6 Tips for Successfully Applying to Digital Health Accelerators

So you might’ve found a few healthcare accelerators that you’d like to apply for in our blog 20 Digital Health Accelerators to Know for 2023 (US and Remote) and now you may be wondering, what next?

In this blog, we’ll explore essential tips when applying to healthcare accelerators.

• Research and identify accelerators that align with your digital health startup's goals and stage.
• Ensure your solution fits their specific focus, whether it's healthcare delivery, medical devices, or diagnostics.

• Healthcare is complex and you certainly don’t need to be an expert on everything, but be able to articulate which stakeholders are involved with your business.
• Be able to describe the pain point that you’re solving and who benefits from it.

• Healthcare is complex and you certainly don’t need to be an expert on everything, but be able to articulate which stakeholders are involved with your business.
• Be able to describe the pain point that you’re solving and who benefits from it.

• To run a profitable business, you need to make money. In healthcare, there are many different buyers and ways to get paid for your solution. The best you can, speak to who you think buys your product and how they pay for it. 
• If you don’t have proof of who purchases your product or service, speak to your hypothesis of your potential customers.

• Accelerators like Techstars have a philosophy that Team is the most important thing that they evaluate when reviewing a company. 
• To that end, you should think hard about highlighting your team's strengths to articulate why you’re the right team to solve the problem you’re working on.

• Going back to the first point, what an accelerator you’re pitching will expect of your team will be dependent of the program.
• Some programs will want a product built with paying customers, others will want to see some basic tech built, and many programs will even accept just an idea or a clickable prototype designed in Figma.

• If your product or service will be used to help patients it’s important to highlight what the expected clinical outcomes will be and how they’re an improvement of the current standard
• Alternatively, if what you’re doing benefits someone other than patients, be able to articulate the value and benefit you’re providing to the people using your product and the people purchasing it

Healthcare is littered with problems, and there needs to be new solutions to fix them. Accelerators are a great way to kickstart, fund, and quickly advance new ideas, but many times getting into a program can be a hurdle for companies.

We hope that this blog serves as a helpful resource as you go through the application process for accelerators. 

If you’d like to chat to get our perspective on applying, pitching, and going through Techstars, fill out the form below and we’d love to help.