“You have to expect things of yourself before you can do them,” says a famous quote by Serena Williams. In today’s competitive sports landscape, young athletes not only need to excel physically but also possess mental toughness and resilience. Recognizing the importance of mental training for young athletes, Karina Karagaeva and Radinela Dimitrakova founded Mindset Design, an app that fosters mental toughness in athletes in individual sports, with a primary segment – the junior tennis players.

Karina and Radinela share a common vision of empowering young athletes to realize their full potential and become mentally resilient. The founders bring a nice blend of expertise to the table – Karina’s background in business development spans major tech companies, such as Apple, while Radinela has firsthand experience working with top tennis players including the former number one tennis player in the world Daniil Medvedev and Ons Jabeur. Operating in a $22B market, the Mindset Design team strives to become a digital partner for hundreds of junior athletes around the globe.

“We believe that mindset is not something set in stone but rather something changeable and capable of being designed. Our product could help many athlete-children in realizing their full potential and being mentally resilient and healthy. We are a startup with this strong cause ingrained in our DNA,” Karina tells me.

The startup, which is currently in a pre-revenue phase working with beta users, is currently raising a €550K round to speed up its product development and develop its sales channels in the Western European markets with a focus on France, Spain, and the UK. The team has already secured a commitment of €375K from local and international investors, while the rest €175K it is raising through a SeedBlink campaign. The first users of Mindset Design are junior tennis players, but the app plans to expand its solution to athletes in padel, table tennis, pickleball, badminton, swimming, winter sports