Andrew Parker (Papa): Turning Companionship into a $240M Healthtech Platform Across 7,000 Cities

Started Papa to care for my grandfather. Today: 7,000 cities, $240M raised.

🎧 On this week’s Zero to One, we sit down with Andrew Parker, Founder & CEO of Papa. It started with a Facebook post and grew into a national care-tech platform trusted by the largest health plans in America, built on grit, scrappiness, and a healthy disregard for startup orthodoxy.

👉 A must-listen for anyone building in healthcare, tech-enabled services, or marketplaces.

🔥 How Papa works and how it got here:

→ A tech-enabled human touch delivering real health outcomes

→ 300k+ trained companions (“Pals”) supporting seniors nationwide

→ An outcome engine tracking impact beyond visits

→ Took the opposite of YC advice, built a “fake” product first

→ Scaled a unicorn from Miami

🎙️ In this episode:

* Why you should start with service before building tech

* How Andrew landed national partnerships before product-market fit

* The surprising TikTok virality that crashed their hiring system

* Why AI is a tool and not a strategy for solving real problems

💡 Plus:
The “resolution ladder” framework for internal decision-making, and the one underrated tactic that helped Papa scale.