Digital Health Heavyweights Episode 32: Joseph Kitonga, Founder & CEO at Vitable Health
Sep 22, 2025
Joseph Kitonga, founder and CEO of Vitable Health, shares his inspiring journey from caregiving roots to creating a healthcare model for underserved workers. He discusses how the Thiel Fellowship empowered him to focus on innovation in direct primary care. Vitable's unique membership model reduces barriers to access via hybrid care, combining in-home services with virtual visits. With around 100,000 members, Joseph highlights the importance of empathy, effective communication, and continuous user feedback in building a successful healthcare startup.
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Family Caregiving Sparked Vitable
- Joseph Kitonga built Vitable inspired by his immigrant parents who ran a caregiving business and saw employees uninsured and overusing ERs.
- He wanted to increase access to preventative care after seeing life expectancy gaps and disparities firsthand.
Use Fellowships As Permission To Build
- The Thiel Fellowship gave Joseph permission and runway to pursue Vitable full-time by funding him and removing immediate fallback pressure.
- He advises founders to treat such opportunities as permission to build but recognize the outcome still depends on execution.
Direct Primary Care As Front Door
- Vitable uses a direct primary care membership that removes copays and deductibles and offers virtual and in-home visits in select markets.
- This front-door model covers about 70% of common services and integrates with catastrophic coverage to lower access barriers.
