GIMBHI‘s Q&A with Cope Notes CEO and Founder, Johnny Crowder
Johnny Crowder is a mental health advocate, public speaker, and entrepreneur. He is the founder and CEO of Cope Notes, a mental health platform that provides daily support via text messages. Crowder’s journey is deeply rooted in his personal experiences with mental illness, which he openly shares to inspire and educate others. His work includes delivering keynotes and training sessions that focus on improving mental health, communication, and workplace culture. He has also been a TEDx speaker, known for his humorous and relatable approach to complex psychological topics.
What is Cope Notes?
Cope Notes uses daily text messages to improve mental and emotional health for organizations, families, youth, and adults in nearly 100 countries around the world. Each randomly-timed message interrupts negative thought patterns with psychology facts, journaling prompts, and exercises that are proven to reduce stress, anxiety, and depression by training the brain to think healthier thoughts. Pretty cool, right?
Why did you start this / tell me about your journey
Like a lot of founders in the space, I grew up with severe mental illness and resisted treatment at all costs. After running away from home in high school, I started treatment and college-level psychology courses at the same time, so my interest was piqued to say the least. I wound up earning a psychology degree and my CRPS (Certified Recovery Peer Specialist), traveling to do mental health advocacy and peer support all over the country. I wanted to combine the infinite scalability of technology, the personal touch of peer support, and the neuroscience principles I learned about in school to drive long-term thought pattern and behavior change, and… well, here we are, haha. I had no idea it would become what it is today.
Talk to me about why you decided to make Cope Notes text message-based.
I wish I could call myself a genius, but a big part of that decision was related to being bootstrapped. We just didn’t have the funds to make anything too high-tech when we were getting started, so we tried to think of something simple and elegant rather than complex and robust. To our surprise, a lot of people preferred our approach even though it didn’t have all the bells and whistles. In fact, that’s why they preferred it. It was just easier for them to integrate into their daily lives. Another catalyst for our commitment to SMS was when I read that text messages have a 50x higher read rate than app notifications, and that more than 36 million Americans rely on non-smart cell phones. The idea of creating a digital health resource that tens of millions of Americans couldn’t access just because they didn’t have a shiny new iPhone didn’t sit well with me.
Tell me about what studies you have conducted for Cope Notes.
We’ve been really fortunate to build a research relationship with the University of South Florida over the years. A lot of people don’t know that the Stigma Action Research Lab and the Florida Mental Health Institute are both right there on USF’s campus. I used to give guest lectures to psychology students pretty frequently, and a researcher / professor there, Dr. Kosyluk, wound up taking an interest in what we were working on. Fast forward to today, and we have 2 published research studies on the efficacy of Cope Notes, one published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research and one in the Journal of Mental Health. The latter was especially exciting because it measured statistically significant decreases in depression, anxiety, and stress faster than therapy. Plus, it measured improved emotional intelligence and coping skills for people who weren’t even experiencing pronounced mental health symptoms. We were definitely hopeful going into the study, especially with thousands of testimonials, but there’s always this little voice in the back of your head that wonders, “Is this really legit?” It’s hard to explain the relief, the excitement, and the vindication that those findings brought to our team, and to me personally.
What doors has that opened for Cope Notes?
It’s funny, for years, people kept telling us, “Oh great, you have this thing? Come talk to us when you have this other thing.” So first it was a certain number of paying customers, then it was testimonials, then this type of study, then that one… the list just kept growing. After a while, we hung our hat on establishing a strong enough body of evidence that our intervention actually helped people that nobody in their right mind could refute it. That assurance is something that only comes after helping tens of thousands of people improve their health, relationships, and lives. I say all of this because of course this evidence base earns us massive government contracts, school district partnerships, and more recently, statewide Medicaid contracts with insurance giants like UnitedHealthcare… but on a more personal note, it feels like it’s blessed the people we serve, our team, and me with the confidence necessary to trust in the solution. Not trying to sound cheesy here, but in a world of pseudoscience and VC-inflated marketing budgets, that’s absolutely priceless
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