healthcare optimist | simply zero accomplishments

New York, USA
Joined April 2020
Much of the pain of digital health (and sidecar point solutions for enterprises in general) that is often blamed on EHRs is actually a manifestation of the principal agent problem - where one party (the agent) makes decisions on behalf of another party (the principal), but has different interests and incentives. The expectation is that if you build a good product that is attuned to a user and solves their problem, you will be successful. This is largely true in consumer facing software (if you can handle CAC) - the buyer and the user are the same. When it comes to super small businesses, the buying motion of SMBs can resemble a DTC sale, as the buyer and the user may be the same. If they're not, they're usually close enough to have the same or similar interests. This is not the case for larger and larger enterprises. For example, the CEO wants efficient operations and profitability. The doctor wants more time spent with patients and medical decision autonomy. Your choice to sell to large healthcare organizations (or really any enterprise in general) incurs a silent cost. You now are building for two distinct sets of stakeholders with fundamentally different and often opposing needs - the economic buyer who makes the purchase decision and controls the budget, and the end user who has to actually use your product day-to-day. This tension forces you to either compromise your product's user experience to satisfy buyer requirements, or risk failing to gain institutional adoption despite having happy users. Every GTM motion has pros and cons. This is just the reality of the enterprise motion.
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If you're into product-led growth in digital health, @_btlee_ two-part piece on product-led growth is so good substack.com/notes/post/p-13…
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Great write-up by @_btlee_ on the paths to Healthcare PLG, the best advice (based on my experience) is this: Find non-PHI wedges that might be lower TAM or conversion probability but can generate traction, combined with agility in expanding into PHI workflows that increase TAM
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Nothing is easy in #healthcare because of the tangle that #regulations create. Trying to grow a product that touches #patient info from bottom-up is especially difficult. Great article from @_btlee_ on some of the issues and how to consider. quiteafewclaims.substack.com… #HIPAA
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ICHRA or level-funding? What is the hottest trend in employee benefits? Checkout my latest article with incredible input from @healthapiguy and @_btlee_ healthtechstack.io/p/are-ich…
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We’ll be doing a Spaces with @ianshakil @_btlee_ and anyone else from these firms who wants to be a part of the conversation. Looking forward to the discussion! Sign up here: xitter.cf/i/spaces/1yNGaNXOXwWJj
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Today Augmedix announced a major partnership and investment with HCA. Yesterday AWS partnered with 3M’s ambient documentation product. There may or may not be a deep dive dropping today on AI enabled documentation from @_btlee_ , @pauliusmui , and me 👀
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Join me + a bunch of very impressive leaders in digital health, including @noelleacoss from @noulahealth, Cathrin from Elemy, & @_btlee_ later this week in a virtual panel on turning up growth... in an economic downtown. bit.ly/3fvJp7W It'll be a blast! 🎉
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I've had founders/operators starting out in healthtech ask me how I found my footing at @capablehealth. The cheesy (but true) answer is finding the right communities. Here's a starting guide of 12 healthtech communities that I love: bit.ly/3TsdFz8
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Ben Lee retweeted
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a16z is putting together a really strong ETF of private digital health companies. Prolific activity over the last 3 months. Memora, Headway, Tomorrow, Akasa, Firefly, Komodo, Cedar, Honor, (not to mention a PatientPing exit). There’s prob even more I’m forgetting or in announced
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I can't stress this paragraph enough - most lurkers I know don't post because either they don't think what they have to say is interesting or they're afraid of the potential downside risk (e.g. cancellation). Possible serendipity > potential downside.
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So many good healthcare thinkers and writers right now. Cannot wait to sit down with this new one from @_btlee_
Part 1⃣, cont: How do these passion economy strategies relate to healthcare? quiteafewclaims.substack.com…
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1/ Everyone's talking about video visits. But are they really the greatest gift of digital health? I think they’re a red herring. Just a new medium for the same old episodic care. REAL change will come as we transition to systems of "Always-On Triage" a16z.com/2021/01/08/always-o…
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I’ve gotten a lot of bad advice in my career and I see even more of it here on Twitter. Time for a stiff drink and some truth you probably dont want to hear. 👇👇
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Not a company, but Duke University in 2008 may beat all of the answers in this thread. The founders of Coinbase, Airtable, Box, Plaid, Cameo and Neuralink all in the same place at the same time. xitter.cf/speechu/status/1301941…
Which company had the highest concentration of the best talent in the Bay Area? Facebook around 2008-10 comes to mind, maybe google in 2002-04? There’s not one inevitable company now so far more diffused.
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1/ We’re living thru The Great Unlock in healthcare - things we thought would take 10+ yrs to play out are now playing out in 2-3. Massive dislocation is changing the very topology of the industry, enabling tech to be wedged into zones that were historically intractable.
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Ben Lee retweeted
Sam Altman
@sama1 Aug 2020
The home run theory of careers: What matters is eventually hitting a home run, and the way to do that is training hard and a lot of at-bats. You only have to be right once, and it's ok to be wrong a lot of times. Be bold. Move fast. Work hard. Ignore haters. Keep swinging.
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might send a boomerang to myself in 5 years being like "U aint shit" and nothing else
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Immigrants founded over half of $1B startups and they or their children founded 45 percent of Fortune 500 companies. These companies create jobs for Americans, not take jobs from Americans. tinyurl.com/ycwr7k7n tinyurl.com/y634qldg
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