What does it take to build a $100M healthcare company? Honestly, no one really knows — and the people who do don't tend to talk about it.

But Steve Kraus and his team at Bessemer have actually studied it. They've analyzed hundreds of venture-backed healthtech companies and published the research.

In this episode, I pull six lessons from their work and ask Steve to explain them.

Links

Steve Kraus: https://www.bvp.com/team/steve-kraus

Dr Mustafa Sultan: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.musty.io⁠

Music: “Habanera” by Kevin MacLeod

Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Edited for length.

What actually happens after you sell a company for $1.1B and never need to work again?

Joe DeVivo is a legendary MedTech CEO who sold InTouch to Teladoc in a $1.1B deal and is now President, CEO, and Chairman of Butterfly Network.

Joe has a very specific reputation in the industry. He steps in when companies get stuck. Often at the moment when a founder-led business needs a different kind of leadership to scale. In this episode, Joe breaks down his turnaround playbook step by step, from how he diagnoses what’s broken, to who stays, who goes, and how focus gets restored.

He also opens up about something that’s rarely talked about. What it really feels like after a massive exit. When the money hits, the anxiety leaves your body, and you realize you never have to work again. What does “post-economic” life actually look like, and why do some people still choose to come back?

We also trace Joe’s path from growing up in a family-run manufacturing business to becoming the CEO boards call in moments of crisis, and why invention and scaling are fundamentally different jobs.

Links

Butterfly Network: https://www.butterflynetwork.com

Dr Mustafa Sultan: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.musty.io⁠

In 2023, Alexandre Lebrun pointed two exits in conversational AI at Medicine. Nabla raised $120M and spread to 130+ orgs and 85,000 clinicians in record time.

But in the ambient AI game -- it seems like distribution beats all. How will Nabla win?

Links

Nabla: https://www.nabla.com/

Dr Mustafa Sultan: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.musty.io⁠

In 2017, Andrew Parker launched Papa with a 1-800 number, offering 'grandkids-on-demand' in Miami. By 2021, the company was valued at $1.4bn (backed by SoftBank and Tiger Global).

This is a YC-backed gig economy company operating in the regulated elder care market at unicorn scale.

On paper it shouldn't have worked -- and yet it did.

Links

Papa: https://www.papa.com/

Dr Mustafa Sultan: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.musty.io⁠

According to Business Insider, Omada Health has quietly filed its S-1 to prepare for an IPO. Here's how Sean Duffy (CEO & Co-founder) built it.

0:00 Intro

0:17 Signing first customer

1:51 How to have good ideas in healthcare

4:00 Why metabolic health is a hard area to innovate in

5:18 What the MVP product looked like

11:16 Sean's secret tactics

14:55 Operational innovation as a differentiator

20:19 The Omada playbook — is it repeatable?

25:31 What boss moves have you made Sean?

29:37 The difference between good and great

32:29 Sean's best tip on selling in enterprise healthcare

33:35 Sean's advice to himself

Links

Omada Health: https://www.omadahealth.com

Dr Mustafa Sultan: ⁠⁠https://www.musty.io⁠

Dr Aengus Tran is the CEO of Harrison.ai — an Australian radiology AI startup who have raised $160M.

Harrison.ai just released their radiology foundation model, Harrison.rad.1. And it's really good.

0:00 Intro

2:25 I'm glad I didn't found my startup in the US

4:21 Partnering with a clinical operator is key

7:28 Scrappy stories from the early days

11:17 Where human radiologists outperform AI (zero-shot learning)

17:23 Big bets on the future of radiology

21:18 What happens when GPT-8 arrives?

25:29 How can AI reach suprahuman radiology performance?

28:58 What boss moves did you make?

Links

Arcadia: ⁠https://harrison.ai⁠

Dr Mustafa Sultan: ⁠https://www.musty.io⁠

Michael Meucci (CEO) transformed Arcadia — formerly a mid-sized consultancy into a healthcare platform with $100M of Annual Recurring Revenue. How?

Lots of smart moves, including becoming really good at enterprise healthcare selling. Here's how he did it.

Links

Arcadia: https://arcadia.io/

Dr Mustafa Sultan: https://www.musty.io/

Dr Elina Berglund is the CEO/Co-founder of Natural Cycles, which she has grown to 2M users. When every other app seemed to be free — she made a brave decision: She charged her users a monthly fee. And it worked...

0:57 - The Birth of Natural Cycles 2:57 - The Decision to Charge from the Start 3:47 - Building Trust Through Pricing 4:23 - From Personal Struggles to Public Solution 5:52 - Creating the Fail-Safe Algorithm 6:32 - Collaboration with CERN Colleagues 7:13 - The Human Body: Complex Beyond Measure 8:37 - The Promise and Challenge of Wearables 10:16 - Understanding User Behavior 11:04 - Gaining Regulatory Approval 12:26 - Secrets to Growth and Marketing 13:43 - The Challenge of Direct-to-Consumer Healthcare 16:02 - Data-Driven Decision Making 17:13 - Instincts Versus Data 19:01 - Staying Honest with Data 21:20 - Calibrating Communication for Investors 22:30 - Benefits of Being Profitable 24:08 - Data as a Superpower 24:59 - Overcoming Negative PR 27:13 - Future of Contraception 29:30 - Impact of Roe v. Wade Overturning

Links

Natural Cycles: https://www.naturalcycles.com/

Dr Mustafa Sultan: https://www.musty.io/