Our Story
Why we built Peerakeet
People are not meant to go through hard things alone.
We created Peerakeet to make peer support easier to access, easier to deliver, and more human.
Too often, the people doing some of the most important work in recovery and behavioral health are stuck with fragmented tools, administrative burden, and systems that were never designed for the reality of peer support.
We wanted to build something better.
For us, this work is personal
Ishan Shah
Co-founder & CEO
Ishan came to this work through both personal experience and years spent studying addiction, recovery, and prevention. He saw how powerful peer support could be, but also how often it was undervalued, disconnected, or unsupported by the systems around it.
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Hunter Adrian
Co-founder & CTO
Hunter came to it as a builder. He saw the gap between how important this work is and how poor the actual infrastructure was for the people doing it every day. Peerakeet became a chance to build technology that feels practical, trustworthy, and genuinely useful in the moments that matter.
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Tim Balow
COO
Tim came to Peerakeet with over 15 years of leadership across human services, spanning clinical, community, and digital settings in both nonprofit and for-profit organizations. He has led operations, training programs, and service delivery teams, and saw firsthand how peers were often left without the infrastructure to do their best work. For Tim, this is about building systems that are compassionate, sustainable, and designed to help people and programs rise higher.
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Why Peerakeet?
The name is a play on parakeet. It reflects what we believe the platform is really about: connection.
Parakeets are social animals. They do better with companionship and interaction, not isolation. That idea felt deeply aligned with our mission. People do better when they feel seen, heard, and supported, especially by someone who understands from lived experience.
Connection matters. Peer support matters. No one should have to navigate struggle alone.
That is the heart of Peerakeet. We are building technology around the idea that the right support, at the right time, from someone who truly understands, can change everything.