Opportunity found Matt Gacek once, and it was good.
It found the Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering sophomore computer science major a second time, and it was life changing.
For this, a start-up created and sold, a job landed, a world of entrepreneurship possibilities looming, Gacek offers perspective.
“I got very lucky,” he says. “I hope that something like this inspires other students that they can do it, as well.”
By utilizing the resources of Luddy and the Shoemaker Innovation Center, Gacek developed Theia, a ground-breaking AI therapy and personal growth app. It was so innovative and promising that, in less than six months, it was purchased by Miri, a San Francisco-Bay-Area-based AI-driven health and wellness platform.
Miri is integrating Theia’s technology and user base to improve its own products.
While still a Luddy student (he’s on track for a spring of 2025 graduation), Gacek has joined Miri as an LLM software engineer. His job is to contribute to the development of cutting-edge products.
He says he can’t talk about financial specifics.
Travis Brown, senior executive assistant dean of innovation, entrepreneurship and commercialization, says Gacek’s subject matter expertise in leveraging technology advances to address real-world problems fueled his success.
“His instinct to put his solution into the market as quickly as possible so he could serve his target customers not only resulted in building a customer base almost immediately,” Brown says, “but also attracted interest from those looking to acquire the intellectual property he developed.
“Matt showed that courage, conviction and focus can result in impressive outcomes in a relatively short period of time. His success exemplifies the rapid pace of entrepreneurship being set by technological innovation.”
Gacek says the therapy app idea came from his own successful therapy experience after an initial reluctance to try it.
“I worried about what others would think, worried if it would work, worried about what I’d think of myself. A lot of men struggle to talk to others about their feelings. They don’t want to go to therapy.”
Gacek’s therapy helped him, and he says he knew it could help others. As a Luddy student well versed in scientific advances, and as a Shoebox participant in tune to business opportunities, he wondered if an AI-fueled app could make a difference.
The short answer -- absolutely.
“Why not let AI do something for all of us,” Gacek says. “The idea of creating an AI that is judgment free and that continually learns and understands who you are and continually becomes better at helping you was a no brainer.”
How does it work?
For starters, it’s free. Users check in daily and report their moods, habits and what they’re thankful for. That lets AI understand and know them. Then they enter a chat with AI.
“The more you use it,” Gacek says, “the better it tracks how you feel throughout the week.”
He says they trained a model on more than 5,000 data points using multiple psychology research papers and therapy notes. They trained a customer service system to understand how to text in a text-to-text way that’s specific to therapy and to specific users.
AI prompts users to talk about themselves.
“Therapists give tidbits of advice,” Gacek says, “but mostly it’s listening to you. That’s what the app is trained to do.”
The app doesn’t provide medication. It has safeguards if a user says something harmful that suggests, say, suicide.
While interaction is done by typing, the goal is to eventually integrate a voice feature.
Development began last July and ran through August. The app was launched on the Apple Beta store for testing, and then fully launched in late September. By early November, it had 610 users, and Gacek was trying to raise between $300,000 to a million dollars through Venture Financing, which recommended connecting with Miri.
An hour conversation with Miri CEO Amy Kelly led to an offer.
“We shared a bunch of synergies; shared the same vision,” Gacek says. “The vibe really kicked off.”
What’s next?
“The ideas never stop flowing,” Gacek says. “I’m hoping this is a pivotal moment in my career. I’m only 20 years old. I’m happy with what I’ve done so far, but this is just the beginning.
“I want the next five years to be even bigger. Entrepreneurship is my life calling. I enjoy building, having these creative thoughts and diving into stuff no one really knows.”
Gacek emphasizes he didn’t do this alone, that it came with the help of others such as Brown, who served as a mentor, for legal advice from Ice Miller, an Indianapolis-based law firm, and for all the Shoebox students who provided invaluable insight.
“I was able to bounce ideas with Travis. He helped me traverse this interesting path.
“A bunch of people were pivotal in making this happen.”