YEARS

Growth Lead

Business Development & Operations

NOVA SBE Data, Operations & Technology Knowledge Center

Visiting Thesis Researcher

Venture Capital Investment Analyst

OneClimate

Founder’s Associate, Business Intelligence

wattx

Deep Tech Venture Development

Deloitte

Turnaround, Restructuring & Transaction Advisory

Econum Unternehmensberatung GmbH

Management Consulting

UROMED Kurt Drews KG

Cross-departmental

I'm Niko. I write, build, and think about longevity.

I focus on what moves the industry forward: prevention that works, diagnostics that matter, and systems that connect behavior, biology, and tech. I track the signals — funding, science, startups, policies — and cut through the noise so others don’t have to.

My background blends data, strategy, and health. I’m not a doctor, and I’m not pretending to be. But I work with people across science, medicine, and tech to translate what’s emerging into what’s actionable.

The goal? To help longevity evolve from hype to infrastructure — and make it usable for more people, not just the elite few.

🧠 Weekly insights without the BS: nikohems.substack.com
🔍 More at: www.nikohems.de

Forward Health raised $660 million. Shut down overnight.
Olive AI raised $850 million. Sold for parts.
Babylon Health hit $4 billion valuation. Collapsed.

I keep watching healthcare start-ups burn through billions making the exact same mistakes.

1. They build tech before understanding clinical workflows.

Beautiful software that ignores fragmented EHRs, billing pathways, liability concerns, physician time pressure. 

If your product adds friction to a 12-hour clinical day, doctors stop using it. Period.

I've seen founders demo "revolutionary" platforms to physicians who just nod politely. Then never log in again. Because that elegant dashboard doesn't replace any existing task cleanly. It adds one more system to check.

2. They underestimate reimbursement complexity.

US healthcare runs on CPT codes, prior authorizations, and payer negotiations. Your brilliant AI means nothing if it doesn't fit into a reimbursable structure.

Companies burn hundreds of millions assuming Medicare will eventually pay. They rarely do without years of evidence and economic modeling that most startups can't survive long enough to generate.

3. They chase scale before validation.

Aggressive expansion with unproven unit economics turns small inefficiencies into fatal hemorrhages. Opening 50 clinics before you've made one ptofitable? Often not a good idea.

In regulated sectors with complex patient pathways, premature scaling compounds every operational flaw exponentially.

4. They make promises biology can't support.

Marketing outcomes that aren't grounded in physiology or real-world evidence destroys trust instantly. When claims don't match patient results, regulators knock on the door. Investors vanish. Even if parts of the tech work, confidence evaporates.

5. They treat healthcare like consumer SaaS.

Low-friction onboarding doesn't translate to medicine. Patients need handholding. Clinicians require extensive training. Outcomes take months or years to manifest. Churn stays high.

Subscription mechanics behave nothing like software when you're dealing with chronic care. It's professional services with massive operational overhead, not scalable SaaS.

6. Healthcare is complicated. Really complicated.

The companies that survive understand this from day one. They embed in clinical settings. They obsess over workflow integration. They build for the reimbursement system that exists, not the one they wish existed.

Most importantly: They respect the complexity instead of trying to disrupt it away.

What other patterns do you see in healthcare tech failures?

♻️ Repost if you think founders need to understand healthcare before trying to fix it.

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Niko Hems

Longevity | Cutting through noise in health and longevity to give people clear, science-based guidance that actually works | Favikon #2 Aging & Longevity Germany | 👇 Join 15k+ readers

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