From Pilot-to-Paid: The Readiness Checklist for MedTech Founders

A practical guide that reveals if your if you’re truly ready to commercialize.

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Many early-stage MedTech teams rush into commercialization before they’re fully prepared. This checklist uncovers common blind spots—ranging from unclear messaging and unguided pilots to go-to-market strategies that fail to scale.

This isn’t just a self-assessment; it’s the first step in our GTM Diagnostic, a tool designed to provide clarity and actionable insights. Use it to demonstrate to customers and investors that you’re building a dependable, measurable process, not just a prototype.

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✅ Section 1: Positioning & Messaging Clarity

▢ Can you tell your story clearly and simply to engage both clinical and operational leaders?

▢ Can you pinpoint the real friction your solution creates, the workflows it disrupts, and and the people it affects?

▢ Does your messaging openly address this friction and risk while creating urgency and demonstrating value?

▢ Does your messaging address each stakeholder’s role-specific and personal priorities to motivate their buy-in?

▢ Does your story clearly answer ‘Why now?’ and ‘Why you?’ using the buyer’s own perspective?

✅ Section 2: Pilot Design & Stakeholder Mapping

▢ Are you going beyond your champion to engage the overlooked stakeholders who can stall adoption, and designing the pilot to win them over from the start?

▢ Does the pilot drive a purchase decision rather than only proving clinical feasibility?

▢ Have you mapped what each stakeholder must see, hear, or believe to say yes, regardless of budget control?

▢ Do you engage champions, blockers, and influencers early enough to shape the pilot rather than just review it?

▢ Do you know how success will be measured internally and who needs to see that proof to approve expansion?

▢ Have you aligned reimbursement pathways and billing codes early enough to remove budget objections?”

▢ Have you identified and addressed key concerns about adoption and implementation?

▢ Does your buyer trust that you will provide support beyond the pilot and take responsibility for the rollout?

▢ If the pilot ended tomorrow, would buyers have what they need to approve or still be chasing alignment?

✅ Section 3: Founder-Led Sales Motion

▢ Do you leverage your founder title to engage senior stakeholders and create executive alignment beyond clinical excitement?

▢ Does your sales motion speak to stakeholders who care, can decide, and understand how, with materials supporting each role?

▢ Do your champions have the right content, case studies, ROI summaries, executive one-pagers, to win internal support without you in the room?”

▢ Do you have a VAC-ready evidence package that buyers can take forward without building it themselves

▢ As a founder, do you instill confidence that your organization will manage training, support, and workflow changes during and after the pilot?

✅ Section 4: Investor Infrastructure & Proof

▢ Can you demonstrate traction, repeatability, and implementation readiness in a way that builds investor confidence in your GTM engine?

▢ Does your CRM reflect the way hospitals actually buy, tracking the path from pilot to VAC to purchase, and every stakeholder along the way?

▢ Does you CRM clearly show where pilots and opportunities stall (VAC delays, reimbursement gaps, budget freezes, or operational pushback)  and what unblocks them?

▢ Can your board see a repeatable GTM model that accounts for VAC, budget, and friction, beyond founder heroics?

▢ Do you have a repeatable way to move beyond warm pilots showing investors how adoption can scale through outbound campaigns or partner networks?

✅ Section 5: Change Management Readiness

▢ Do you take ownership of the change your solution creates and clearly explain how you will support buyers through workflow, training, and resourcing?

▢ Have you equipped your champion to explain rollout details (time, people, systems, budget) so they don’t sell it alone?

▢ Do you set post-pilot expectations early so your buyer understands expansion requirements and avoids surprises?

▢ Do you know who will own your product after the pilot, and have you helped them understand what ownership involves?

▢ Can you show how your product’s adoption will be measured internally and identify who must see that data to approve expansion?

⚠️ Ready or Risky? Scoring Your Commercial Readiness

Commercial success in MedTech doesn’t just hinge on technology; it depends on clarity, process, and trust. This checklist serves as your lens into the hidden friction points that stall great products, signaling to both customers and investors that you're building a business, not just a prototype.

Now the fun part. Count the number of boxes you checked.

• 🟢 20+ → Commercially Ready: You’re ahead of most peers. The challenge now is repeatability and building a system that doesn’t depend only on founder hustle.

• 🟡 12–19 → At Risk of False Starts: You’ve cleared some hurdles, but gaps will kill momentum. This is where most early-stage MedTech teams stall.

• 🔴 0–11 → High Risk: Clinical validation alone won’t get you there. Until you can demonstrate a repeatable go-to-market engine, you’re not set up to go Pilot-to-Paid.

  
  

👉 Wherever you land, the question isn’t “Is your product ready?” but “Is your commercialization engine designed to win?”

💡 About This Checklist This checklist is built from real-world experience scaling MedTech and Life Science companies from early pilots to paying customers and proving it to investors along the way.

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At Pathova, we guide MedTech innovators through the Pilot-to-Paid Pathway™, our commercialization system designed to turn clinical proof into scalable revenue with clarity and speed:

• Phase 1 — Align the Story, Mobilize the Coalition

  • Refine your value narrative, map the real buying group, and ensure proof resonates across finance, supply chain, IT, clinicians, and payers.

  
  

• Phase 2 — Engineer Pilots that Convert, Deliver VAC-Ready Proof

  • Design pilots as sales processes, define success triggers upfront, and package results into VAC-ready dossiers and reimbursement briefs that unlock contracts.

• Phase 3 — Build the Engine, Scale the Market

  • Codify sales infrastructure, proof libraries, and market access strategies that expand adoption across sites and signal investor-ready traction.

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