.@alfromnexhealth on surviving off a $391k Seed round:
"We didn’t have any connections to Silicon Valley. Or any VC's at all really.
My co-founder and I grew up with immigrant parents. So honestly, we didn't really have any connections to money to begin with.
So the way we raised that initial capital was two sources. One was actually a couple of our professors at school. And then a couple of our customers on top. And that’s how we scraped together $390,000.
We still have two of those customers on our cap table. Still using us, love us. So honestly it was our customers, and then people we knew, professors, a couple of friends.
But then one year later, we almost ran out of cash."
Video
Turner Novak 🍌🧢 (@TurnerNovak)
New @ThePeelPod with @alfromnexhealth
Today @nexhealthHQ infrastructure serves 89 million patients and 81% of new AI healthcare startups are built on it.
But at one point, the company had $4k in the bank, a maxed-out Amex card, and was on the brink of running out of cash.
I sat down with Al to talk about why 75% of dentists still run a server in their closet, the reason innovation is so hard in healthcare, and why AI value will accrue to chips, models, and the action layer.
Full episode here + links below.
Timestamps:
0:00 Healthcare skipped 3 platform shifts and went straight to AI
4:10 75% of dentists still have on-prem servers
10:05 How data interoperability holds back healthcare innovation
16:02 Why everyone blames Epic
20:15 Building the developer platform for healthcare
24:36 Why everyone fails to fix the problem
29:11 Fragmented markets enabled developer platforms
32:32 Working as a receptionist at a doctor’s office
36:13 Building a prototype on Twilio
39:15 How incumbents went from blocking to partnering
46:05 Canvassing Soho dentists door-to-door
53:47 Reverse-engineering 40-year old databases
56:21 Funding NexHealth with side hustles for two years
57:30 The scheduling wedge no one could match
1:02:20 Raising $391k from professors and customers
1:03:46 Running out of cash, why customers kept churning
1:07:45 $4,000 in the bank and a maxed-out Amex
1:11:12 The $36k pre-pay that saved the company
1:13:24 NexHealth’s three businesses today
1:20:18 Payments and the “admin-day” problem
1:26:15 72% sales win rate
1:28:27 The term sheet signed the week before COVID
1:30:26 Spending half the Series A on an acquisition
1:33:47 Raising $176M they didn't need
1:37:28 Why starting before 2022 is an advantage
1:42:22 Where AI value accrues: chips, models, the action layer
1:44:55 81% of AI products are built on NexHealth
1:48:24 Staying patient for three years after ChatGPT
1:51:25 Competitors building on their API
1:54:02 “We’re a tech company, not healthcare company”
1:56:09 Hiring from outside healthcare
1:58:34 Shoes, email over Slack
2:01:21 What AI changed inside the company
2:04:16 Inspiration from Microsoft in 1977 - 1990
Video
— https://nitter.net/TurnerNovak/status/2082854053516615920#m