Find the Customer Choosing Between You and Death | Jonathan Bush (Athena Health, Zus Health)

Jonathan Bush is the co-founder of Athena Health and the co-founder and CEO of Zus Health, a national common patient record and medical record API. He ran Athena for 21 years before the company was taken private, and he's now also running for governor of Maine.In this episode, Jonathan tells the story of how Athena Health almost didn't exist. The company started as a women's health center trying to reinvent maternity care around midwives and birth centers. The model didn't work, but the scrappy little browser-based billing tool they built for themselves caught the attention of neighboring medical groups. The real unlock came when they found 35 pediatricians and primary care docs at Harvard Pilgrim who were about to be cut loose from a staff model HMO. None of them had ever sent a claim in their life. Athena's pitch was simple: let us be your back office, because you literally cannot do this yourselves. Jonathan and Robert get into why your first customer should be someone choosing between you and going out of business, why going to the hinterlands beats taking down the castle, and how he's applying the same playbook at Zus today.Follow Very First Win for more conversations with founders on the moments that changed everything.Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube(@GoannaCapital)Connect with Robert Hilmer: linkedin.com/in/roberthilmer/