Grow Therapy Team Offsite: Connecting In Person to Advance Accessible Mental Health Care

We created Grow Therapy to make high-quality, affordable mental health care accessible to everyone. That mission shapes how we hire, how we collaborate, and how we support one another as teammates. It also guided our decision to bring the whole company together for an in-person offsite after years of operating remotely.

Over the past two years, Grow Therapy has grown from a handful of people in a spare bedroom to an organization of more than 160 colleagues working across the country. As a remote-first company, we’ve celebrated wins and solved hard problems together over video calls, but many of us had not yet met face-to-face. Hosting a company-wide gathering allowed us to translate virtual rapport into real-world relationships and deepen the trust that underpins our work.

This February we held our first offsite in Austin, Texas. Every full-time Grow teammate was invited—regardless of department, role, or tenure—because everyone contributes to our shared goal of expanding access to mental health care. Even with unseasonably snowy weather and a number of flight rebookings, the event achieved its purpose: we celebrated milestones, aligned on the roadmap ahead, and collaborated across teams to identify practical ways to strengthen relationships with provider partners and better serve our clients.

Beyond strategy sessions and presentations, the offsite was an opportunity to connect personally. We spent time together in informal settings—exploring the city’s food scene, enjoying casual conversations between sessions, and tackling team activities that encouraged communication and problem-solving. We tried an Escape The Room challenge (with mixed success, as I can attest), and those shared experiences helped people discover new common ground outside of day-to-day responsibilities.

One of the most valuable outcomes was the way in-person interactions accelerated relationship-building. Remote work affords flexibility and deep focus, but hallway conversations and impromptu coffee chats are hard to replicate on a screen. Bringing people together created moments of spontaneous collaboration, renewed enthusiasm for our mission, and clearer alignment on how each team’s work supports clinicians and clients.

Throughout the offsite, discussions moved from big-picture goals to concrete next steps. Cross-department workshops surfaced opportunities to improve how we support provider partners, streamline internal processes, and make our services more approachable for clients. Those conversations are now informing the roadmap and will guide our priorities in the months ahead.

Personally, I arrived at the offsite excited but curious about what the experience would bring. After wrapping up our first company-wide in-person event, my strongest takeaway is appreciation—for the talented, committed people I get to work with every day, for the mission that unites us, and for the collective determination to make mental health care more accessible and effective.

The offsite was not an end point but a meaningful milestone: a chance to strengthen connections, renew shared purpose, and return to our day-to-day work with clearer focus and momentum. We left Austin energized, with new friendships formed and a refreshed commitment to earning the trust of the providers and clients we serve.

We look forward to building on what we started in Austin, continuing to learn from each other, and scaling our impact while keeping affordability and quality at the center of everything we do.