#79 - Matthew Cooper on Stepping Down as CEO for His Mental Health
Stigma Podcast - Mental Health
Release Date: 02/25/2021
Stigma Podcast - Mental Health
What is the future of legal cannabis from a retail / e-commerce perspective? Today's guest, Socrates Rosenfeld, Co-Founder and CEO of Jane Technologies explains. Jane is an e-commerce solution for the Cannabis space that supports nearly 3,000 dispensaries and handles more than 20% of the legal Cannabis transactions in the U.S. each year.
info_outlineStigma Podcast - Mental Health
Alyson Watson is CEO and co-founder of Modern Health, a mental health unicorn! Modern Health is a global mental health benefits solution for employers that covers the spectrum of mental wellbeing needs from tech enabled solutions to professional support solutions on one platform.
info_outlineStigma Podcast - Mental Health
April Koh is the youngest female founder to ever take a startup from just an idea to unicorn status. We are so excited that she’s accomplished this in the mental health space, and we are excited for you to meet her and learn more about her Company, Spring Health! For those who may not be familiar, Spring Health is a provider of mental health benefits to employers for their employees, and their employees’ families.
info_outlineStigma Podcast - Mental Health
Dr. Amit Etkin is pioneering a revolution in the way mental health medications are designed, developed, prescribed, and brought to market. Precision psychiatry is the future of mental health treatment and Dr. Etkin is leading the way with his drug development platform, Alto Neuroscience. In this episode, Dr. Etkin explains why psychiatric drugs have failed, what he is doing about it and why it will work.
info_outlineStigma Podcast - Mental Health
Amanda Eilian, Founding Partner of _able Partners joins us to talk all things mental health startup investing. _able Partners is an early-stage VC firm supporting visionary founders in the positive living space. Their investments focus on companies that improve the daily lives of people, making them healthier, happier, and making their lives more meaningful. Some specific investment areas include mental health, addiction, women’s health, sexual wellness, & coaching among others.
info_outlineStigma Podcast - Mental Health
Today’s guest is John Donoghue. He is well known for his groundbreaking work developing Brain Computer Interfaces (BCIs) to restore movement for people with paralysis, known as ‘BrainGate’. BrainGate was the original BCI system created by a company called Cyberkinetics, of which John was a co-founder.
info_outlineStigma Podcast - Mental Health
Today’s guest is Elyse Cohen, VP of Social Impact and Inclusion at Rare Beauty by Selena Gomez. Elyse is an expert on purpose driven brands, social impact, and has been hand selected by Selena Gomez to lead the impact efforts at Rare Beauty. Previously Elyse worked at the White House for First Lady Michelle Obama as Deputy Director of the Let’s Move effort. She has worked on social impact and policy initiatives at the Public Health Institute and in a variety of other social impact roles.
info_outlineStigma Podcast - Mental Health
You can’t fix what you don’t measure. Measurement and testing of our mental health lags the same capabilities in physical health care. Dr. Nick Allen, our guest today, is building a mental health measurement solution for clinical use. Today we talk to him about the challenges, and opportunity for his startup, Ksana Health.
info_outlineStigma Podcast - Mental Health
Dr. Anthony Hassan, President and CEO of the Cohen Veterans Network (CVN) joins us today. CVN is a network of 25 non-profit mental health clinics providing care to veterans and their families. The facilities are located in or around historically dense veteran and active duty military communities.
info_outlineStigma Podcast - Mental Health
Jon Kostakopoulos was the first study participant in the NYU Psilocybin clinical trial. After years of struggling with alcoholism and after trying other options including in-patient programs, out-patient programs, AA, and pharmaceutical treatments, nothing was working for him. Finally, at age 25, Jon joined the clinical trial and underwent three different Psilocybin treatment sessions and has not craved alcohol since his first treatment session.
info_outlineIn this episode, we are talking about entrepreneur mental health. Our guest, Matthew Cooper, stepped down from his role as CEO of EarnUp after growing the business successfully for 7 years after creating it. When he stepped down, he cited mental health as the primary driver and wrote an incredibly authentic, vulnerable and amazing blog post about his decision on December 18, 2020.
You can connect with Matthew here: Blog, Twitter, Linked In
What If Fellowship: https://whatif.vc/fellowship
HERE ARE SOME OF THE THINGS WE TALKED ABOUT:
- Matthew shares his story about his history of mental illness and how it led him to the place that he is at today in both his personal life and his career.
- We talk about the stressors that come with starting a business and how certain beliefs can lead to a feeling of isolation while being successful at the same time.
- We discuss what options are available for real support to entrepreneurs and founders of companies to prevent a mental health emergency or burnout.
- Matthew shares what tools he has tried and what worked for him, his experiences with in-patient treatments, and his mental health cycles that he has gone through.
- We discuss how mental health is not a linear journey for many people and how worth it it is to keep trying to find the right solution to your problem.
- We talk about what we can be doing to better support entrepreneurs as an ecosystem of founders and investors, but also as friends or family members of entrepreneurs.
- Finally, Matthew shares that human connection with safe people is a huge factor in keeping your mental health in a positive space as well as just sharing your story and being open with where you’re at mentally.
Connect with the Stigma Podcast in the following ways: What If Fellowship, Patreon, Website, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Email
Connect with host Stephen Hays here: Stephen Hays Personal Website, Twitter, LinkedIn, What If Ventures (Mental Health Venture Fund)