GetSetUp: Learning, Connection, and the Business of Active Aging
2026
| Case No.
E938
| Length
14 pgs.
This case examines the strategic challenges facing Neil Dsouza, founder of GetSetUp, a peer-to-peer digital learning platform serving adults aged 65 and older in the United States. Launched in February 2020 and accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, GetSetUp grew to 4 million registered users, partnerships with 32 state governments, and contracts with major health care organizations by 2025 — yet remained near breakeven, relying on institutional payers (80% government, 20% health care) rather than direct consumer revenue, given that roughly 40 million of its target users lived on fixed incomes. The case centers on the fundamental tension between mission and profitability: GetSetUp’s preventive wellness and digital literacy programming generates its greatest value over 8–10 year timeframes, while its government and health care payers operate on annual budget cycles and are the first to cut preventive spending under fiscal pressure.
Learning Objective
Students are asked to evaluate whether a venture-scale business can be built serving a population the market systematically undervalues, and to weigh four strategic paths open to the protagonist: staying the course, developing new business models or value propositions, expanding into Asia (where policy and funding are better aligned with the platform’s mission), or pursuing an acquisition exit — either to a health care organization seeking cost reduction or a media company seeking to monetize its aging audience. The case offers a vehicle for teaching go-to-market strategy, business model design, B2B2C dynamics, the challenge of institutional sales cycles, and the intersection of social impact and investor return expectations.
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