By Tony Corley, Healthcare MarketMaker founder and CEO
Elevator Pitch: Healthcare MarketMaker is facilitating transactions between healthcare buyers and sellers in a manner similar to the way Zillow facilitates transactions between real estate buyers and sellers.
Product Description
Healthcare MarketMaker is the first online platform that will match buyers and sellers in mutually-beneficial medical and dental practice and equipment transactions. Just as online technologies have created economies of scale, contained costs, and achieved market leverage for buyers and sellers in the real estate market, Healthcare MarketMaker will establish a similar transactional paradigm in the medical and dental industries.
More than a decade ago, only 13 percent of homebuyers found their homes online, while today, that number is close to 90 percent. By providing real-time, transparent access to possible transaction partners identified based on location, practice, budget, initial valuation, and other desired criteria, Healthcare MarketMaker is introducing a new, accelerated process for practice and equipment sales, grounded in a proven model.
Founder’s Story
After spending 20 years in the healthcare transaction space, working for companies like HCA, Ernst & Young, and others, I realized that deals were still being originated and completed without technology enablement. There does not exist a robust healthcare transaction platform. Healthcare MarketMaker is that agnostic, cloud-based SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) platform.
Marketing/Promotion Strategy
Marketing Healthcare MarketMaker is driven by strong and well-aligned strategic partnerships. We believe in creating exclusive partnerships with specific subspecialty associations in each market. For example, partnering with chiropractic associations in each state will enable us to create more value for the association members while offering a means to increase membership levels for the associations. We also enrich associations’ value by providing content about the marketplace in their annual meetings, newsletters and other communications.
Our practice broker partnerships also enjoy early and qualified lead origination as our platform identifies active physician buyers and sellers vis-à-vis the association relationship. When a physician may be looking to buy or sell a practice, he may look for guidance from his state association. In a critical step in the first phase of development, Healthcare MarketMaker recently signed a letter of intent with Alliant Capital Advisors, the largest full-service brokerage firm in the mid-South, as a strategic partner.
Marketplace Opportunity
Currently, the healthcare market is being disrupted by two very large macro drivers. We have an aging physician population in the U.S. Over 33 percent of physicians, or approximately 400,000 physicians, are aged 55 or older. These physicians will be looking to retire and exit their practices in the next ten years. Also, the Affordable Care Act has increased vertical and horizontal integration in the provider space. Sole proprietors are selling to hospitals and large multispecialty groups in an effort to create scale to combat downward pricing pressures and compliance requirements. Therefore, the number of healthcare transactions is continuing to accelerate. The size of the U.S. market is approximately $29 billion annually.
How We Differentiate From the Competitors
Healthcare MarketMaker differentiators revolve around the specialization in the unique healthcare market with tools to empower buyers and sellers. We create an environment where transaction vendors like practice brokers, lenders and malpractice insurers compete for business early in the process as a new doctor enters an existing practice. The platform pivots around the needs of a physician at the critical stage as he enters his new practice. Specifically, if a physician indicates he would like a practice broker involved in his/her transaction, he can compare practice brokers on the platform based on the relevancy deemed important—i.e. price, rating, location, etc.
I also believe my depth of experience with these types of healthcare transactions provides practical guidance on how this online tool should be designed and function. For example, Healthcare MarketMaker offers a unique proprietary range of value for a practice known as the ‘MM Range’ based on an algorithm based on individual subspecialty practice data. This is similar to the ‘Zestimate’ found on the Zillow platform.
Business Model
Competitors in the space resemble listing services, with very little in the way of tools like standard templates for transaction documents to data warehousing for due diligence items. They are focused on subscription revenue without regard to successful deal closure. Healthcare MarketMaker offers a unique platform value proposition with these and other features to its customers.
Healthcare MarketMaker offers a collaborative success-sharing model to its practice broker partners. As a transaction is closed across the platform, we participate in the successful transaction through our agreement with the practice broker. Ancillary advertising revenue streams from other transaction vendors also contribute to a successful business model.
Current Needs
In residence at the Nashville Entrepreneur Center, we are utilizing early Seed money raised through a common stock offering to develop the beta platform. In addition, we are seeking additional strategic partners, as well as finding the right talent and fit for a technology co-founder and other senior lead developers. Healthcare MarketMaker will be developed, tested and go-live by third quarter of this year.
# # #
Headquarters: Nashville, Tennessee
Website: www.marketmakerinc.com
Founder: Tony Corley
Investors: Bootstrapped
Year Founded: 2013
