3 Signs Your Medtech Idea Could be a Viable Business

Key Learnings From Joanna's Experience

• Test for clinical urgency before going all in — and look for physician skin in the game. The strongest signal that an idea is worth pursuing is when doctors are so enthusiastic they invest their own money, not just offer advisory equity. Combine this with favorable asymmetry between the clinical pain you're solving and the technical risk you're taking on, plus optimal market timing where your space is ripe for transformation.

  
  

• Diversify your funding strategy beyond traditional VC to extend runway and build credibility. Systematic pursuit of non-dilutive capital, such as grants, builds organizational rigor while giving you credibility and a head start with venture investors by demonstrating external validation and reducing their risk. Modern tools like LLMs make grant writing more accessible, and the psychological impact on VCs is significant — they see execution capability and the potential to double their dollar.

  
  

• Accept the tension between precision and speed — and develop practices to manage the emotional toll. Building devices that go inside the human body demands uncompromising rigor, but startups still require speed and iteration. This discomfort isn’t temporary. It’s part of the job, and managing it well is just as important as the technical work.

How do you know if you're building a company — or an expensive science project?

It's the fundamental question every medtech founder faces, yet most lack a reliable framework for answering it. The stakes couldn't be higher — pursue the wrong opportunity and you'll spend years chasing regulatory approval for technology the market doesn't want. Choose wisely, and you could transform patient care while building a thriving business.

Joanna Nathan has learned to tell the difference. As CEO and co-founder of Prana Surgical, she's building an image-guided, minimally invasive surgical platform designed to make lung cancer treatment more precise by conserving healthy tissue and enabling personalized treatment plans. 

But her path to founding Prana wasn't linear.

Joanna's career began in translational research at Texas Heart Institute. From there, she moved into product development at Saranas, learning firsthand what it takes to bring innovative technologies from concept to commercial reality. Her perspective expanded dramatically during stints as an investor — first at Mercury Fund, then as New Ventures Manager at Johnson & Johnson's Center for Device Innovation.

This unique vantage point — having sat on both sides of the funding table — taught Joanna to distinguish between compelling science and viable business opportunities. While at J&J, she identified what would become Prana as a rare alignment of the key factors she looks for in breakthrough medtech ventures.

As Prana nears first-in-human studies with $12 million in funding, Joanna’s method for evaluating medtech innovation is proving to be a reliable guide. Her approach combines clinical validation, strategic resource allocation, and the psychological resilience required to build life-critical devices.