On my 61st birthday, I found myself not in celebration, but in a deep process of listening, reflection and self-repurposing for the next phase of my professional life. I had stepped away from leading Urban Remedy, a company I took the helm of at the age of 50, with a full heart and the hope that my next chapter would be more soulful, more spacious, and more aligned with who I had become.
I imagined that chapter beginning in Kauai. I bought what I believed to be a sacred six-acre retreat center on the North Shore and named it Kuleana, a Hawaiian word that means responsibility, a calling to give more than you take. My vision was rooted in radical reciprocity, a place where healing wasn’t transactional, but mutual;. a sanctuary where I could restore others, and in turn, be restored.
But almost as soon as I planted that seed, the soil shifted beneath me. I discovered the property was mired in layers of legal entanglements and hidden liabilities. What I thought was a sanctuary was, in fact, a sophisticated scam.
The unraveling was swift and brutal. Instead of meditation, I faced mediation; instead of architects, I dealt with attorneys. It was more than a financial loss, it was a spiritual collapse. I had come to Kauai to create something sacred, but instead, I was brought to my knees.
And yet, paradoxically, it was that collapse that created space, what the Japanese call Ma, a fertile pause where something new could take root.
The retreat I’d envisioned for others became an inward one for me. With no company to lead and no next move lined up, I entered what became a season of listening. My listening tour involved meeting with old friends, mentors, and new voices. Not to pitch or plan. Just to listen. And to ask:
What am I uniquely meant to build next?
What legacy do I want to leave, and what kind of life do I want to live while creating it?
I had just spent months defining not what I wanted to do, but what I didn’t. As much as I still believe in Urban Remedy’s mission that food is healing, I had become disillusioned with an industry that rewarded companies for “killing it,” even when what they were killing was us.
I didn’t want to build in that space anymore. I wanted to build in one where health wasn’t branding, it was the outcome.
Once I knew my focus, I couldn’t stop talking about it to anyone who would listen. That’s when a new thread appeared.
I was staying in Florence that summer with my friend Markus Okumus. We’d worked together before and shared a deep interest in human health and longevity. One evening over dinner, he told me about a company he was helping to incubate, built on a breakthrough technology developed at Stanford, one that I had the opportunity to experience firsthand.
What if we could measure how fast each of our organs is aging, before disease begins?
What if we could use that information not just to diagnose, but to empower people to stay healthy, vital, and resilient for longer?
The timing was serendipitous. Not only did we find a mutual passion in the work he was doing, he then asked if I’d consider leading it.
When I met our third cofounder, Dr. Tony Wyss-Coray, the Stanford neuroscientist behind the original science, I felt something I hadn’t felt since my first days running Urban Remedy, alignment. Even though I didn’t become a scientist like my father, a physicist, I’ve always had deep respect for science. Taking on an opportunity like Vero felt like it was in my DNA.
Several months after that fortuitous conversation in Florence, Vero has gone from a scientific breakthrough to a company with funding from one of the world’s leading venture capitalists and today I’m fortunate to serve as its Co-founder and CEO.
Vero uses proteomics and AI to measure biological aging at the organ level. Not someday, TODAY.
Through a simple blood test, we assess how each of your core organs is functioning and aging, and recommend targeted interventions to slow or even reverse decline, before disease appears.
In short, we don’t diagnose disease. We detect the earliest signals of change, and empower action.
Starting this company at 61 feels radically different from building in my 30s or 40s. Back then, I chased scale, titles, and external validation. I’ve reinvented myself across industries, from entertainment to tech to food to wellness, and each cycle gave me new skills and valuable perspective, but also a deeper hunger for alignment. Today, I build from quiet conviction. Less noise. More meaning.
And perhaps most importantly, I’ve let go of the myth of doing it alone. I used to pride myself on grit and independence. Now I know: reinvention is not a solo act. We need mirrors. We need community. We need places like MEA, where it’s safe to slow down, to NOT know, to begin again.
While Kuleana, my vision for a healing retreat center, did not come to fruition, in a way, it did its job. It cracked me open. It made me still. And in that stillness, something new found me.
Vero has the potential to be the most important work I’ve ever done. The opportunity found me in the space between, the Ma, a fertile place where we listen in the pause between the notes and noise of life.
-Paul
Paul Coletta is an entrepreneur passionate about building transformative health and wellness consumer brands. Driven by curiosity, creativity, and a desire to inspire meaningful change, Paul is the Co-Founder and CEO of Vero, exploring how AI can significantly enhance human health and quality of life. Based in the Bay Area, he is a food and travel enthusiast, drawing inspiration from the natural world, philosophy, poetry, and his journeys to more than 50 countries. Paul dreams of creating a healing center where people can reconnect with nature and themselves.