Refounder: Patrick Colletti has Made an Indelible Mark on Pittsburgh’s Tech Sector

Without a doubt, Patrick Colletti has one of the most unique stories building a tech company in Pittsburgh. More than two decades ago as an early hire at a struggling, near-bankrupt startup, he and Chris Hayes were given an opportunity to turn the company around. A 90-day runway was a longshot like no other, but a chance Colletti and Hayes would take. They got the take-it-or-leave-it call the weekend after September 11, 2001!

It was a journey and blueprint he would later call the “Refounding” of a company. It turned into a decades-long experience that shaped Colletti and created one of the country’s most successful health IT companies. 

It’s kinda cool that I’ve known Colletti throughout his entire journey and watched him become a seasoned entrepreneur, astute businessman and always one of the sincerest people I’ve ever known.

Last year, a book was published about his experience building Net Health that, as luck would have it, is titled ReFounder: How Transformational Leaders Take What’s Broken and Make it Better (Per Capita, 2021). This fascinating book parallels other refounders who are tackling some of the hardest problems in technology, city renewal, education and health care. In fact, I learned so much about the early days of Net Health that my face hurt, from a combination of jaw-dropping and perma-grinning. Colletti and his team were hustling, squeezing nickels and building something to last. You gotta read the book. I don’t want to give away too many details!

Colletti and Hayes recently stepped aside from the day-to-day operations of Net Health. Today, Colletti is a board director (including The Pittsburgh Technology Council) and advisor for angel, VC and PE-backed organizations, an adjunct professor of Entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon and much sought-after speaker. 

I would say that there are three key things about Colletti that really stand out for me having known him for 20-plus years now: his passion to create an awesome work culture; his love of coffee; and running a marathon with his business mentor. Let’s jump in a little further!

Culture is King

Long before everyone in tech knew the absolute importance of building culture, Colletti was obsessed with creating environment for teams that provided engagement, support and creativity. Back in the mid 2000s, foosball tables and beer-packed fridges were the norm, but Patrick was thinking of a deeper, more meaningful approach.

He wanted to create opportunities for people to authentically connect, create real risk-taking muscles and collectively take bold action. I remember being invited to Net Health’s “Formal Friday” event where every few months the team and their partners dressed to the nines for work and celebrated afterwards, a spontaneous rebellion to the overly casual movement, like a well-dressed flash mob.

“Let’s flip it on its head, right, because we had a pretty casual culture. And what we found was that over time, people actually yearned for something more formal,” said Colletti. “It was like, let’s do something a little different. Let’s have fun. The main takeaway for me around culture is, we’re more than the work we perform each day. And if you lose sight of that, you have this bifurcation between your work and life, you’re missing the bigger picture. 

“And finding ways to build that authentic vulnerability, whether it’s self-organizing employee resource groups,  participating in an open mic night or raising your hand for our version of TED talks. It creates those moments to recognize you’re a whole being, with unique strengths. We’re more than simply the work that we do. Our 40% compound annual growth rate for 76 quarters was born from that intentionality, not the other way around.”

Javahhh…

Most of my meetups with Colletti are centered around gathering over or walking to get coffee, good coffee. Just as Pittsburgh’s awesome coffee culture was taking root so many years ago in the Strip District, we always discussed what coffee we were drinking. Colletti would always go the extra mile not just in exotic roasting methods from single-origin farms, but finding the perfect brewing process, dare I say ritual. He was putting a lot of thought into it, and he spurred my coffee geek to some highly caffeinated levels.

But my best memories were not just sharing a cup or two and trying to one up each other with the latest roasters and brewing strategies. I pointedly remember bellying up to the counter at what was 21st Street Coffee (now De Fer) and watching his CEO side start shining. We were both curious about the up-start coffee shop’s move to new, bigger digs. He kindly inquired how they got their start and asked how they were differentiating themselves. Of course, he wanted full deets on the roasts, their origins and tasting notes. I knew he genuinely cared about the business owners and wanted them to succeed. I won’t forget that moment.

“One of the things I love to do, is understand the underlying business model. What is the ecosystem? How does this thing operate? So, wherever I am, whoever I’m meeting with, I want to understand, how it works and, why they work. And so that’s a natural curious expression, wherever I go,” said Colletti. “But I will tell you, there’s a special place in my heart for coffee, coffee culture and the community that’s created around that. I remember, when I was young and super poor during college, and really couldn’t afford to go on spring break. 

My then girlfriend, now wife, Jen, and I agreed on a Habitat for Humanity trip. After working one day, we took a day trip to what was the first Starbucks I’ve ever been to and one of their first several hundred stores. And what I experienced in this place was really different. They cared for the beans and the story they told, they cared for the architecture, it was a curated experience. It was unique back in the day. Now, it’s easy to throw shade at Starbucks. But in that moment, what I appreciated was that it was people really taking time together in what later became recognized as the third space.”

There was a short time in Colletti’s life where he gave up coffee to explore tea. It was a dark time. I won’t even go there. I’m just glad he’s back on the shiny brown stallion.

Run Patrick, Run

One of the first stories I ever heard from Patrick was about his business mentor and partner Anthony Sanzo challenging him to run a marathon. I loved the idea of breaking out of the boardroom and to challenge one’s self with a grueling physical feat like running. Nothing gets at the core of a human than pushing our boundaries whether it’s intellectual, emotionally or physically. 

I’ll let Colletti tell the whole thing:

“So, I remember sitting with our Chairman, Anthony, over lunch at Kaya about a year after being named the twenty-something President of a tech company.  Candidly, I’m still wanting to make a great impression to the Board of Directors, right. He asked if I had ever thought about running a marathon. And you know, briefly, I thought about it, but was not a runner. And then he said, ‘Well, I was wondering if you would consider running along with me?’ 

“And it was one of those kind of defining moments where the answer to this question is actually going to be pretty powerful and change the direction of what you’re doing right now in life. And so, he said, ‘Don’t answer today. I want you to think about it.’ And he said, ‘If the answer is yes, when you can run a really good clip of five miles, let’s start training together.’ I probably went home that night and ran right away. 

“So, I feel like that was a bit of a crucible in a way that, look, I wasn’t a long-distance runner. And that wasn’t what I had plans for right now in life. But what I found was both the discipline of preparing for a race independently and the real brilliance of doing long runs together. And so, what I found was on these long runs, we would start off with, a goal of seven or eight miles, and then it would move to let’s run for 100 minutes and then let’s run for 150 minutes. And so we kind of set these goals. And what ended up happening very naturally was we talked about life. Yeah, we talked about the business, and I got to really know Anthony as a human being not just a board director. With that relational experience and foundation, you can accomplish a great deal.”

Colletti and Sanzo finished the Big Sur marathon together and created a memory and leadership analogy that rings true to this day.

Twenty years goes by in a clip, especially when you’re building and scaling a startup. Net Health is no longer a startup by any means and today serves 98% of the largest health systems in the U.S. and is owned by the Carlyle Group. It’s a model of how you can build something really big and cool and save actual lives, right here in Pittsburgh.

I’m looking forward to my next cup of coffee with Patrick. I’ve been exploring some roasts that…I won’t go down that tasty rabbit hole with ya!

Listen to Patrick talk more about his passion for coffee, culture and refounding by listening to the PGH Tech 25 Podcast. Scan the QR or click here!

Pgh Tech 25 is powered by the generous support of Compunetix, Chorus Call and Huntington Bank!