What does it really take to build a fast-growing healthtech startup in one of the most complex industries in the world?

In this episode of The Drafting Table, Jessica Lin sits down with Akash Magoon (Co-founder & CEO of Adonis) and Trey Holterman (Co-founder & CEO of Tennr) to unpack the early journeys of two of NYC’s fastest-growing healthcare startups.

They talk about the brutal reality of finding product-market fit in healthcare, navigating buyer resistance, building through messy integrations, choosing the right go-to-market strategy, and why saying "yes" too often nearly killed their early momentum.

This is not a highlight reel. It's the real stuff: tough pivots, million-dollar mistakes, and why early-stage execution matters more than perfect strategy.—⏱️ Timestamps00:00 – Intro: Meet the founders and the Work-Bench team

07:12 – Meet Akash (Adonis) and Trey (Tennr)

10:28 – How both founders stumbled into their ideas via personal pain points

12:59 – First-time vs second-time founders: what actually gets easier

14:20 – How they really found product-market fit

17:01 – The danger of building compound products too early

20:22 – Cutting early revenue to focus: painful but necessary

23:43 – Why focus too early can also be a trap

25:06 – Why healthcare integrations are brutal and where founders get it wrong

28:40 – Go-to-market: who pays, how to choose, and landing early customers

30:55 – Pitching ROI when your product replaces headcount

33:00 – Pricing lessons: subscriptions + usage models

36:10 – Selling into healthcare: make it fun, not performative

38:20 – Your first customers should feel like your only customers

40:07 – What they’d do differently starting from scratch

42:10 – Hiring with industry context vs generalists

43:58 – How they manage long sales + implementation cycles

47:07 – Selling to PE-backed provider groups: lessons and myths

49:58 – Moats in healthcare: what actually matters

54:10 – AI in healthtech: team impact and realistic expectations

58:51 – The biggest bets they’re making this year

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