Cove

The telemedicine company that's providing personalized migraine relief.

About Cove

Cove is a doctor-led business: its experienced neurologists have designed an online solution that enables migraines to be treated in a targeted, personalized manner. Talk about brain power.

Why We Love Them

Now here’s a company that helps its customers get ahead in life. If you feel the weight of the world on your shoulders, it might mean you’re susceptible to migraines. At their mildest, they can be annoying – forcing you to cancel your Friday night plans. At their most severe, they can be life changing – affecting your job, your relationships, your self esteem. Yet even with America’s vast healthcare sector, there’s only one specialist in the country for every 80,000 migraine sufferers. That’s 20,000 more people than were in the Miami Gardens stadium for the 2020 Super Bowl. In other words – a lot of people. This imbalance has driven costs up and accessibility, down – until now.

Origin Story

Cove is the brainchild of Steven Gutentag and Demetri Karagas, ex-Google employees, hot on the heels of other successful launches including a home cleaning service company. They saw the numbers – 36 million regular migraine sufferers and an industry which had been barely affected by the internet – and realized there was an opportunity for a disruptive business that ignored the fractured and disconnected status quo, and focused on great customer outcomes. The name ‘Cove’ was chosen “to convey a sense of safety and relief to our customers, migraine sufferers who’ve struggled to find support or a treatment plan” – coves being protected places offering shelter from tumultuous seas.

Takes the fight to migraines – preventing them, reducing their severity, tackling associated nausea
Doctor recommendations: professionals propose the best treatment plans for each customer using online consultations
Over 20 treatment options available
Amazing track record: 300,000 migraines treated with Cove, with a really impressive success rate
Get 60% off your first month through The Fascination!

The Science & The Soul

The Science

Despite decades of research, scientists aren’t entirely certain about the physiological causes of migraines, although the general view is that they involve inflammation to the brain’s blood vessels as nerves fire in a wave called cortical spreading depression. The main risks factors involve family history, age, gender and hormonal changes. Triggers can include stress, poor diet, lifestyle changes, alcohol, unaccustomed intensity of exercise, sleep pattern changes, changes to the weather, and even an overdose of migraine medication. (We wouldn’t be surprised if thinking too hard about such an extensive list could also be a contributing factor.)

To help migraine sufferers reduce their pain, Cove has designed a three-stage process: completion of a consultation, selection and delivery of the best treatments (the company has an amazing list of products!), and adjustments to find the most cost effective combination. This last bit is enabled by a Cove progress tracker — which records migraine attacks so that it’s clearly visible whether and how the treatment is working.

The Soul

So much healthcare we come across operates to the benefit of practitioners as much as patients. Cove had flipped this philosophy on its head. Every aspect of the business has been designed to maximize convenience, reduce cost, and increase the chances of a great result.

It’s the little things that make so much difference – such as the approach to ongoing support. For just $4 per month, customers have unlimited messaging access to the doctors to discuss treatment plans and proposed changes. That’s just a bit more than the average cup of take-out coffee (Cove are slightly ambivalent about whether caffeine is a migraine trigger or a potential remedy – or both?).