Our story
Two kinds of experience.
One reason to build.
The experience of building digital patient journeys. The experience of finding my own way through divorce. Switchbacks brings them together.
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A note from our founder
Why I built Switchbacks.
I'm Steven, a dad of three in San Diego. We're an outdoorsy family, happiest in nature, at the beach or exploring somewhere new.
When my marriage ended, the shock and hurt were hard to make sense of. There was grief, anger, confusion, fear about the future and the disbelief that I wouldn't see my kids every day. I'm not here to assign blame. My ex-wife deserves the chance to tell her own story.
I had a therapist, mentors, family and close friends. Even with all of that, there were nights I felt alone with what I was going through. I wanted to create something for the moments between those conversations.
Not a shortcut around the personal work. A little help finding the next step.
Why me
What I know, and what I lived.
I build digital health products for a living: programs people actually stick with, that turn insights and content from renowned clinicians and therapists into guidance a person can use day to day. Nearly 100,000 patients have used a platform I helped build.
Then I went through my own divorce. My therapist, my mindset mentor (he coaches the mental game for a collegiate men's tennis team) and the people closest to me kept pointing me to books, practices and ideas that helped. Many of them are in Switchbacks now, alongside the support I wish I'd had at 2 a.m.
Switchbacks puts those two things together: what I know about building something people come back to, and what I learned walking this trail myself.
It is its own product. It isn't a clinical service, and no clinician or company I've worked with built, reviewed or endorses it.
Why the name
Switchbacks explain the journey.
Cairns help mark the way.
A mountain trail turns back and forth. You can be facing the direction you came from while still climbing. Finding your way through divorce can feel like that: good days and hard ones, with progress that is easier to see when you look back.
And sometimes you look up and realize you can't see the trail at all. On rocky ground, cairns—small stacks of stones—help mark the way.
That's what I've tried to leave here: the books, the guides, the practices, the conversations and my own story. Little markers to help you find your footing when things feel unclear.
A cairn doesn't do the climbing for you. You're still the one walking. But you don't have to find every next step alone.
Finding the trailhead
A little more direction.
On my first trip alone with my kids after my separation, we went to Yosemite, my favorite place in the world. One night I texted my mentor to thank him for helping me find the trailhead. The climb ahead was long, but having a direction brought me peace.
If you're feeling lost, I've been there. I can't promise it's an easy path. Only that I believe we can get through it together.
— Steven, founder
The next step is yours
Let us help you find your path.
Start where you are, not where you think you should be.
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