by Mercedes Dragovitz and Hicham Abghay, Steinbeis - eHealth Roadshow service leaders at eHealth HUB

 

The commercialisation path for eHealth solutions is everything else than fast. Not only is this vital domain heavily regulated, but novel solutions have to trespass a multi-stakeholder decision making mechanism.

The eHealth Roadshow we designed at eHealth HUB offers a platform to bridge this gap. Here, a high-calibre stakeholder committee is invited to get to know solutions that might fulfil their urgent demands. At the same time, they shed light and give guidance to the pitching SMEs on how they can accelerate the commercialisation process.

In turn, SMEs showcase their innovations in front of potential procurers and validate their business cases.

 

Insights

At this crossroad, we have gathered some insights that we would love to share with you.

Have a read at some of the typical pitfalls entrepreneurs make when pitching (and try to avoid them):

1. No clarity on what your innovation wants to solve. Don´t centre your pitch around yourself. Focus on the need of your customers; they must be the centre of your whole value proposition. What are the urgent needs you address? What are the direct benefits?
2. No clear problem or solution. As basic as it sounds, we still see Committee members asking questions to clarify what you are really trying to sell. If this happens, you immediately know: the game is over. Take the message home and do your in-depth due diligence.
3. Failure to highlight the competitive edge. It might sound obvious, but sometimes even mature companies fail to demonstrate a proper competitive analysis. Competition is everywhere, whether you see it or not. Saying that there is “no competition” out there is usually perceived as a bad sign. So, do never ever claim that and rather be humble instead. You need to be able to prove that you’ve accounted for that and position yourself as the best team for the job. Prove that nobody is doing the same as you are doing in the same way. There are others competing for your budget, or you are competing against other approaches.
4. Unclear users. Lack of a detailed stratification of the patients and stakeholders segments your solution is targeting (e.g. disease understanding, population data insight, reimbursement modalities and regulation constraints ).
5. No implementation insight. “Sometimes SMEs have a lack of understanding of the different actors motivation for implementing the solution.” Mads Rasmussen from Welfare Invest says. Having this understanding is vital for a successful implementation!
6. Lack of data. Back your arguments with real data to make your pitch more compelling. Show that you don’t have hypotheses, but evidence-based proof of the benefits you claim.

 

Make your pitch impactful at eHealth Roadshow

Since November 2016, we have been on the road at four venues in Spain, France, Germany and Denmark, where we had the pleasure, so far, to meet 39 eHealth SMEs from 12 EU countries. The application fields ranged from solutions for patient empowerment e.g. apps for skin monitoring to the management of clinical trial data, through innovations in active and healthy ageing and communication tools between healthcare practitioners and/or patients.

Some of the startups and Committee members from our former eHealth Roashow  left us with comments  we love to share here, while we are already working for the next stops around Europe. Get ready!

 

Piotr Orzechowski/Infermedica - Startup (Poland)

“The eHealth Roadshow was an amazing opportunity to pitch in front of numerous insurance companies. It was really worth it to apply and travel from Poland to this great event. Really great people, networking, discussions… I would definitely do it again!”

Helga Thorbjörg/Kara Connect -Startup (Iceland )

“The questions and discussion with committee members after the presentations were very, very important for us. In startups we are changing every week, every month. So, being able to talk to experts and investors about what we are doing at the moment is crucial for us. I got to reach out to European stakeholders in the eHealth field and there are actually a lot of things we need help with in eHealth, so I am happy to be here!”

Raphaela Kitson-Pantano/Head of International relations, AXA Global Life

“Events like these are really crucial to foster new ideas, share best practices and promote innovation further. At AXA we benefit from sharing expertise with people from all around the world to always push forward and make sure that we address the needs of our customers and the needs of patients in the best way possible.“

 

Future eHealth Roadshows

We will be soon announcing more Roadshows on our website https://www.ehealth-hub.eu/events-ehealth-hub!

Stay up to date by following us on LinkedIn and Twitter @EU_eHealth_Hub.