We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Maddie Sheffer. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Maddie below.
Hi Maddie, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to go back in time and hear the story of how you came up with the name of your brand?
Hey, I’m Maddie! I am a Zillennial sex therapist and the creator of Zillennial Therapy.
What’s a Zillennial? Too young to be considered a Millennial and too old to be a Gen-Zer. I like many others my age feel stuck in between generations.
What’s a sex therapist? As a sex therapist, I help guide people through understanding their sexual identity, gender, and expression by rewriting their narrative and exploring what sexuality means beyond physical actions.
Since COVID, Therapy has been changing; Mental health information is flooding social media and many people find it difficult to find a therapist that they can afford, live near, and relate to. Telehealth video sessions have been on the rise, and more people are getting mental health treatment from clinicians online. My company, Zillennial Therapy aims to provide affordable, approachable, and authentic sexual wellness media, games, and education.
As a young professional, I also found myself being insecure having gotten my masters at such a young age. I decided to lean into it and I created Zillennial Therapy, highlighting the fact that I’m young and that mental health treatment is changing. I am so excited to share my knowledge about sexual wellness education and therapy with people my age.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I’m Maddie Sheffer, MMFT and I am the creator of Zillennial Therapy and am a sex therapist in Los Angeles. After working for the Sexual Health Alliace in Ausitin, TX during college, I moved to LA as a 22-year-old ready to start grad school at USC. I finished my master’s program in 2 years and have a master’s in marriage and family therapy.
I started working in private practice as soon as I graduated and filled my practice over the next 6 months. I found myself craving something more and wanted to build community, I started the Zillennial Therapy Instagram and started posting whatever I wanted to. Modern design, great type and graphics, sexual wellness information, and anything I felt like. Authenticly interacting with others was fun and allowed me to understand the needs of the community better. I followed similar accounts that I liked and started talking with people through social media. Community slowly began to build through Instagram and I started working on Zillennial Therapy in my spare time after seeing clients throughout the week.
People who are in between the Millennial and Gen-Z generations are wanting modern mental health care. That’s what Zillennial Therapy is. It’s modern sexual wellness for the Zillennial. On the Zillennial Therapy site we now have a card game, a journal prompt book, a 2-week intimacy bootcamp, as well as music, media, blogs, and 1:1 sexual wellness information sessions, which is like sex ed for the Zillennial.
Now at 25, I am getting ready to get married to my partner of 6 and a half years, finish up my 3000 hours to complete my licensure to become a LMFT therapsit, and grow Zillennial Therapy to be the resource and community I know it can be.
What’s been the best source of new clients for you?
Instagram has been the number one way I have been able to acquire clients. Even with my following being just a couple thousand followers, I still manage to fill my practice with new clients who find me on Instagram. I also get clients from online directories like GoodTherapy or PsychologyToday. Therapy and how people find therapists is changing, people want someone they can relate to, and Instagram allows them to understand who they are at a glance and shows them why they would want to work with you rather than someone else.
We’d love to hear your thoughts about selling platforms like Amazon/Etsy vs selling on your own site.
I use Shopify to sell my card game and other media like books or other offers on the site. Shopify was difficult to set up, especially when setting up Instagram and Facebook with Shopify. After speaking to a dozen help desk people I was able to figure it out and since then it has been going well. I like that they give me the shipping labels and facilitate the transaction well in a way that customers on Instagram trust.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.zillennialtherapy.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zillennialtherapy/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/maddie.sheffer
- Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/maddiesheffer/
- Other: https://linktr.ee/zillennialtherapy
Image Credits
All photos are my graphics
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