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Healthy.io’s Kidney Test GTM Playbook · MATCH B2B INSIGHTS

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  Welcome to MATCH B2B Insights - the podcast where we break down what really
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  drives B2B growth: business pain,
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  personal risk, and messaging that creates meetings,
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  not just clicks.
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  I'm בני פלומן, joined by Brian Newman and Brenda,
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  and in this episode we're diving into the Healthy.
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  io case - a company
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  that made a highly unusual GTM move: instead of just selling a medical
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  product, it built a model that connects directly to money,
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  pain, and the people who actually pay for the problem.
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  I want to start with the part most medtech teams skip: the product itself.
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  Because with Healthy.
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  io, if you don't understand what happens at home,
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  with the phone, and with the sample,
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  none of the GTM logic really makes sense.Exactly.
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  Most people start this story at the boardroom level -- payer strategy,
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  partnerships, CEO changes, all of that.
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  But the real unlock starts with a very concrete workflow.
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  Healthy.
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  io's Minuteful Kidney test is an at-home urine test.
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  The patient collects a urine sample at home,
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  uses a smartphone camera with app guidance to process the test,
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  and then gets a result that can be routed into care.
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  That matters because it shifts kidney screening from a clinic event to
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  a patient routine.And that phrase,
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  "patient routine," is doing a LOT of work.
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  Because this isn't just, what,
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  telehealth for labs.
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  It's not a video visit and a PDF.
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  It's a diagnostic workflow that starts at home and still ends in clinical
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  action.
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  Right.
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  And the FDA-cleared piece is critical here.
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  By early 2024, Healthy.
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  io had FDA clearance for the Minuteful Kidney
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  test -- the first smartphone-based at-home urine test cleared for home
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  use.
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  So now we're not talking about a wellness gadget.
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  We're talking about a regulated diagnostic workflow designed to detect
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  risk earlier, before the patient ends up much later in a more expensive
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  stage of kidney disease.So let me try to explain it
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  back.
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  The product story is not "we made kidney testing digital." It's more
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  specific.
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  It's "we made the act of screening simple enough to happen at home,
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  guided enough to be usable, and structured enough that the result can
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  actually trigger care."
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  Is that fair?That's much closer.
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  I'd sharpen one word: ROUTED.
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  Because a lot of health tech dies in the gap between test completion
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  and clinical follow-up.
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  Healthy.
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  io's story only works if the result doesn't just exist -- it
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  moves into a care pathway.
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  That's why the product is the story.
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  The GTM works because the product solves a logistical problem,
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  not just a clinical one.And from a business development
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  angle, that explains why the message lands differently.
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  If I hear "home urine test," I might think consumer diagnostic.
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  If I hear "FDA-cleared home-based kidney screening workflow that helps identify
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  patients before dialysis-level cost,"
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  now I'm hearing operational value.
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  Before dialysis-level cost -- that's
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  the tension, right there.
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  Because once you say that, you're not really selling convenience anymore.
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  You're selling intervention timing.Exactly.
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  And this is where Healthy.
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  io made the move that almost no Israeli medtech
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  company makes early enough.
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  They did NOT build their commercial story around the user channel.
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  They didn't say, "Hospitals use this, so hospitals are the buyer." They
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  didn't say, "Patients take this at home, so let's sell direct to consumer."
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  They asked a harder question: who pays when chronic kidney disease is
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  missed?
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  And the answer was not subtle.
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  Medicare spends 114 billion dollars a year on chronic kidney disease.
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  One hundred and fourteen BILLION.
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  That's the number that changes the room.And when you
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  say 114 billion, the obvious follow-up is: who inside an organization
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  actually feels that number?
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  Because "payer" sounds neat on a slide,
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  but in real life it's fragmented.
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  Correct.
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  "Payer" is not a buyer.
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  It's a system of buyers.
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  Population health leaders care because undetected CKD means worse outcomes
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  across a member base.
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  Medical directors care because the screening model has to make clinical
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  sense and fit standards of care.
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  Finance cares because late detection is expensive.
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  Procurement cares because eventually this becomes a vendor decision with
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  terms, risk, implementation, and compliance.
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  Same product.
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  Four different internal conversations.Which is where
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  a lot
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  of founders get lazy, honestly.
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  They think one deck is enough.
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  But the population health person is not buying the same thing as procurement.
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  Even if the contract is the same contract.
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  Yes -- and this is where enterprise
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  selling gets very unromantic, very fast.
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  UnitedHealthcare, Humana, Blue Cross Blue Shield,
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  Clover Health -- those names matter because they tell you Healthy.
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  io
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  wasn't chasing applause.
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  They were chasing institutions with both budget and pain.
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  The user was the patient.
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  The economic buyer was the payer.
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  Huge difference.And a very practical one.
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  Hospitals may appreciate the technology,
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  but hospital sales cycles in medtech can drag for eighteen months or
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  more.
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  Consumers may like convenience,
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  but acquiring them out of pocket is expensive,
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  and many won't pay for a test they think their physician should order.
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  Healthy.
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  io stepped around both traps.
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  They went to the channel that directly absorbs the cost of untreated
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  disease.
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  So the commercial lesson is almost brutal in its simplicity: don't
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  sell to the person who touches the product.
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  Sell to the organization that bleeds when the problem continues.[short
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  pause] Exactly.
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  And in CKD, the bleeding is financial before it is visible operationally.
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  That's why the payer says yes sooner than the end user would.
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  Now, here's the part audiences usually romanticize.
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  They hear the strategy and think,
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  great, payer motion.
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  Done.
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  No.
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  This only works if you can repeatedly reach the right people in the right
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  accounts, build enough credibility to stay in the conversation,
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  and survive a long, layered contract cycle.
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  Strategy is the first ten percent.
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  The "layered contract cycle" piece
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  is important.
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  Because one meeting with a medical director is not progress if finance
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  never sees the model, and procurement never validates the vendor,
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  and nobody internally champions rollout.Exactly.
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  Success here is not "we got a meeting." Success is a SYSTEM.
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  Targeted account selection.
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  Stakeholder mapping inside each payer.
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  Repeated outreach, not one-shot outreach.
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  Assets that create trust -- clinical proof points,
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  implementation logic, outcome framing.
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  Then disciplined follow-up long enough to keep momentum while the buyer
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  organization moves at buyer speed.
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  And buyer speed in healthcare can be
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  painfully slow.
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  Which is why I think the January 2024 CEO move is interesting,
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  but not for the headline reason.
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  Yes, Geoff Martin came in as CEO,
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  with prior roles at Olive and GE Healthcare's Partners group,
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  while founder Yonatan Adiri moved into the President role.
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  Fine.
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  Important.
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  But leadership changes don't rescue a weak commercial system.
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  They scale or refine the system that already exists.So when
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  people point to the 190 million dollars raised or the 1 million patients
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  served by early 2024, you're saying those are not just product validation
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  numbers.
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  They're evidence that the go-to-market engine had enough durability to
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  keep converting interest into actual adoption.
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  Yes.
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  Those numbers matter because they suggest repeatability.
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  One million patients is not a clever pilot.
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  That's operational follow-through.
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  And then in April 2025, the acquisition of Labrador Health to launch
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  the first quantitative at-home ACR test in 2026 -- that tells me they
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  were extending the model, not just celebrating the first win.[questioning
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  tone] Let me push on that.
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  Couldn't someone say, well, of course they could extend the model --
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  they already had money, brand, partnerships?
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  They could.
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  But money does not solve message-market mismatch.
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  Brand does not solve stakeholder confusion.
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  Partnerships do not solve weak account penetration.
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  The reason this case is commercially useful is that the machine appears
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  aligned: the product is clear, the buyer is clear,
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  the economic pain is clear, and the outreach probably kept showing up
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  long after the first "not now." Which is the least glamorous sentence
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  in B2B...
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  and maybe the most profitable.
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  "Kept showing up after not now."I'm writing that one
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  down.So if we translate Healthy.
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  io into a business development
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  framework, the sequence is very clear.
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  First, define the ICP around the organization that owns the pain,
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  not the user who touches the product.
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  Second, build pain-based messaging that explains the product in operational
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  terms, not just technical features.
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  Third, map the stakeholder set inside the account -- clinical,
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  operational, financial, procurement.
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  Fourth, run an outreach system that gets in front of those people repeatedly
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  and coherently.
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  And that last part is the part Match B2B talks about all
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  the time: strategy only matters when it becomes meetings,
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  pipeline, and revenue.
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  Otherwise it's just a smart document in a shared drive.Yeah,
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  and I want to underline "coherently." Because a lot of teams do outreach,
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  but it's fragmented.
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  One message to one person, no sequencing,
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  no account view, no proof, no follow-up rhythm.
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  Then they say the market is slow.
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  The market may be slow.
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  But usually the system is weak.
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  That is the core message.
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  Healthy.
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  io did not win because they had a clever product alone.
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  They built, or at least operated through,
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  a system that turned strategy into meetings -- and meetings into qualified
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  conversations with the people who could actually sign.
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  That is the bridge too many B2B companies still do not build.
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  So the hard question for any founder listening is not,
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  "Do we have a great product?" It might even be not,
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  "Do we have FDA clearance?" The harder question is: are we explaining
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  this product in a way that makes the economic buyer care,
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  and are we building the machine that gets that explanation in front of
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  them often enough to matter?
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  Because if the answer is no,
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  then what you have is potential.
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  Not pipeline.
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  Without a system,
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  even the best product stays stuck in potential.
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  That's the episode.
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  Thanks, בני פלומן.
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  Thanks, Brian Newman.
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  Always good.
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  Let's leave it there.
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  Thanks everyone