Just Go Grind #198: Andrew Parker, Co-Founder & CEO of Papa, a Platform Pairing Older Adults and Families with Papa Pals for Companionship and Assistance with Everyday Tasks
Andrew Parker is the Co-Founder & CEO of Papa, a company that's raised $30M+ in venture capital from top investors to build and grow their family-on-demand platform.
Andrew has spent his career focusing on healthcare technology and service. In late 2017, Andrew founded Papa, a company that offers “Family On-Demand!” by connecting older adults and families to college students for companionship, assistance, and transportation. He started the company to support his own grandfather, whom he endearingly addressed as “Papa”.
Andrew has a passion for healthcare, technology, and people. This combination drove him to build Papa, an ongoing endeavor to support older adults and families. Papa has grown to 120 employees and over 5,000 students on the platform in 20 states working with 15+ health plans as a benefit to older adults and families. Prior to Papa, Andrew ran Health System Sales and Strategy for MDLIVE.com, a large telehealth provider. Andrew was one of the first 15 employees of MDLIVE which has grown to over 300 employees and 30M members. In this role, Andrew helped to facilitate multi-year relationships with some of the nation’s largest health systems and employers as well as design virtual care products, which has now become a ubiquitous part of healthcare.
Andrew received his Bachelor’s in Finance from Florida State University and his Certified Employee Benefit Specialist certification from the Wharton Business School at the University of Pennsylvania. Additionally, Andrew and Papa are alumni of the prestigious incubator Y Combinator. Andrew resides in Miami, FL with his dog Chewie.
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Connect with Andrew Parker and Papa
Some of the Topics Covered by Andrew Parker in this Episode
- What Papa is and why Andrew decided to start it
- How Andrew signed up the first few people on Papa and what his pitch was initially
- How Andrew decided to quit his job
- How Andrew found his Co-Founder, Alfredo
- Equity splits
- Raising an initial $500K then $2.4M led by Initialized Capital and Sound Ventures
- Not taking a salary for almost two years
- The differences in raising different rounds of funding
- How Andrew scaled Papa from the initial few customers
- Going from one health plan to ten
- What Andrew is looking for in Pals on the Papa Platform
- Adding virtual visits to Papa
- The support Andrew has gotten from his investors
- Coming from a family of entrepreneurs and the impact that had on Andrew
- What Andrew's day-to-day looks like today
- How Andrew thinks about culture for Papa
- Andrew's book suggestion
- What Andrew does to recharge
Links from the Episode