2 Minutes & 19 Seconds
That's how long our APIs were down this year. Also that's how long someone's suicidal thoughts lasted while trying to reach help.
September 3, 2024
"2 minutes & 19 seconds".
That's how long our APIs were down this year. Also that's how long someone's suicidal thoughts lasted while trying to reach help
Last week, I was checking our API availability and realised our APIs were down for 2min 19 secs this year.
In regular tech, that's a minor blip. Maybe some users can't watch Netflix. Maybe an e-commerce transaction fails.
In mental health tech, that's 2 minutes where someone having the worst day of their life couldn't connect to help.
I have been building APIs for close to ten years now. But building APIs that connect therapists to patients is different. Every line of code feels heavier.
When a regular API returns a 404, someone gets annoyed. When our API returns a 404, someone might not get the intervention that saves their marriage, their job, or even their life.
And by the time APIs come up. The courage to seek help is gone.
The hardest part about being CTO of a mental health company isn't scaling the technology. It's carrying the weight of knowing that your code quality directly impacts someone's healing journey.
Regular APIs serve data but mental health APIs serve hope.
And hope doesn't have a retry mechanism.
P.S. - Our API uptime is now 99.999%. Not because our investors demanded it. Because someone's worst day can't wait for us to fix our servers.
