Overview
Blueprint Health starts with an intensive twelve-week program, but we will continue to work with you for the life of your company. We ask founders to move to New York City for the duration of the twelve-week program, so that they can get the most out of the program. We focus on setting and helping our portfolio companies meet their individual goals. For most companies, this involves some combination of marketing and sales consulting, customer development, and assistance with fundraising.
The companies that are already making sales to customers and/or are beginning to fundraise get the most out of our program. That being said, about half of the companies we accept are in the early development stage and half are already generating revenue (up to $1M in ARR). Being entrepreneurs ourselves, we know that sales and investment dollars are the lifeblood of any company and we try to help, rather than act as a distraction to these important goals. Our founders spend a lot of time meeting people during the program, in addition to their normal company duties, but we try to make these interactions as relevant as possible and leave plenty of time for our founders to run their businesses and attract new customers.
Below we discuss the major components of the twelve week program and how we interact with companies after the twelve weeks.
One-on-Ones
You will have the opportunity to meet with 50 to 75 mentors in 15 minute one-on-one meetings. The goal of these meetings is to expand your network and find a few mentors that can make a meaningful impact on your business, typically either via customer development or fundraising. 15 minutes is a very short amount of time. It is essentially speed dating to see if there is a connection. If there is a mutual connection, we help you cultivate that relationship and expand its scope as it is relevant. Note that our mentors select the companies that they want to meet with and volunteer their time to come meet with you. What sets our program apart is the quality of our network and the level of people you will get to meet with.
Founder Discussions
Typically once per week, we invite the founder of a successful healthcare IT company (e.g. ZocDoc, TeleDoc, Phressia, Oscar, Medidata) to speak with our entrepreneurs. It is an intimate discussion, typically around a few couches in our office, in which the founder shares the inside story of what happened with their startup and what they think new entrepreneurs should know.
Office Hours
Brad Weinberg and Jean-Luc Neptune block off 30-minutes for each company every Tuesday morning. This is dedicated time for the companies to ask questions and get our advice. We sit with the companies in our office and are typically available any time, but we have found having this dedicated time each week is helpful to companies. Our goal is to figure out how we can be helpful to you each week and make sure that we are doing everything we can do to help you achieve your individual company milestones.
Alumni
There are over 200 alumni founders in our network now. They are entrepreneurs that are one or two steps ahead of you and can often give you the best tactical advice. Many of them are selling to the same customers you are selling to and can give you tips and tricks that will save you hours of frustration. It is a huge asset to have this network to call and lean upon.
Content Development
We spend a considerable amount of time with our companies helping them craft marketing, sales and investor materials. This includes cold emails, sales decks, investor decks and your demo day script. Our goal is to help you explain your company message clearly and concisely to almost anyone. There are few places you can get hands on help with content development to the extent that we get involved and most of our alumni companies will tell you that our process was invaluable to helping them learn how to message their company.
Events
We host four events during the program: Launch Day, the Mentor Dinner, Hands-On Mentor Breakfast, and Mentor Demo Day. The purpose of these events is to give you an additional opportunity to meet people in our network and practice communicating and networking with people about your company. Being put in-front of this many people can be daunting, but it will be invaluable to you as you build your company. Your ability to engage people in what you are doing is crucial to your success and we provide you with numerous opportunities to practice and improve your approach, while getting constructive feedback.
Demo Day
Blueprint Health’s Demo Day is one of the preeminent health technology events in New York City. It is an invite only event that includes 400 to 500 investors and industry executives. It is an incredible stage for our portfolio companies to explain what they have accomplished and the opportunities that exist for people that want to get involved. It is an opportunity to build new relationships and also to create a pitch that will be critical to your company for many months to come.
After The Twelve Weeks
We are often the first people that our founders email when they are doing something new or have a difficult decision to make. Most founders see us as experienced friends rather than investors and realize that they can talk to us about things that they might not be comfortable talking to others about initially. This includes reviewing at contracts, investor term sheets, discussing employee issues or key hires, or just getting a beer to blow off some steam. We continue to make introductions and help whenever we are called upon. As we like to say, once you are in the Blueprint Health family, you are always in the Blueprint Health family.