The secrets to scaling a healthtech start-up

To solve big problems in the healthcare space, healthtech companies have to build innovative solutions that work in a highly complex and ever-changing environment. To scale these pioneering healthtech products and services is an entirely separate dilemma.

Luckily, the problem of scaling is always a ‘growth problem’: an opportunity for you to focus your challenges in the right direction and expand your healthtech’s impact. If you’re looking to take on the opportunity to scale, here are a few secrets to help you along the way to watching your healthtech thrive. 

Automate everything 

This can take some time on the front end, but it will pay dividends in the long run. By doing this, you’ll be able to hire faster, pay easier, access data quicker and streamline operations, all of which makes for a truly scalable business model. 

Setting up cloud storage and organisation, marketing automation, payroll for quick processing, and onboarding and training practices for new hires are all great solutions for fully automating your scale up. 

Boost your marketing 

You can’t expect your start-up to scale if no one knows it exists. Now is the time to take a strong focus on your marketing strategy; scalability is sure to follow. Content marketing is one of the most scalable growth methods consequent to its evergreen value and viral potential, making it a growth hack of choice for many healthtech start-ups. Whichever marketing route you take, be sure to track how and where your leads are coming in, so you know what works best when marketing your HealthTech moving forward. 

Cultivate culture 

Striking the right culture is fundamental to ensuring the viability of a healthtech start-up. The number one factor that can kill a start-up from scaling is a bad company culture, as it hinders your ability to hire and retain the best people. If you’re looking to scale your headcount quickly, keep everyone aligned on the underlying beliefs and values that shape your company by having a well-defined set of company values, educating employees on the core content of your culture, and screening for culture fit with each new employee you hire. 

Hire the right people

This is arguably one of the most important factors to consider when growing your healthtech. When scaling a start-up, hiring new employees is inevitable; but it also has one of the greatest margins for error. To scale effectively, you’ll need to begin introducing team members who are specialist, motivated, and bought into your company mission and values. 

When asked about the characteristics of employees who survive and thrive in a HealthTech start-up looking to scale, professionals in the space agreed that it’s more than a matter of relevant experience; the intangibles matter also. 

“It’s not necessarily that the person is a problem; you just plain made a bad hire. You hired the wrong skills for the wrong kind of role, but you didn’t know it.” - Tom Kulzer, founder & CEO of AWeber

As you look to scale and hire for your healthtech, take the time to find specialised, innovative, driven individuals who will grow in the role right alongside your company. 

Storm3 is a specialist healthtech recruitment startup, connecting senior talent in data & analytics, engineering, sales & marketing and product management with innovative healthtech firms.