The Gap Between a Great Idea and a SNF Customer
Uncategorized Long-Term Care, Post-Acute Innovation, Skilled NursingYou’ve got a product you believe in. You’ve built something that could make a measurable dent in the hardest problems healthcare faces – poor outcomes, staff burnout, staff retention, wasted money, gaps in communication, fractured patient journeys.
And you know where that problem plays out everyday. Inside the walls of nursing homes everywhere.
But as soon as you try to bring your solution into that environment, things get harder than they should. Your cold emails are ignored. The demo calls stall. The pilots are delayed or cancelled altogether. The outcomes you can actually deliver, don’t get the runway they need to build your company. You start wondering if the market’s broken, if your solution isn’t what you thought you’d built or if you misjudged your market fit for post-acute.
This story plays out at conferences every year… Smart founders, meaningful products, no traction. Won’t be back at the show next year.
No one tells you when you’re starting out that the post-acute care market is different. It’s constantly defending itself from political attacks. It’s underfunded. It’s operationally maxed out. The people making decisions are managing between fire drills. Their staff is short, their margins are tight, and their tolerance for risk is low. They are not chasing innovation – they are trying to survive the week.
I’ve worked in post-acute for 25 years… And I’m here to tell you that if your solution really does improve outcomes or reduce cost, there has never been a better time to find your footing in this space.
Operators are looking for the right ideas. They just don’t have time to be wrong. They can’t waste hours in another exploratory demo. They can’t implement something that adds more tasks or drags their team into a tech transition that doesn’t pay off quickly or at all. And they’ve already heard the promises.
That’s the gap. It’s not a gap in vision or value. It’s a gap in delivery.
This is why we’re building Kaizenleap.
We’re looking for early-stage companies that are ready to cross that gap. Companies that understand what they’ve built and are open to refining how they bring it to market. We vet for operational fit. We test assumptions about adoption. We help you shape your pitch and your pilot in a way that reflects the pressures operators actually face.
We’ve sat in the rooms. We know how decisions get made. And we know how to tell your story to the people who need to hear it. Clearly, efficiently, and with the right level of confidence.
When a good idea does get through, when it lands right, and when it works the way it’s supposed to, it changes more than just the operator’s workflow. It changes the lives of patients… Real people who are recovering from something that’s shaken their independence or near the end of life. It changes the daily experience of caregivers, many of whom have spent years using systems that should have been upgraded years ago. And it changes the financial landscape for organizations that are trying to keep their doors open while doing their absolute best for their residents.
If you’re building a company that can really make a difference, and you’re ready to do the hard work of getting it right inside real-world operations – then let’s talk.
Kaizenleap wants to help founders like you succeed in one of healthcare’s most overlooked, misunderstood, and critically important sectors. This is where the impact is. And this is where we go to work.
Good luck out there!
~Rob Dugas, Co-Founder @ Kaizenleap