Tech Topics In This Article: Tampa startups, mental health startups
What started as words on a bunch of sticky notes has grown into a mental health and telehealth startup sending millions of text messages to people in need of a daily dose of positive psychology.
Cope Notes, a Tampa-based startup created by musician-and-entrepreneur Johnny Crowder, was born out of Crowder's experience trying to navigate his own mental health journey. While studying psychology, Crowder started writing short messages on sticky notes to help reframe his thoughts. But he saw the need and opportunity to use messaging technology to create new Ecological Momentary Intervention (EMI) opportunities every day to people in need.
Today, the startup uses SMS messages for quick and curated notes about mental health and wellness. "[Each message] is reviewed, edited, and approved by mental health professionals to make sure that they are based on proven psychology," Crowder told Hypepotamus. "It's not just messages like 'smile' or 'have a good day.'"
Users can access Cope Notes for $8.99 per month, but the most popular option is a personalized gift subscription for a loved one.
Part of the power of the platform is that CopeNotes gives each individual a unique daily message or prompt.
"If I'm the only person in the universe to receive this message at this time, we hope users will ask Why? How can I apply this to my life? Why me? Why today? And those are powerful questions," he added.
CopeNotes has sent over 4 million text messages to date and has recently found a strong use case working inside schools, as educators and parents are looking to bring more digital support options to students in need. Today, Cope Notes announced a new partnership with the Central Florida Behavioral Health Network (CFBHN) to provide their mental health services to faculty, staff, and students in Pasco, Charlotte, and DeSoto County school districts. This will make CopeNotes available to more than 100 schools over the course of the spring semester.
CFBHN is offering Cope Notes subscriptions at no cost to school districts. Cope Notes messages are a mix of positive psychology, neuroscience, and peer support that require less than 10 seconds of daily interaction to produce individual results.
Students sign up to receive Cope Notes messages from a QR code. From there, the platform sends a unique text message at a random time during the day. Each student receives their own unique text sequence, and each message is written by a real person, sans ChatGPT.
Crowder sees the new school-focused partnership in Florida as an opportunity to strengthen the state's "weak mental health infrastructure" that cannot currently support all the students in need.
Crowder started building CopeNotes in 2018, but jumped in full time during the COVID-19 pandemic.
He credits Tampa's startup scene for embracing him as a non-technical founder with "a death metal t-shirt and face tattoo" and helping him grow a tech-based company.