Framework
The Paying Problem Filter
Cool technology that no one will pay for is not a product. Before you fall in love with your insight, find the customer whose budget line it solves.
How it works
- 1Videra's early pitch generated universal enthusiasm and almost zero signed contracts. People would say 'everyone should do this' and then decline to buy it themselves.
- 2The problem: continuous patient monitoring does not have a direct billing code. Providers do not get paid more for following up with patients. They get paid for visits.
- 3Lauren had to add features with clearer ROI — intake automation, clinical documentation — to fund the vision. The mission needed a business model attached to it.
- 4The filter is simple: not 'is this valuable?' but 'who has a budget line for this and what does it replace?'
- 5For healthcare specifically: find the person who benefits from more patients being diagnosed when a treatment already exists. That is how Videra cracked pharmaceutical partnerships.
Hear it on the podcast
The Behavioral Health Crisis Is a Data ProblemListen to the episodeMore from this episode
The Continuity GapThe most valuable data in healthcare — and in most SaaS products — exists between appointments, not during them. Building for the gap is the actual product opportunity.Build for Signal, Not AssumptionWhen training models for human behavior, go in with as few assumptions as possible. Let the data surface the features. Your intuitions about what matters are often wrong.The Bias Audit TriadThree practices that prevent AI models from encoding discrimination: clean and representative data, demographic testing before launch, and continuous monitoring for drift.
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