How an Air Force Reserve pilot raised $45 million to build a company after struggling to help his fellow veterans
- Daniel Brillman is one of Business Insider's 30 leaders under 40 transforming the future of healthcare.
- Brillman is the CEO and founder of Unite Us, a startup that that connects healthcare providers and hospitals to social service providers like food banks and homeless shelters.
- Brillman told Business Insider his best advice for young entrepreneurs trying to make a difference in healthcare.
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Daniel Brillman, an Air Force Reserve pilot, was inspired to found his health-tech startup Unite Us by the challenges facing his fellow vets.
Brillman, 35, decided to go to Columbia Business School in 2010 after his first deployment to the Middle East. While he was there, veterans he served with often reach out to ask him for advice about healthcare and social services. As he tried to help them, Brillman came to realize how complicated it was to navigate those systems, he said.
The experience led Brillman to co-found Unite Us in 2013. The company provides a platform that connects healthcare providers and hospitals to social service providers like food banks and homeless shelters. The platform helps track the health outcomes of the individuals they serve.
Unite Us has now raised a total of $45 million from investors, including a $35 million round announced in March. In July, CVS Health announced a partnership with Unite Us to help take care of some members at its Aetna insurance arm.
For his work at Unite US, Business Insider named Brillman to our list of the 30 leaders under 40 who are working to transform US healthcare.
Click here to see the full list of the young leaders who are transforming US healthcare.
Brillman said he learned three valuable lessons from his experience founding and running Unite Us.
Brillman's key lessons from starting Unite Us
The first is that you have to have a strong hypothesis if you want to bring about change in healthcare. In the hypothesis, an issue must be identified and a solution to the problem must be proposed.
"You need to identify the problem and explicitly address how you are going to fix it," Brillman told Business Insider.
For Brillman, his hypothesis was complicated but clear: connecting social services with healthcare providers and hospitals would change peoples' lives by improving their health.
Read more: Investors just made a $35 million bet on a startup that wants to help people find food and housing to keep them healthy
In order to pursue your hypothesis, Brillman said you need with drive and passion, because the healthcare industry is difficult navigate. Brillman said that passion and drive are important to help sustain your motivation.
"It takes a long time to effectively drive change in healthcare," Brillman said. "And that's okay."
'It is impossible to do everything by yourself'
The most important piece of advice Brillman had for entrepreneurs in healthcare is to build a team with the "best people."
Brillman said he realized early on in the process of starting Unite Us that he only knew a small amount of information and that other experts, entrepreneurs, and health professionals were needed to get Unite Us off the ground.
"It is impossible to do everything by yourself," Brillman said. "You really have to build a team of people you trust. From an entrepreneurial perspective it's really about getting the right people that can be part of the vision you're trying to create."
Brillman is one of Business Insider's 30 leaders under 40 transforming the future of healthcare. Read the full list here.