When most founders begin their journey, they focus on a good product and the right market. But what happens when your customers don’t yet know they have a problem? What happens when there’s no market, even when you know you have a solution people need?
It’s rare to find success stories of simultaneous company and market building because it’s not a challenge that every organization faces. But if you’re innovating within your industry, it’s a problem you should expect and prepare for because it means having to operate in two realities—the internal reality where you know the challenges in your industry and how you’re going to solve them, and the external reality where nobody else has recognized the problem that needs to be solved.
In a highly regulated industry like healthcare, safety, and stability create an inertia that often works against innovation. Many products fail simply because they lack market demand and infrastructure. To succeed, you should look beyond the solution and craft a compelling narrative that tells the entire story of your product and why it’s needed.
As a founder of Paragonix, I navigated these two worlds firsthand during the development of our organ preservation technology. For decades, people transported fragile human organs on ice in coolers you can find in a hardware store. No one was really asking “Is there a better way to do this?” until we did.
Here are five things I learned about bridging the gap between internal conviction and market skepticism:
1. Name the market
When you’re defining a market that doesn’t exist yet, one of the most overlooked steps is giving it a name. A name gives stakeholders a tangible anchor and helps sell the version of reality where the market is already real.
Then the focus shifts to creating shared belief, and that only happens by getting out there and talking to people. It’s a lot like painting a landscape. Your company may ultimately be just a small piece of the background, but the more detail you give your audience, the more they’ll come to understand the whole picture and how you fit into it.
Ironically, you may start to see competitors using the language you’ve created, but that’s still a win. After all, if someone else uses the market terminology I created, it’s a huge validation of the landscape I painted.
2. Compile ample data
Particularly in the healthcare industry, compelling data about your product is the proof of concept that unlocks belief. You need strong basic science or engineering validation to demonstrate how your product works, which helps your future customers realize that something they’re doing isn’t working.
Then, you need clinical science showing that your product is not only effective but safe and superior to the existing standard of care. In my experience, that massive data collection effort is what ultimately convinces the market that they need your product.
Before we created the Paragonix SherpaPak Cardiac Transport System, our first portable donor organ preservation system, close to 100% of donor hearts arrived at their destination without any temperature control, monitoring, or reporting, potentially impacting patient outcomes by injuring donor hearts. From the data we collected, we knew there was a dire need for a solution and that our technology could provide the answer.
3. Amplify early adopters
Healthcare is an industry where adoption risk is high, and validation relies heavily on peer trust, making it vital that you amplify success cases from early adopters. These initial risk-takers are more than customers; they are essential co-creators of the new market category and can help you actively cultivate conviction within the industry.
Whether you choose to create a structured advisory council or not, check in often and give them ample opportunity to provide feedback. Doing so doesn’t just secure their commitment to sharing positive outcomes with the public; it helps you transform implementation hurdles into strategic operations.
4. Consider the entire ecosystem
As your market scales, it’s important to study the entire product journey and its surrounding ecosystem. You need to know the adjacent problems, complementary products, and be able to spot future technological needs that sit on the border of your current solution. This is the part that keeps you innovating in a smart, seamless direction, putting you one step ahead of the competition.
As a founder, I’ve seen firsthand the importance of talking to not just stakeholders but also end-users—the clinicians, administrators, buyers, and even patients who aren’t decision-makers but can amplify your product and market vision. They can offer feedback on workflow integration, usability, and pain points that ensure you’re delivering solutions people both love and leverage.
5. Listen to negative feedback
When you’re in the early stages of company development, a positive outlook is almost a requirement for overcoming the fear, anxiety, and worry that can threaten to hold you back. That’s one reason that it can be hard to accept feedback from people who don’t like your product, don’t grasp your vision, or who actively avoid collaborating with you.
But as a company leader, you need to listen to what detractors say. When they’re right about something, it can be a tough pill to swallow, but acting can protect the health of your company as it grows. If they’re wrong, it’s still important to listen. Developing thick skin is a skill that no one can take away from you and will be useful throughout the entire journey.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Building a company is hard, but building an industry is harder. Markets don’t emerge on their own, but leaders who are willing to question long-standing assumptions and replace them with evidence and structure can build them.
When you succeed, the impact extends far beyond your organization because you did more than win the market; you raised the standard for an entire industry.
Lisa Anderson is the president and cofounder of Paragonix Technologies, a Getinge company.