Many healthtech startups build a product that works and then look for someone to buy it. The pilots go well, clinicians like the product, and the contract doesn’t come, because the clinician who uses it is often not the person who pays for it. By the time that shows up in revenue, the runway has gone into testing a guess.

This white paper sets out the method A|P uses with healthtech founders to avoid that: judge whether the market is worth entering, start from an insight that is earned, then write six parts in plain prose before building. They are the problem, the target audience, the value proposition, the competitive advantage, the growth strategy and the business model, each written for the person who pays and the person who uses. It brings together A|P’s series on the foundation of product-market fit.

Read the Full White paper

What’s in the white paper

1. The market and the initial insight. Three tests that separate a societal need from a market, and the three qualities of an insight worth building on.
2. Problem to solve. Writing the problem from the buyer’s outcome, the four tests it must pass, and the evidence from buyers that counts.
3. Target audience. The six roles in a healthcare purchase, and how to score segments to find where use and budget sit closest.
4. Value proposition. Benefits stated in the buyer’s terms, each traced to a gap in the problem.
5. Competitive advantage. Mapping three kinds of competitor, and naming the Power the company is building toward.
6. Growth strategy. One channel to win the first ten paying customers, and a different one to grow.
7. Business model. The four levers of the business equation, and pricing on the unit the buyer is paid for.
8. Write it. Seven steps to draft the whole foundation in an afternoon, with two suggested templates.

It closes with a twelve-point scorecard you can run against your own foundation.