HealthTech product design · Seed to Series B · Health systems and care teams

“Clinicians love it, but procurement won’t sign”

Procurement decides before the clinicians get a vote. We design what the vendor review sees, and what keeps clinicians using the product after go-live.

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What the gap is worth €180,000 to €300,000 a year Illustrative inputs, so swap in your own

The champion who cannot get it through

The department head loved the pilot. Her nurses asked when they could keep it.

Then the product went into vendor review. An IT director who has never met you opened it on a Tuesday afternoon, between two other systems, looking for one thing: whether this product looks ready to sit inside a hospital. He could not find the audit trail. The roles screen read like a developer’s settings page.

Your clinical evidence is strong. It is also in a PDF that nobody in that review has opened yet.

The belief that stalls the deal

Most HealthTech founders come from inside healthcare, and they hold a belief that served them well there: strong clinical evidence wins

It wins the clinicians. The purchase is approved by people who will never use the product: the IT director, the security reviewer, the finance lead. They decide from what they see in a vendor review. A product that is clinically excellent and visually early creates doubt in exactly the person who can say no.

Good design does not change what your product does

It changes whether the people who need it trust it enough to use it.

A nurse opening the product for the first time does not know you. Several other systems compete for the same minute of her shift. Whether she gives yours thirty more seconds is a design outcome, and the mission depends on it.

In health, design is a functional requirement, not a visual one.

What usually sits behind the stalled deal

  • Early users who stay because they know the founder

    The product works for people already sold on the mission. It does not yet work for people who need the product itself to earn their confidence.

  • A vendor review the interface does not survive

    Data handling, roles and audit trails exist in the documentation, not on the screen the reviewer opens.

  • A step that arrives mid-consultation

    The product asks a clinician for input while they are with a patient. That is where usage stops.

  • Adoption that drops after go-live

    The product was good enough to win procurement but not good enough to change daily habits. That shows up at renewal.

  • Accessibility asked for late

    Health systems increasingly put accessibility requirements into contracts. A product that cannot answer them can be ruled out before anyone reads the clinical evidence.

Before Series A: trust before scale

At this stage the product has to work for people who have never met you.

We start with one question: would your early users still use it if they had never met you? If the honest answer is “some of them”, that gap is the design problem. If a raise is close, what investors check after the pitch applies to you too.

Series A and B: where enterprise deals die

You have health system relationships and a product team, and procurement is the bottleneck.

Here we ask: in your last three enterprise deals, where did they die, and who slowed them down? Then the question after go-live: what share of the intended users are active at day 90?

What the gap is worth

Illustrative inputs, so swap in your own:

health system contracts

licensed clinicians per contract

% active at day 90

An illustrative target of %

€ a year per active seat

We plan for closing 30 to 50% of the gap, not all of it, which gives a target of 52.5% to 57.5%.

7.5 to 12.5 points × 400 seats = 30 to 50 more active clinicians per contract

30 to 50 × €600 = €18,000 to €30,000 a year per contract

× 10 contracts = €180,000 to €300,000 a year

The volume here is seats rather than signups, and the value is already annual, so there is no ×12:

Annual gap = (target rate − current rate) × seats × annual value per seat × contracts

For signup and trial funnels, the conversion gap calculator runs the standard version.

Three questions to ask your own team

  1. What does your product look like to an IT director who has never heard of you and is doing a routine vendor review?

  2. When a clinician says the product “works fine”, what separates that from recommending it to a colleague?

  3. Does your round depend on the product experience at all?

    If your lead investor has no concerns about it and adoption is strong, you do not need us yet.

From first call to a review that passes

  1. A 30-minute call

    Bring the product and the stage where your last enterprise deal slowed down. A principal tells you what a reviewer is likely to see.

  2. A two-week Clarity Sprint

    Focused on the clinical trust layer and the procurement gap. The output is a ranked list of what to change and why, with a conservative revenue figure on each change. €5,500 to €8,500, with a written guarantee.

  3. The work, two weeks at a time

    Fixed scope, one output per sprint and a recorded walkthrough you can send straight to a clinical advisor or an investor.

Tell us which regulatory or accessibility requirement applies. A compliance rule is a design constraint, and a clear one removes guesswork.

What procurement and clinicians see afterwards

BeforeAfter
The pilot works because the team is in the room New clinicians can use it without your onboarding support
Reviewers look for the audit trail in a PDF Roles, permissions and audit history are visible in the product
Adoption falls after go-live and nobody knows where You know the step where usage stops, and its revenue figure
Accessibility comes up at contract stage You can answer the requirement before it is asked
Valeria Shumska and Ivan Kraskov, the two principals at Spirixx

Who does the work

The two principals on your first call do the work. Neither of them hands the work to someone you have not met.

  • Valeria Shumska

    Co-founder, Head of Product Strategy and Design

    MSc in computer engineering, 10+ years in systems and product design, with a focus on complex systems and HealthTech.

  • Ivan Kraskov

    Co-founder, Design and Communication Principal

    20+ years designing for startups and scale-ups, across product design, UX strategy and front-end.

Clinical workflows, pilot data and unreleased features stay private. A mutual NDA comes before any sensitive conversation, and we never publish client work. How that works.

FAQ

Is this about making the product look better?

No. It is about whether a procurement committee can see the value your clinical champions already see, and whether new users keep using the product after go-live.

Do you understand clinical settings?

We start every engagement by learning the care setting the product works in, and we ask you to correct our read. The clinical context changes everything.

Can you design for accessibility requirements?

Yes. Tell us which standard your contracts reference, and the Sprint checks the product against it.

Our round is fine. Do we need this now?

Maybe not. Ask your lead investor what they say about the product experience. If the answer comes without hesitation, wait.

Is the Sprint priced differently for HealthTech?

No. It costs €5,500 to €6,500, or €8,500 with a technical architecture review, and the fee is credited in full if you continue within 90 days.

Let’s look at what procurement sees

Bring the product, and the stage where your last enterprise deal slowed down.

Tell us about your project and the number you’re trying to move. You don’t need a finished brief, just a specific problem.

You talk to Ivan or Valeria, not a salesperson. Write today and you hear back the next morning, Central European Time.

Keep reading

Also Before Series A Users sign up and disappear Studio or in-house