While entrepreneurs race to integrate chatbots and generative AI into nearly everything, Emma Payne, the inventor and CEO of Help Texts, is focusing on a more straightforward approach.
Located in Seattle, Help Texts is a subscription service that sends out personalized, supportive text messages to individuals dealing with grief from a loss, those in a caregiving role, or people in search of mental health support for enhancing their overall well-being.
The messages are custom-tailored to the individual’s circumstances but are not created by bots. These messages do not facilitate a back-and-forth interaction. Instead, subscribers receive bi-weekly messages drawn from a vast library of human-written texts, incorporating insights from experts in various fields.
“We offer one-way, deeply therapeutic support rather than trying to provide a two-way therapeutic conversation,” mentioned Payne. Subscribers “appreciate receiving thoughtful messages that they can read at their convenience without feeling obliged to respond,” she added.
This method is proving effective, as recent research indicates.
Among 4,000 Help Texts users in the United Kingdom who have suffered a loss, over 83% retained their subscription for an entire year. A survey among these users yielded responses from over half of them, nearly 95% of whom found the service moderately or very helpful, and over 95% felt it enhanced their sense of support.
The idea for Help Texts came to Payne on a flight back from a memorial service for a friend in 2015, a friend who had also been very close to her husband, who had died by suicide ten years prior.
“The whole experience, from attending the funeral to the pub night afterwards, included conversations with people I hadn’t seen in a decade, all expressing regret for not reaching out. They cared but didn’t know what to say,” Payne recounted.
Three years later, Payne launched Help Texts.
Registering for the service is quick, requiring only about five minutes to offer information necessary for tailoring the texts – information such as the name of the deceased, the relationship, key dates, and cause of death may be provided.
Subscribers have the option to nominate two friends, family members, or colleagues to receive intermittent texts that encourage them to connect with the grieving individual and suggest what they could say – an important yet often challenging aspect of support, according to Payne.
“I have yet to meet a grieving person who would prefer speaking to a therapist over having a friend remember a significant date, like the birthday of their deceased child,” she mentioned as an example.
The service, which costs $99 for a 12-month individual subscription, can be paused and resumed. Users range from individual customers to employers offering grief support, government entities, organ donation organizations, hospices, universities implementing suicide prevention measures, charities, and religious groups.
“Bereavement care is healthcare, and it’s frequently overlooked. It represents an opportunity to maintain health during life’s most vulnerable moments. It affects all of us eventually and is, therefore, a public health issue presenting a significant potential for impact.”
– Emma Payne, CEO of Help Texts
Help Texts is available in 24 languages and caters to subscribers from 44 countries.
Even though the service does not simulate a dialogue, it monitors responses from subscribers, facilitating intervention for individuals expressing suicidal ideations or needing help.
While Help Texts abstains from using generative AI for conversational purposes due to its potential for inappropriate responses, the technology plays a minor role in the service’s operation. Payne suggests that AI could be instrumental in training therapists on handling grief. The company has also compiled a dataset well-suited for training large language models in AI.
This venture represents Payne’s sixth startup. In 1995, she co-founded Canada’s WebPool Syndicate, a pioneering web design company, which was eventually acquired.
With Help Texts, Payne was intent from the beginning on building a sustainable, scalable business. She adopted a paid model from the very start, achieving profitability quickly. Over the years, Payne has attracted just over $1 million in investments and is currently seeking additional funding. The startup operates with a team of six employees.
Initially, customer growth was gradual, according to Payne. However, the outbreak of COVID-19, while initially a setback due to the halt of new initiatives by potential corporate clients, eventually spurred media interest in Help Texts as digital healthcare solutions gained unprecedented acceptance.
Since last year, the business has significantly expanded.
Help Texts has broadened its services to include texts for individuals grieving the loss of a pet, along with messages tailored for healthcare workers facing burnout, providing them advice on offering comfort to grieving patients and their families — an area where many healthcare professionals lack formal training.
Payne is passionate about addressing bereavement care.
“Bereavement care is a critical aspect of healthcare that often goes unnoticed,” she concluded. “Addressing it effectively at such vulnerable times in life is not only a public health matter but also a profound opportunity to make a meaningful difference.”
