Purpose Before Profit: Colby Takeda Of Pear Suite On The Benefits Of Running A Purpose-Driven Business
An Interview With Chad Silverstein
Strong Leaders with Shared Values-Nick Lockett, our other co-founder, and I must be on the same page about our purpose-driven mission and our focus on impacting communities, while sustaining and growing our business. Without that alignment, supported by our shared values, we would definitely clash too much and could not move forward to develop and grow Pear Suite.
In today’s competitive business landscape, the race for profits often takes center stage. However, there are some leaders who also prioritize a mission-driven purpose. They use their business to make a positive social impact and recognize that success isn’t only about making money. In this interview series, we are talking with some of these distinct leaders and I had the pleasure of interviewing Colby Takeda.
Colby is the co-founder and CEO of Pear Suite, a digital health company working to empower community health workers to better address the social determinants of health—food, housing, transportation, literacy, and more. Through Pear Suite’s social care navigation platform, health plans, providers, and community-based organizations can boost member engagement, improve health outcomes, and reduce the cost of care through this untapped workforce. Colby is a former senior living executive and has dedicated his entire professional career to improving community well-being through population health management programs, policy change, and technology solutions. After completing his undergraduate studies in health sciences, Colby completed a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, Shidler College of Business and a Master of Public Health (MPH) from the University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. Can you tell us your “Origin Story”? Can you tell us the story of how you grew up?
I grew up in a small town in Hawai’i where my grandparents played a pivotal role in my upbringing. Living just a short drive away, they provided me with exceptional care and instilled in me values and skills that have shaped who I am today. One concept that has stayed with me is the Japanese term “gaman,” which embodies patience and perseverance. Although I wasn’t the most patient child, I developed a strong sense of perseverance, learning to endure challenges and carve my own path to success.
As my grandparents aged and faced various health and social challenges, it became my turn to care for them. Despite my background in healthcare, assisting them was far from straightforward. Navigating family dynamics, complex health plan policies, and language barriers often left me feeling overwhelmed and uncertain about how to best support them while respecting their dignity and autonomy. Ultimately, I found that the most meaningful support I could offer was simply spending time with them, listening empathetically, and advocating with compassion. These experiences not only deepened my understanding of the everyday struggles people face but also highlighted the opportunities to improve systems and practices to better support those in need.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company or organization?
One advantage of startups is the ability to be nimble. This agility enabled Pear Suite to launch a multi-lingual care response team after the Maui fires last year. In a matter of weeks, we were able to train bilingual community health workers (CHWs) in eight different languages and guide them to support families impacted by this devastating tragedy. Given our roots in Hawai’i, this project was extremely personal for our team, and after hearing from families about the significant difference that our team was making, we knew we were filling a real gap that addressed both equity and access among an underserved community.
As a successful leader, it’s clear that you uphold strong core values. I’m curious what are the most important principles you firmly stand by and refuse to compromise on.
Building trust with community-based providers and the Medicaid population is a top priority for me. Having worked in the nonprofit sector, I know how hard it is to gain trust from others and how easy it is to lose. As a technology startup looking to grow and scale, it's tempting to get caught up in the hustle and bustle of expansion. But I'm constantly reminding myself and our team that we need to stay focused on building relationships and taking really good care of our customers and partners.
It’s also about instilling integrity into every aspect of our company. This involves maintaining transparency and thoughtfulness in all of our operations, from decision-making and staff training to our technology and data collection and usage policies. Integrity also means embracing collaboration by acknowledging that we are not the experts in this field—the community is. We are committed to actively listening to our community's needs and responding with respect and appreciation.
I believe that when we prioritize relationships, integrity, and collaboration, we build trust. And when we build trust, we can create tech that truly serves and supports the people who need it most.
What inspired you to start a purpose-driven business rather than a traditional for-profit enterprise? Can you share a personal story or experience that led you to prioritize social impact in your business?
During the COVID-19 pandemic, we knew that thousands of older adults were struggling to care for themselves, not eating well, putting off medical care, and becoming more and more socially isolated. As we now know, loneliness can kill, so I partnered with Dr. Christy Nishita to launch a virtual ‘pen pal’ program between seniors and students. The program was simple—connect students and older adults using phone and video calls to have friendly conversations. Beyond having a great time, participants started learning interesting new facts, sharing healthy recipes and life stories, teaching home exercise routines, and building supportive friendships that extended beyond our scheduled meetings.
These calls were having a direct impact on health outcomes, and when the COVID-19 vaccine came out, we were able to translate this model to increase vaccination rates, both among participants and with other older adults. Having been in the senior care industry, I knew of many companies providing in-person support with meal preparation, transportation, social stimulation, and medication reminders. Pear Suite was going to support in all these same areas but do so virtually.
Can you help articulate a few of the benefits of leading a purpose-driven business rather than a standard “plain vanilla” business?
It feels good. Every day we know that we are helping those in need by empowering the organizations who are already doing amazing work. We may not be able to match the compensation and benefit packages of large tech companies, but by allowing our team members to align their work with their personal values and utilize their skills to create impact, we can have a truly fulfilling and enjoyable work environment.
Our efforts and our technology can also inspire and equip a new generation of innovators to launch their own purpose-driven organizations. Despite their big hearts, there are not many public health people who think about starting their own venture, which is really a shame. Given the ongoing and emerging challenges facing our communities, there is certainly a need for more innovators to address individual and community health needs.
Leading a purpose-driven business also allows us to measure success, not just by how much money we make, but also by the number of families we support, the number of workers we train, and the number of organizations we enable with sustainable funding and better data.
How has your company's mission or purpose affected its overall success? Can you explain the methods or metrics you use to evaluate the impact of this purpose-driven strategy on your organization?
One of our primary target customers, nonprofit organizations, are not known for actively working with technology startups—they may misunderstand our intentions, may not know how we operate, and overall may not trust us. However, when we can share details about our company’s mission, vision, and values, share our origin story, and provide examples of our past work, we can build meaningful relationships and open doors for partnership.
As an enablement tool, we appreciate monitoring how much we can improve organizational efficiency, sustainability, and reach, beyond just measuring how many users are on our platform. Our platform works to address the social determinants of health—food, housing, transportation, healthcare access, and more—which can positively impact the entire family, so we also like to evaluate the total reach of our customers, beyond just the individual clients being supported.
Can you share a pivotal moment when you realized that leading your purpose-driven company was actually making a significant impact? Can you share a specific example or story that deeply resonated with you personally?
I think it was our work supporting the recovery efforts after the Maui fires. My grandmother grew up in Lahaina—so this was all very personal for me. In addition to providing a lot of pro bono services through our team, we provided our software to several local organizations that were operating on paper and spreadsheets and were struggling to manage their client cases. Seeing how many families were being impacted by the many workers and organizations using our software was certainly something that meant a lot to our team.
Have you ever faced a situation where your commitment to your purpose and creating a positive social impact clashed with the profitability in your business? Have you ever been challenged by anyone on your team or had to make a tough decision that had a significant impact on finances? If so, how did you address and reconcile this conflict?
Really good question. I would say that while our team knows how to provide high quality CHW services, we cannot build an army of CHWs and scale this model profitably across multiple geographies, in every language, and for specific populations, such as the justice-involved community, LGBTQ+, the disability community, etc.
We pivoted away from prioritizing direct services to instead focus on building amazing software that can empower the organizations and individuals who are already in communities and are doing this work. We are not the experts—we empower the experts. This strategic decision also supports our customers by not taking work away from them, but rather helping them to do their work better and get paid for it, which has always been a struggle among organizations. We also realized we cannot be just another technology company, so we launched a CHW provider network to help our customers with wraparound support and services, including being able to work as subcontractors under our provider and health plan contracts. We also provide free training and education, assist with billing and compliance, provide ongoing optimization support with platform workflows and templates, and enable organizations to connect with each other to share best practices and collaborate.
What advice would you give to budding entrepreneurs who wish to start a purpose-driven business?
Having work experience, innovative ideas, and a fancy degree are all great, but unless you have the data and revenue to validate that you’re on the right track, it’ll be hard to continue growing your business. Healthcare is also a very challenging industry, so it is important to understand the economics of healthcare—how money flows—in order to maximize impact while ensuring your business model is realistic and sustainable. Policy change is also a big factor enabling innovation in healthcare, so it’s important to follow national, state, and local policy shifts enabling new and exciting funding streams.
What are your "Five Things You Need to Create A Highly Successful Purpose-Driven Business.” If you can, please share a story or example for each.
1. Strong Leaders with Shared Values-Nick Lockett, our other co-founder, and I must be on the same page about our purpose-driven mission and our focus on impacting communities, while sustaining and growing our business. Without that alignment, supported by our shared values, we would definitely clash too much and could not move forward to develop and grow Pear Suite.
2. Empathy-Unless you have worked in similar organizations, you must be willing to learn from your target market, put yourselves in their shoes, and develop empathy for the needs, interests, and workflows of these organizations. For example, some of our nonprofit organization customers have a total of 2-3 staff that do everything from direct services and volunteer management to marketing and accounting.
3. Creative Partnerships In and Out of Your Sector-In healthcare, for example, we’ve seen a significant expansion around the critical factors that impact health and well-being. Now, education is a part of healthcare, food access is a part of healthcare, and housing is a part of healthcare, all sectors that have previously operated separately from the healthcare industry. Now, it’s possible (and encouraged) to look outside of your industry to build cross-sector partnerships that support your company goals and foster collaboration.
4. Resilience-Our unique business model is quite complex, and many investors are not fond of impact-driven companies, so you’ll have to push through the “nos” and keep doing what you’re doing if you really believe in it. We also face the challenge of building software for non-tech savvy populations in a way that it can be used effectively. If it were easy, someone would likely have already done it.
5. Ability to Tell the Story Well—People want to hear your story, your passion, your “why.” When we share our founding story, potential customers, partners, and investors get a clearer picture of what we do, gain trust in our team, and jump in to support our work. Often, the simpler the better.
I'm interested in how you instill a strong sense of connection with your team. How do you nurture a culture where everyone feels connected to your mission? Could you share an example or story that showcases how your purpose has positively influenced or motivated people on your team to contribute?
Shaping our culture and connection starts with the interview process. We look for candidates with a good cultural fit to our mission, vision, and values, as much as technical experience. Having lived experience is especially meaningful for what we do. It’s something that can’t be bought or taught, but it is essential to building trust in the community and being able to work with community-based organizations.
We continue to remind the team of our purpose by bringing customers to “all hands” meetings and reiterating what they are working for. We also find ways for everyone in our company to utilize our software and provide the frontline services that equip our customers. Even our engineers, who are not trained community health workers, get involved in these direct services to experience the power of our platform, while creating real impact in the community.
Imagine we’re sitting down together two years from now, looking back at your company’s last 24 months. What specific accomplishments would have to happen for you to be happy with your progress?
Our ability to drive customer success—we succeed when our customers succeed. Many of our customers are nonprofit organizations relying on short-term grants while trying to figure out how to collect and use their data to impact more lives.
We also focus our energy on advocacy. We advocate for the community health worker workforce, community-based organizations, and the underserved populations being impacted by our customers. This segment of the healthcare workforce has long been underutilized, overworked, and undervalued, so it has been important to elevate and empower CHWs and the allies that work alongside them.
You are a person of enormous influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.
I think helping young people find their purpose is really important—especially those who need some direction, who may not be sure about where they are trying to go. If we could help them recognize their gifts, talents, and values and align them with our work, we can help them realize their potential, and together we can create more community impact.
How can our readers further follow your work or your company online?
https://www.linkedin.com/company/pear-suite/posts/
https://linkedin.com/in/colbytakeda/
This was great. Thanks for taking time for us to learn more about you and your business. We wish you continued success!
About the Interviewer: Chad Silverstein, a seasoned entrepreneur with over two decades of experience as the Founder and CEO of multiple companies. He launched Choice Recovery, Inc., a healthcare collection agency, while going to The Ohio State University, His team earned national recognition, twice being ranked as the #1 business to work for in Central Ohio. In 2018, Chad launched [re]start, a career development platform connecting thousands of individuals in collections with meaningful employment opportunities, He sold Choice Recovery on his 25th anniversary and in 2023, sold the majority interest in [re]start so he can focus his transition to Built to Lead as an Executive Leadership Coach. Learn more at www.chadsilverstein.com
Purpose Before Profit: Colby Takeda Of Pear Suite On The Benefits Of Running A Purpose-Driven… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.