Get millions for your startup idea

You're a physician with a great startup idea.

All that stands between you and a nice office, an exceptional team, and paying yourself to work on it is some funding.

This isn’t just a pipe dream. Smart fundraising makes this possible, but it’s easy to get wrong. Here’s what I wish I knew when I started.

On my first startup, I spent months building a product, only to realize my market wasn’t big enough for investors. I know people who lost years on this same mistake.

Others waste time cold emailing investors, then give up when that doesn’t work.

After I got it right, I was able to raise a few million dollars from top investors. I’ve also been on the investor side where I’ve helped raise millions for successful startup founders.

While the actual work to get the money is in creating the investment offer, too many first time founders neglect all the steps before and after that.

This checklist will help you avoid pitfalls that many before you have made:

Pre-product: 
☐ Form your team.
☐ Register your company.
☐ Talk to potential customers about your idea.
☐ Research the competition.
☐ Get legal advice (founder agreements, IP protection, incorporation).
☐ Research healthcare regulations and compliance requirements specific to your product (e.g., HIPAA, FDA).
☐ Build a minimal product (MVP) to test your idea with those customers.
☐ Show evidence this is something people want (early traction, signups, LOIs).

Determine if you need funding: 
☐ Is this a billion dollar market? Or can it grow into one.
☐ Does it require significant upfront costs (e.g., engineering, clinical trials, hardware, regulatory)?
☐ Can you bootstrap for now, or is external funding essential for growth?

Creating the investment offer: 
☐ Understand the different funding rounds (Pre-seed, Seed, Series A, etc) and their milestone.
☐ Determine how much money and time you need to get to the next milestone.
☐ Prepare a pitch deck (problem, solution, market size, competition, business model, financials).
☐ How is your product different from what's out there?
☐ Show how much money your startup can make (financial projections, revenue streams).
☐ Define specific milestones for how investor funds will be used.
☐ Decide on valuation and equity you're willing to offer.

Where to find investors: 
☐ Accelerators (Y Combinator, Techstars, healthcare-specific).
☐ Traditional Venture Capital (VC)
☐ Family and friends.
☐ Grants and non-dilutive funding (e.g., NIH, NSF).
☐ Angel investors or syndicates.
☐ Crowdfunding platforms (equity or rewards-based).

For VC and angel investor outreach: 
☐ Reach out to founder friends for intros to investors in your space.
☐ Research recent funding news for investors in similar sectors (i.e. Crunchbase, TechCrunch, PitchBook).
☐ Leverage internal investor lists (if available).
☐ Email investors and book meetings (clear, concise pitch).
☐ Prepare for due diligence (financials, legal docs, IP, contracts, regulatory compliance).

Who to take money from: 
☐ Strategic investors who can help get customers, improve your product, and/or lead your next round.
☐ Look for investors with healthcare experience or connections to your target market.
☐ Evaluate the long-term alignment between your company and the investor's goals.

There’s a lot to dig into on each step above if you haven’t done it before. Each step could be an hour long talk or a few days of researching. Use this list as a framework and a launch pad.

For most people, the main questions to consider are:
1. Do you need outside money at all?
2. Is this something someone will want to invest in?

Best,
Mohammed