Early Stage Companies
The challenge of commercializATION
The market for digital health has never been hotter! In 2014, a record $4.1 billion was invested. 258 companies had investments of $2 million or greater, up 39% from the year before. The good news is that there is tremendous innovation happening in healthcare and tomorrow's answers are being worked on today. The bad news is that many of these companies, even those with tremendous vision, will either fail or falter due to their inability to commercialize.
Building market receptivity and understanding the client’s buying process is fundamental to future success. Target audiences must first internalize the company’s value proposition before they can begin to think about bringing it into their organization. This presents start-ups and early stage companies with several challenges. Potential clients' companies may think they have a solution to the problem the early stage or start-up claims to solve. People will try to bucket new companies into existing categories. First-to-market companies often hear “so you are like…”. This presents an additional layer to work through when creating market positioning. Misperceptions must be overcome before new positioning cna be internalized, delaying market penetration and, ultimately, revenue.
A second challenge is how well the company understands the audience they are targeting. Do they understand the pain points, the buying cycle, the approval process? Is the product/service a “nice to have” or a “have to have”? Have they identified the right target audience? Often so much time and effort goes into the development stages of the product/service that the company can lose sight of their target’s needs and become convinced that “if we build it, they will buy it”.
SculptaHealth has created a series of strategic tools designed to assess markets and audiences and streamline the process to adoption. Knowing your industry, your market segment, your target audience, and your potential client can make the difference between sustainable revenue and failure.
