A new paradigm for medical tourism business start up

As a healthcare business management consultant with more than 30 years of experience, I have counseled innumerable physicians, hospital executives, big pharma, medical device manufacturers, and ancillary healthcare providers to change their focus to revenue and profit. But these two things should not be the alpha and omega of their business objectives. Proving the viability of the company’s business model, what investors and founders call “traction”  is actually far more important. Without a well-developed traction strategy, I categorize many startups as a “flash in the pan”. In hindsight, I’ve rarely been wrong.  I am not trying to appear being smug, either.  The startup market is crowded. There are many founders and angel investors with big hopes and dreams and insufficient understanding of how start up works. They have even less understanding about what the target market looks like and what the market sees as valuable or is willing to buy. They need to learn how validated learning works. Here are a few examples of what I mean drilled down to specific examples:

Medical Tourism Facilitator

A colleague I know, a capable and long-experienced nurse, decided to enter medical tourism with two other associates. Rumor has it they spent money to become certified as a medical tourism facilitator by the Medical Tourism Association, attended conferences, traveled to hospitals to build their network, set up a website, and on and on. The usual story. I am told that she and two associates burned through over $900,000 in first-year startup seed capital. Not enough revenue came of it to get any traction. Why didn’t she take the Agile / Minimum Viable Product (MVP) / Fast Start path of Build-Measure-Learn? Probably because they didn’t teach that in nursing school or any certification course she was aware of. I hear she’s looking for a full time nursing job again. A pity. Much could have been done south of $900,000 to realize the same or a more successful outcome.

Medical Tourism Hospital

A hospital decided to enter medical tourism. They spent thousands of dollars on consultants without vetting their track record, money on advertising with undisclosed colleagues of the consultant, money on sponsoring a booth at a trade conference in Las Vegas.  They spent no money on accreditation, no money on Medical English language training for their nurses, and no money on market research other than the canned puffery report supplied by the consultant. Result: Not a penny of medical tourism revenue in eighteen months came from their USA target market of insurers and employers. “But the reports from the consultant said….”  I told them so, and looking back on their story, I was 100% right. But I fault the hospital, not the consultant. The consultant did the best they were capable. Startup is risky, but risk is mitigated with proper procedure, market data, and product development that includes validated learning about customers. A good consultant guides you through the collaborative processes. As Albert Einstein said,

“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”

So here’s the simplest explanation in a nutshell: Demonstrating traction is the true purpose of revenue in an early growth company. No revenue; no traction. No traction; no sustainability. Period. [vc_call_to_action title=”Are you ready to take begin your medical tourism startup?” button_title=”Schedule a 15-minute complimentary chat” button_link=”http://meetme.so/mariatodd”][/vc_call_to_action]