The pitch
The founder came with the half of a company that can't be bought: deep domain credibility and a pipeline of clinics ready to sign letters of intent. What was missing was the product — a patient-intake platform that could handle scheduling, forms and compliance-sensitive data across many small practices. Classic partnership shape: distribution without software.
The deal
We estimated the build exactly as we would for a paying client — the same milestones, the same market price. That estimate became the basis of a hybrid agreement: a reduced cash price covering our costs, with the discount converting to equity at the company's advisor-backed valuation. Our stake vested milestone by milestone: no shipped software, no ownership.
What we built
A deliberately narrow v1: intake forms, scheduling and document handling for one clinic type — the one with signed letters of intent. Compliance requirements (consent, retention, access control) were designed in from the first milestone rather than retrofitted; in health, that's the difference between a demo and a sellable product.
The hard part
Saying no — to features. Every onboarded clinic wanted something; a partner building for equity has the same incentive as the founder to protect focus, because scattered scope burns the same runway. The roadmap rule we agreed: nothing gets built until three clinics ask for it. It held, and it's why v1 shipped on time.
Where it stands
Over a hundred clinics run their intake on the platform. The company closed an institutional funding round — with our stake, standard terms and vesting schedule passing investor diligence without a raised eyebrow. We remain the engineering partner, now at arm's-length terms, with our equity doing what equity should: keeping us as invested in year three as we were in week one.