Successful AgeTech Startups Always Do This
Founders who build successful AgeTech companies all do one thing that’s incredibly simple, yet many still skip it. Let’s break it down and explore how you can avoid the biggest trap that AgeTech founders often fall into.
(Watch the full breakdown, or continue reading below)
Over the years, I’ve engaged in thousands of deep dive conversations with founders across the AgeTech ecosystem. One major pattern keeps emerging again and again and it’s instrumental to a startup’s success.
The Two Types of AgeTech Founders
Founders in this ecosystem fall into one of these two groups: those who have experienced the problem they’re trying to solve firsthand, and those who haven’t. When I say firsthand, I mean having personally lived it. Witnessing an older loved one struggle can be powerful, but it’s not the same as living it yourself.
If you are the user and have a lived experience – that’s a huge advantage. You feel the pain, the willingness to pay for a solution, and often discover there’s no good solution available.
Then there’s the second group, that I like to call “mission-driven” – who have watched an older loved one struggle, which sparked an idea. Being very close to the user but not the user is a hidden trap. You might think you know what older adults want based on your observations. It might feel like you have a solid understanding of what the lived experience is, but without proper user research, you’re just guessing.
The Importance of User-Centered Design
Many AgeTech startups skip the research phase, which is crucial, jumping straight into building instead. However, founders who build successful AgeTech companies start at square one with deep, relentless user research, even when resources are tight.
Without firsthand experience, and sometimes even with it, you cannot skip user research. It’s vital for validating two things: whether the problem exists as you perceive it and whether the pain is significant enough for people to pay for a solution. If users aren’t paying, you need to identify who is and engage them too.
Listening Without Pitching
When interviewing potential users, don’t pitch or sell – just listen. Understand how the problem manifests for them, its severity, their attempts to solve it, and their willingness to invest in a solution. Identifying a problem doesn’t mean people care enough to invest in its solution.
Key Takeaways
The most successful AgeTech startups are obsessed with user feedback, which they get early and often.
If you’ve lived the problem you’re trying to solve, you have a head start. If not, a critical key to success is user research. Including users throughout the product lifecycle and ensuring all the relevant stakeholders within your startup have a deep understanding of their wants, needs and journeys.