In this special episode of Walk the Valley, Will and Kata dive into one of the most overlooked - and most critical - factors in healthcare innovation: knowing your customer.Borrowing the term KYC from the financial world, we reframe it to mean something much deeper: understanding your users and customers through deliberate research and value proposition design. Because no amount of technology, funding, or hype can save a startup that's solving the wrong problem.We explore practical tools like the Value Proposition Canvas, Business Model Testing, and the Elements of Value pyramid, and walk through a 10-point checklist to pressure-test whether your offer meets real needs.If you're building a MedTech or HealthTech startup, this conversation will help you rethink how you validate ideas, design products, and build a business that customers actually want.

Links

Value proposition canvas: https://www.strategyzer.com/library/the-value-proposition-canvas

Elements of value: https://hbr.org/2016/09/the-elements-of-value

The 10-Point Value Proposition Checklist https://www.strategyzer.com/library/10-characteristics-of-great-value-propositions

1. Is it embedded in a great business model?

2. Does it focus on the most important jobs, most extreme pains, and mostessential gains?

3. Does it focus on unsatisfied jobs, unresolved pains, and unrealized gains?

4. Does it concentrate on only a few pain relievers and gain creators but doesthose extremely well?

5. Does it address functional, emotional, and social jobs al l together?

6. Does it align with how customers measure success?

7. Does it focus on jobs, pains or gains that a large number of customers have orfor which a small number are willing to pay a lot of money?

8. Does it differentiate from competition in a meaningful way?

9. Does it outperform competition substantially on at least one dimension?

10. Is it difficult to copy?