.