Navigating Healthtech: Insights from Ugly Talk at NY Tech Week

#NY TECH WEEK by a16z — Saturday, JUNE 6 🔥

UGLY TALK: WHAT HEALTHTECH FOUNDERS BREAK ON THE WAY TO REVENUE

Healthtech GTM plays by different rules.

The buyer is not always the user. Regulations shape every decision. Pilots can run for months before founders know whether anything is actually working.

Many founders spend 18 months chasing a hospital system that was never going to buy.

They mistake a signed LOI for traction.

They spread across provider, payer, and employer channels at the same time, hoping one will stick.

The difficult part is not building the product.

The difficult part is knowing where revenue actually comes from.

But what happens when activity starts looking like progress?
→ Pilots that keep running without real outcomes
→ Budget spent on channels that never convert
→ Teams chasing too many buyers at once
→ LOIs getting mistaken for revenue signals
→ Founders burning time on customers who were never going to buy

This Ugly Talk is for founders, operators, investors, and builders trying to understand what actually moves the needle in healthtech GTM.

Here's what we're getting into:
• How to pick the right buyer when the user is not the buyer
• When to pivot channels and when to keep digging
• How long to run a pilot before killing it
• What changes when regulations shape every channel
• Where founders waste time chasing the wrong customer
• What a signed LOI is actually worth, and what it is not

🤝 Who’s Backing This

Scalpels & Spreadsheets — bringing together healthtech founders, operators, and investors through community and content

GREY Journal — spotlighting modern entrepreneurs

📍 Scalpels and Spreadsheets, New York
🗓 June 6, 2026
🕛 12:00 PM EST
🎟 Free admission — RSVP required

Register here 👇