Inside PathologyWatch’s Early Sales Strategy: How They Landed Their First 5 Enterprise Customers
Selling innovation in healthcare requires more than just a better product – it demands a deep understanding of what drives different stakeholders to change long-established practices. In a recent Category Visionaries episode, PathologyWatch CEO Daniel Lambert revealed their unique approach to landing their first enterprise customers by testing multiple value propositions simultaneously.
The Pre-Sales Foundation
Before PathologyWatch could even begin selling, they had to clear a crucial hurdle. As Daniel explains, “Since we work in healthcare, we actually had to get the insurance contracts first. So there was a sequence of setting up shop, getting on the insurance plans, and then going to the first dermatologist.”
This regulatory groundwork proved essential for making their solution viable for potential customers. Only after securing these foundational elements could they begin testing their value propositions in the market.
The Stack of Value Propositions
Rather than betting everything on a single selling point, PathologyWatch developed what Daniel calls “a stack of ideas” – multiple value propositions that could resonate with different stakeholders. They identified three core benefits:
- Better Patient Care: “It’s simply better patient care if the dermatologist can see the image and they can see the notes from the physician, at the same time, they can actually show the patient the case. Less room for error, more ability to talk, to show the patient.”
- Operational Efficiency: “Hey, just look, this is going to save a lot of time in your office. Don’t you want to just at least try that? And we now know, like, our average clinic saves 25 hours a month.”
- Revenue Potential: “The potential for additional billing if wanted. So this enabled the dermatologist to potentially read their own cases. It also increased the complexity of the visit if they actually look at the image as a secondary read.”
Testing and Learning
What made this approach particularly effective was their willingness to test different messages with different prospects. As Daniel reveals, “Each of our first four or five customers, I think they all latched onto a different value proposition. So it was a little bit of spray and prey on these value propositions until we found one that landed.”
This experimental approach allowed them to learn which benefits resonated most strongly with different types of customers while building their initial client base.
The Gradual Commitment Strategy
Instead of pushing for full adoption immediately, PathologyWatch took a more measured approach. Daniel notes that their early customers “didn’t commit the whole volume up front. They wanted to test us, and we delivered on those early cases, and then they ended up sending more volume over time.”
This strategy of starting small and proving value before expanding helped overcome the natural risk aversion of healthcare providers.
Why It Worked: Understanding Healthcare Decision-Making
The success of PathologyWatch’s early sales strategy reveals important insights about selling innovation in healthcare:
- Multiple stakeholders often influence purchasing decisions, each with different priorities
- Risk mitigation is crucial – starting small allows customers to validate the solution before full commitment
- Different value propositions may resonate differently even within the same organization
For founders selling into regulated markets, PathologyWatch’s experience suggests that success comes not from finding a single perfect pitch, but from developing multiple valid value propositions and being willing to test them systematically with early customers.
As Daniel puts it, “I think it’s 100% sales. You have to get out there early and learn from the customer from day one, rather than building a product and then letting it fail, or you think the entire product is just coming from your head.”
By combining this sales-first mentality with a flexible, multi-layered value proposition strategy, PathologyWatch was able to overcome the inherent challenges of selling innovation in healthcare and build a foundation for scaling to 180 clinics and beyond.