Today we’d like to introduce you to Chris Barnes.
Hi Chris, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I’m a first-generation college student who took an unconventional path to where I am today. I actually ran away from home during my senior year at Loy Norrix High School and ended up living with a friend’s family, working at a fried chicken restaurant and paying for everything myself. When I started at Western Michigan University, I had no idea what I was getting into or that I’d be in college and grad school for 11 years after that.
I worked full time at a local family owned restaurant while taking a full course load. Those service industry skills turned out to be priceless preparation for working with humans in general. I started in business, failed college algebra a few times, then discovered psychology and fell in love with statistics. Today I run Kalamazoo ADHD Consultants while simultaneously leading PsychAssist.ai, a tech company that’s transforming how assessment psychologists work.
What’s the story behind PsychAssist.ai? How did this idea come about?
It started with a personal problem. I was drowning in documentation like every other assessment psychologist, trying to piece together automations with what felt like bubble gum and duct tape. Traditional EHRs are glorified information gatherers and storage units that never leverage data for actual clinical work. Assessment psychologists are more bogged down with documentation than any other specialty.
The identity shift happened when I stopped thinking about just automating my own workflow. Something was gnawing at me that there had to be another way for assessment psychologists to escape Google Doc hell and get back to actual practice. PsychAssist.ai was born from that moment when I realized I wasn’t just fixing my own problem anymore. I was building something that could change how an entire field operates.
What surprised you most about building a tech company?
The skills I never expected to learn. Leading a team of 10 and growing. Project management. Bootstrapped startup management. These weren’t in any psychology textbook, but they’ve become as essential as knowing diagnostic criteria.
Working with dozens of other psychologists showed me every single one has the same pain points. The challenge became building something specific enough to be useful yet general enough to serve everyone, while maintaining both clinical voice and clinician control of workflow.
**How has your WMU experience influenced your entrepreneurial journey?**
Those service industry skills from working at a local family owned restaurant prepared me for something I didn’t see coming: business needs to be customer service first. “Treat People Well” is literally engraved on my Heritage Hall brick, and it never stopped being relevant. The platform I’m building allows clinicians to do exactly that with reduced effort.
That statistics minor that seemed like a joke when I was failing college algebra? It’s helping me understand data architecture in ways I never imagined. WMU taught me so much more than I ever knew after taking a chance on me.
What drives you to keep pushing forward, especially when things get challenging?
I felt obligated to see PsychAssist.ai through, regardless of outcome. I knew if I didn’t try, it would eat at me forever. I’d rather regret things I did that didn’t work than spend my life wishing I had tried something that might have had impact.
The validation came fast when I grew a list of 1000’s of psychologists, all mentioning the same frustrations. The signals were there from the start, so isolation wasn’t the issue I thought it would be.
What advice would you give to other Michigan entrepreneurs who are hesitant to take the leap?
Do it now. 1% more each day. Be tolerant of growth, especially your own messy version of it. When everyone has opinions about your direction, remember they’re not living with the consequences of your choices.
This has been the best year and a half of my life. Not because it’s been easy, but because it proved that when you focus intensely on one thing you already deeply understand, you can create something far beyond what you thought possible. The gap between “professional who happens to have an idea” and “entrepreneur changing a field” is smaller than you think. You just have to be willing to cross it.
What’s next for PsychAssist.ai?
We’re continuing to build the single source of truth that assessment psychologists desperately need. Something that helps make better clinical decisions, reduces administrative burden, and creates genuinely useful outcomes for our patients. I’m running both my clinical practice and leading the tech company, loving every minute of the journey.
Where can people learn more about your work?
You can find PsychAssist.ai online, and I’m always happy to connect with fellow entrepreneurs or anyone interested in the intersection of psychology and technology. The best innovations come from understanding a problem so deeply that you become obligated to solve it.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It’s been more smooth than I thought with PsychAssist.ai. The product-market fit was obvious from day one because I was solving my own problem, and when I started talking to other assessment psychologists, they all had the exact same pain points. The technical challenges were real, but they felt manageable because the vision was so clear.
Building a clinical practice, however, that has been bumpy. That’s where the real struggles lived. When you’re starting a private practice, especially in a specialized area like ADHD assessment, you’re learning everything from scratch. How do you price your services? How do you handle insurance? How do you manage cash flow when payments are unpredictable?
I remember early days when I’d have few referrals and I’d start panicking about whether I’d made a huge mistake not pursuing a stable job/income. There were months where I questioned everything, wondering if I was cut out for the business side of psychology. The administrative burden felt crushing sometimes, which is actually what led me to start automating things in the first place.
But each bump has been a tremendous learning opportunity, if you’re open to that. Managing personnel, insurance changes, being creative to solve solutions within tight rule sets.
The biggest struggle was probably imposter syndrome, especially in those early days. Here I was, this kid who worked at a chicken restaurant, trying to build a psychology practice and then a tech company. Sometimes I’d sit in meetings with other professionals and wonder if they could tell I didn’t come from the same background they did.
But that’s where the WMU experience really helped. Working in the service industry taught me that everyone deserves to be treated well, regardless of their background, regardless how well your day is going personally. It gave me a different perspective on what professionalism actually means. It’s not about where you came from, it’s about how you show up for people when they need you.
The practice struggles also taught me resilience in ways that have been invaluable for building PsychAssist.ai. When you’ve dealt with insurance denials, difficult clients, and cash flow problems, launching a tech startup feels manageable by comparison. Every challenge in the practice was preparing me for something bigger, even when I didn’t realize it at the time.
As you know, we’re big fans of Kalamazoo ADHD Consultants. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
Kalamazoo ADHD Consultants specializes in comprehensive psychological assessments for ADHD and related conditions across the lifespan. We’re known for thorough, evidence-based evaluations that help individuals understand their cognitive strengths and challenges, leading to better treatment planning and life outcomes.
What sets us apart is our commitment to treating each person as an individual, not just a set of symptoms. We take the time to understand the whole person – their history, their goals, their struggles – and provide assessments that are both clinically rigorous and personally meaningful. Our approach combines cutting-edge assessment tools with genuine human connection.
We’re most proud of helping people finally get answers to questions they’ve had about themselves for years. Whether it’s a college student who’s always struggled with focus, a professional wondering why they feel overwhelmed by tasks that seem easy for others, or parents seeking to understand their child’s learning differences, we provide clarity and direction.
What we want readers to know is that psychological assessment isn’t just about getting a diagnosis – it’s about understanding how your brain works so you can work with it, not against it. We believe everyone deserves to understand their cognitive profile and have the tools they need to succeed. Our goal is to empower people with knowledge about themselves that leads to real, positive change in their lives.
This work has also directly informed the development of PsychAssist.ai, where we’re building technology that helps assessment psychologists focus more on the clinical work that matters and less on the administrative burden that often gets in the way of helping people.
Who else deserves credit in your story?
Dr. C. Richard Spates, one of my instructors at WMU, took me under his wing. He believed in me when I hardly believed in myself and helped me see that psychology could be my life’s work. Without his influence, I genuinely don’t think I would be a psychologist today.
My High School Band Director, Suzanne Johnson, deserves enormous credit. She allowed me to be creative within context. As the section leader for the drum line, I learned, through error, leadership skills that I still use today (and what not to do) She pushed me to be better than I thought I could be and gave me my first real experience leading a team.
My wife, who was my girlfriend at the time, showed me that more things were possible when I had no direction in life whatsoever. She supported me through those uncertain early college years and has been my constant cheerleader through every career transition since. Having someone who believes in your potential, especially when you can’t see it yourself, is invaluable.
And honestly, every psychologist who shared their documentation frustrations with me over the years helped validate that we were solving a real problem. Sometimes the most important support comes from people who simply say “yes, that’s exactly what I struggle with too.”
Contact Info:
- Website: https://psychassist.ai
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-barnes/
- Other: https://kalamazooadhd.com
