Founder Spotlight: Alyse Dunn (CareCopilot)

Welcome to a very special edition of Golden Age of Technology. This week I had the privilege of interviewing Alyse Dunn, the founder and CEO of CareCopilot, an innovative caregiving concierge service dedicated to easing the burdens of those caring for aging loved ones. We explored the powerful origins of CareCopilot, the pivotal business model shifts, and Alyse’s strategic vision for the future of caregiving. I hope you find Alyse’s journey as inspiring and educational as I did!

— Sarah Richard

P.S. - If you’re an AgeTech founder, investor, or operator based in the NYC area, please consider joining us live at the May AgeTech NYC meetup.

Alyse, could you start by telling us about CareCopilot?

Alyse Dunn: Absolutely. When speaking with other AgeTech professionals, I refer to CareCopilot as a ‘caregiving concierge’ service. Meaning: We provide concierge support to caregivers as they care for their care recipients. That said, there’s a lot of industry jargon in there. So, when speaking with families, I refer to CareCopilot as: a subscription service where you can get a human expert to make the calls and fill out forms for you when you’re busy juggling work with the care of an aging loved one. 

What inspired you to create CareCopilot?

Alyse Dunn: My journey to founding CareCopilot was deeply personal. After spending eight years managing care for both of my parents, who suffered from multiple sclerosis and Alzheimer's respectively, I experienced first-hand the complexities and challenges of caregiving. Despite my best efforts, the years I spent in frantic care coordination were time lost that I could have spent enjoying moments with my parents. This struggle inspired me to leave my job as a senior software engineer at Venmo and create a solution that would help others avoid the pitfalls of caregiving, ensuring they could cherish the time with their loved ones instead.

Can you discuss any major pivots or shifts in CareCopilot's business model?

Alyse Dunn: Originally, CareCopilot was envisioned as an app to help families navigate elder care logistics through content, community, and direct service bookings. Despite gaining several hundred users, the app didn't take off as expected. I learned through this process that our users preferred and were willing to pay for direct human interaction over digital self-service platforms. This realization prompted a significant pivot from a tech-centric model to a service model focused on providing expert human assistance. Part of the challenge is listening carefully to what caregivers are saying they want to need, but also using my creativity and discernment to say, what are people not explicitly asking for, but that will absolutely change their life? I believe that we’ve found that. 

How have you incorporated user feedback in building CareCopilot?

Alyse Dunn: I like to ask the question “what’s one thing that would make your experience easier, if money were no object?” When I started asking people this,  I kept hearing something to the effect  of: “I need another me.” These sentiments compelled me to  pivot to what we’re doing now. We’re providing these families with a human ‘copilot’ who is willing and ready to invest the intellectual, operational and emotional capital to actually solve the problem, not just put in the hours.

One example of how we help families is the in-depth, personalized guidance we offer to families who are considering a senior community. For instance, helping a client find an assisted living community that accepts Medicaid, offers single occupancy, and aligns with their religious needs could never be efficiently handled by a simple online search. That data simply doesn’t exist online. Fortunately, this is exactly the kind of information that CareCopilot has.

Once you built a product that can change a caregiver’s life, how did you approach selling the model T to someone who may have asked for a faster horse?

Alyse Dunn: I use a lot of discernment to appropriately translate user feedback. So something that I've always ascribed to making sure I hear a version of “I need that.” If I get a reaction that compliments the idea, the idea becomes uninteresting to me. That's not what I want to hear. What I need to hear is a very concrete need or a concrete desire. And when people started saying things like that's how I knew I was onto something, because it wasn't about giving a platitude to me. 

Looking forward, what excites you about the future of CareCopilot?

Alyse Dunn: CareCopilot is now nationwide. That happened earlier this year. We're really excited about that. And then in terms of what's next, I’m particularly excited about the potential for expanding our services to incorporate Medicare funding, which could relieve financial pressures on families and broaden our reach. Right now, we’re entirely self pay, and prices run from $50 to $750 per month, depending on how many hours per month families need. , So, it’ll be huge for families if Medicare could pay for that subscription.

We’re also planning to enhance our team's expertise by hiring legal and medical professionals in-house, which will allow us to offer even more comprehensive support to our clients. These developments will help us address a wider array of needs and simplify the caregiving process for more families nationwide.

On Thoughtful Caregiving

Alyse's focus on human-centered solutions—backed by both empathy and technical innovation—is a powerful reminder of the potential to make significant, positive changes in people’s lives by combining technology and human compassion.

Alyse and the CareCopilot team's commitment to transforming the caregiving experience shines a light on the possibilities that thoughtful technology and dedicated service can create. It’s clear that CareCopilot is not just filling a gap in the market—it’s deeply enriching the lives of those it touches.

Stay tuned for more stories and insights in the next edition!

Enjoying Golden Age of Technology?

Subscribe to Golden Age of Technology here.

Access Golden Age of Technology archive here.