Lunch with Sen. Frist
Well… kinda. Yesterday was a Nashville Health Care Council luncheon titled “Financing the Deal.” (Ex-) Senator Dr. Bill Frist was the moderator for the panel of financial industry health care analysts. Some were from the venture capital arena, some were from banking and others from equity firms.
There was decent discussion regarding the money available in health care today for small companies looking to do something innovative that increase productivity and efficiency. I wanted to share with you the main points I drew from the discussion, in case anyone else out there is working their butts off in a start-up/entrepreneurial company in health care.
The following list comes in no particular order (other than what’s freshest in my memory):
- Investors are looking for the “right” business model and the “right” management teams. If you are looking for capital… only seek the amount that you need based on your management team and business model.
- The whole industry is in need of increased transparency, increased reporting, and increased accountability. If you are able to target one or more of these three areas (successfully), that’s an added bonus.
- Come to the [capital] table with early customers that are real believers of your product. Success stories and recurring revenue provide tremendous value.
- Frist believes we are going to see a shift toward an increased personalization of healthcare and transformative ways to get value out of healthcare for the consumer.
- Scalability
That’s all. Just those 5 small things. I tend to see value in all five points… I see them as being important, even Frist’s comment about a movement toward personalized healthcare. The more “something” [a product ?] can personalize the process for you, the happier the patient/customer at the end of the day.
Cheers! and good job NHC!
