You’ve sold the vision, pitched the demo, rewritten the pitch deck more times than you’d care to count — and somehow, you’ve landed those first ten logos.
That phase, founder-led selling, gets the spotlight. But what comes next is where most companies stall out. Not because the solution stops being valuable — but because there’s no system in place to sell it without the founder in the room.
Getting to ten is proof of life. Getting beyond it means you have to stop thinking like a seller — and start thinking like a builder: architecting a go-to-market system that reflects how healthcare buyers actually behave. Messaging, roles, motion, trust. The invisible layers most teams only figure out after deals start slipping.
Below are five core components of a revenue engine that works — especially in digital health, where nothing moves without cross-functional alignment, deep proof, and a longer-than-average memory.
1. Define Your Channel Strategy Early
Start with how your solution gets to market — not just who buys it.
We’re increasingly seeing digital health teams default to direct sales, spending twelve to eighteen months running into walls that could’ve been avoided with clearer channel design. It’s not that the sales reps underperform — it’s that the solution isn’t built for the path it’s taking.
Distribution is not a side tactic. It’s the commercial backbone.
Direct sales into enterprise providers — as seen with platforms like Innovaccer — come with long cycles, heavy procurement, and intense reference demands. Embedded distribution through EHR marketplaces, care coordination platforms or health engagement platforms like League, or VBC enablers like Privia or agilon brings shorter cycles, but often narrower scope and tighter economics.
Channel partnerships — when executed well — can offer leverage, but require a dedicated process, not just warm intros. The mistake is trying to mix these without committing to one as your lead motion.
And different lanes require different messaging. What a CIO cares about in an enterprise solution isn’t what a VP of Population Health needs from a workflow tool. What looks like “misalignment” in the funnel is often just the wrong pitch for the wrong lane.
Bottom line: Lanes come before traffic. Choose your primary path to market early — then build your message, pricing, team, and pipeline to match it.
2. Make the Right Early Hires — In Twos
Hiring one rep is a bet you can’t effectively measure.
In healthcare, attribution is messy. Timelines stretch and decision-makers change. If you hire one salesperson, and it doesn’t work, you won’t know why. You also won’t know why if they do work out. Was it the rep? The message? The market?
Hiring in twos gives you contrast. Contrast gives you signal.
And not just for AEs. This also applies to go-to-market roles that sit closer to partnerships or embedded sales. If channel is part of your strategy, bring in someone who’s owned partner relationships before — not a generalist AE asked to “do partnerships on the side.” These deals run on structure, not just charisma.
This is also the phase where your job changes. Founder-led selling is about proving demand. Post-founder GTM is about building the system. That means your calendar shifts from “closing deals” to:
- Designing onboarding and first 90-day scorecards
- Building shadowing and coaching structures
- Synthesizing field feedback into clear enablement tools
If your reps are still running everything through you by month four, you don’t have a team — you have an assistant. The system has to work without you in the deal.
In short, don’t just hire sellers. Build for comparability, coaching, and repeatability — and hire in twos to get there faster.
3. Codify Your Messaging & Sales Collateral
Your pitch works because you’ve lived it. Your team needs one that works without you.
This is one of the most common drop-offs post-founder sales. The deck that got you to ten customers was probably scrappy, narrative-driven, and tailored in real time. But that doesn’t scale. Not because the story stops working — but because no one else can tell it the way you do.
The answer isn’t just a prettier deck. It’s a structured message house:
- A five-word descriptor that explains what your solution is
- Modular value props: clinical, operational, and financial
- Role-specific storylines for buyers like CMIOs, CFOs, or VP of Care Management
Then build the actual materials:
- A ten-slide deck for first meetings
- A twenty-five-slide version for deeper stakeholder review
- A full version for value analysis committees or board-level prep
Where this goes sideways is delegating messaging too early to marketing, before it’s been field-tested by sales. Early GTM collateral lives at the intersection of sales, product, and founder insight.
And remember, different health system roles don’t want the same story. What a CMIO needs to justify integration risk is usually different from what a COO needs to sign a budget.
Codify the message before you scale the team — or you might end up rebuilding your sales deck every quarter.
4. Turn Trust and Referencing into Structured GTM Assets
Almost nothing gets bought in healthcare without trust. And trust isn’t a brand promise — it’s a person, inside the buyer’s organization, willing to say: “This actually works and we need it.”
Many teams often treat reference management as a last-mile scramble: a few quick emails before procurement, a burned-out champion doing another call. But in health system sales, references are a first-class GTM asset — and must be operationalized like one.
That starts with building a roster, not a favor list. Map out who can speak to:
- Clinical credibility — like MDs who used the tool
- Workflow fit — e.g., frontline users who integrated it
- Economic impact — for instance, ops leads who saw results
Rotate who you feature based on buyer role. A VP of Care Management may not want to hear from a founder — they probably want to hear from another VP who made the same call.
Customer Success should own this. They’re often closest to outcomes and usage — and best positioned to spot potential champions early. But GTM leadership should guide when to ask for references. If those conversations only start after legal review, you’ve waited too long.
Bottom line: Trust travels through people. Invest in reference management like you would in pipeline generation — because it is.
5. Map the Deal Pathway — and Activate It Intentionally
Most health systems don’t buy the same way, but the patterns rhyme.
The mistake most teams make post-founder sales is treating every deal as a bespoke journey — re-inventing messaging, assets, and sequencing for each one. That’s not a strategy, but a guessing game.
To scale consistently, you need to map what actually happens inside the buyer’s organization. Not just who’s in the room, but when they show up and what they’re evaluating at each step. A weak pilot pitch might play a role, but deals often lose momentum when teams like legal, IT, or finance get involved before trust is established or outcomes are clearly defined.
That’s why the map matters. Knowing what needs to happen before a pilot converts, when the compliance review hits, or how procurement evaluates ROI gives you the ability to stage assets and messaging accordingly. It turns GTM from reactive to choreographed.
When it’s working, you’ll see it:
- Your reps get second meetings without needing you
- Reference asks don’t slow the deal down
- Legal and budget reviews feel expected, not chaotic
- You start to see repeatable patterns — and know what’s missing when deals stall
The deal map is your GTM choreography. Build it, test it, and use it — or you may keep flying blind.
Systems Are What Scale Digital Health GTM
Early traction proves the solution has legs. But sustained growth comes from building the system behind it — one that maps to how healthcare buyers actually evaluate risk, value, and change.
To scale, you shouldn’t just sell well. You need to also create GTM infrastructure that runs without you — the founder — in the room.
If you’re at that post-founder sales stage and wrestling with messaging, hiring, or deal progression — let’s talk.
