If you had to choose one export market today with only 14 months of runway left, no international sales team, unlimited capital. Would you know which one is going to give you the highest probability of success and revenue, or would you just default to the biggest market? Welcome to Clinician to CEO, the podcast helping clinicians simplify your go-to-market strategy so that you can stop guessing and turn your working prototypes into international MedTech businesses. I'm your host, Hakeem Aade. Let's get started. If you recall in the last episode, we built your export business plan using the healthcare export accelerator business plan structure, and you will have defined your vision market prioritization, commercial readiness, partner strategy, and your 180 day reality check. And at the end of that episode, I gave you the following scenario. You're a company that had a product with a CE mark. You had a small but solid UK pilot. You had limited cash runway. I you had 14 months left to make a success, and then you had no dedicated international sales team. And your market prioritization scoring exercise gave you free possible priority markets market a. It's A large market with high revenue feeling and high potential. Complex reimbursement, however long regulatory timelines get into there, and strong incumbent, competitors in that market. And then you had market B, so midsize market, moderate regulatory complexity, there's a clear clinical need in that market, and one motivated distributor with an aligned portfolio, and then market C. It's a smaller market, very fast regulatory pathway, weak reimbursement structure, and the distributor wants exclusivity immediately. Now. You can only execute properly into one market in the next 12 months, only one. So the question was, which do you choose? And if your business plan is effective, it should eliminate two options and leave you with one candidate. Now let's see if it does, 'cause I want to break it down properly in this episode. So remember we start with vision. So the vision. Should answer one uncomfortable question. What type of company are you building over the next three to five years? Not what can you afford to do today? But where are you actually going? So if your direction is to become a serious international category player, then a high ceiling market like market a may absolutely sit in that future. But vision is destination. Sequencing is order now. So therefore, bring in your reality. When you're looking at that vision piece and where you try to get to. You've got 14 month runway, you've got no international infrastructure, and you are in the early proof stage. So therefore the real question becomes when we're looking at vision is does entering market a first accelerate your direction or does it delay it? Because market A is a scale play, so that fits into the vision of actually becoming a category leader. Market C is opportunistic speed, and market B is structured, hopefully repeatable growth. So if your long-term direction is scale. You still need proof of repeatability before you can earn the right to play at that level. So here, I would say choosing market B first doesn't shrink ambition. It actually funds it and the vision doesn't eliminate a forever, but. I would suggest it eliminates a as your first move. So here, the winner would B, in my own opinion, the market. B. So we move on to step two, market prioritization. Now, market prioritization is not just about how big is the market, your total, addressable market, how much can money can you extract from the market? It also has to take in the probability that you'll be successful in that market, and that's weighted by friction. So if you look at market a whilst there is a high ceiling, there's also high friction because you've got complex reimbursement And you've also got a long regulatory timeline. And in addition to that, you've got strong incumbents in the market already. So you've got high level of competition market C, low regulatory friction, but wheat reimbursement and early exclusivity pressure from the distributor. And I'll talk about that a bit later. And then market B, you've got moderate friction. There's a clear clinical need, and you've got structural alignment with your distributor. So the one question that I want you to ask yourself is, which markets. Will give you the highest probability of meaningful traction within the next 12 months. Not the theoretical side of the market, but actual traction because market A has the highest ceiling, but the lowest probability inside your current constraint. Market C has a moderate probability of. But lower long-term potential. And market B, however, offers balanced potential with materially higher probability of traction. So if your prioritization is disciplined, B obviously leads again in this situation because potential and probability are your guide, not just the theoretical market side. So if you then look at step three commercial redness, then if we're looking at the reality of the situation as the company in the scenario, we have no reimbursement specialists. We have no international sales team, and we have limited capital market. A demands heavy regulatory and reimbursement navigation at Market C. Demand strong commercial defense due to weak reimbursement logic market. B, demand structured but manageable execution. So which market matches your current muscle and your current situation. A is gonna stretch you. C is probably gonna expose what you don't have, and B, at the moment fits exactly where you are. So your strategy has to match your capability and not just your aspiration. So again, here be wins. Moving on to step four partner strategy. We've gotta already look at what leverage can we get out of our partners and what leverage do we have with our partners. Now market sees distributors want exclusivity immediately, and that's to me a real red flag. 'cause that's like giving someone a gold medal. Before they've even started running the race market A has some strong incumbents and in markets with entrenched players, distributor attention is often already committed. So the risk in this situation isn't access, it's priority IE can you get your products or the food chain in the distributor's portfolio in this market, we don't know to be fair, but Market B offers a motivated, portfolio aligned partner. So the question for you here is, where do you have the healthiest power? Balance? So, A, you're likely to be a small player in a big pond. B, you are definitely strategically relevant and in C's case, you're gonna surrender all of your leverage early. I given them exclusivity if you to agree to that. So partner strategy would eliminate C if your discipline, and again, it lends itself to B. And then moving on to the final step, step five, the 180 day reality check. So what we wanna do here is remove theory. Six months from now, what has to be true? Well, you need to have regulatory clarity. You need to have distributor onboarding and hospital conversations and pipeline visibility. So in market A, the first question is, are you likely to have got free regulatory complexity inside the first six months? Probably unlikely. And then in market C, you may well clear regulation quickly, but will reimbursement stall adoption? Very possibly. And then in market B, can you realistically be in hospitals building traction within six months? From everything we've said, the answer is probably yes. So B passes the 180 day test and the others don't. So who wins? I think it's pretty obvious. Market B, not because it's glamorous or it's because it's the biggest, but because it starts to compound when you go through those five checkpoints now. Let's just review the markets quickly. So market a flatters ambition because it's large and it looks impressive on a slide, but it ignores your current constraint and your runway reality, the amount of money that you have. Market C flatter speed 'cause it can get in there quickly. It promises quick movement. But it risks, fragile traction without real durable economics. 'cause some of the challenges in that market. And market B strengthens structure. It aligns with your capability and your runway, and it increases, therefore, the probability of sustainable traction. So I'm hoping that you chose B, so if you chose a, it's probably for investor optics. And if you chose C, it's probably because movement feels productive, but your runway has to be final strategy. 'cause you've gotta work within your current constraint. It shouldn't be driven by ego. It should definitely not be just driven by geography and it can't be driven by distributor enthusiasm. So. In closing, if your business plan doesn't eliminate two options clearly, then it obviously isn't tight enough. Vision will help you narrow ambition. Market prioritization removes fantasy land. You're gonna go actually as a friend of mine would say, you're gonna fish where the fishes are. And then commercial redness limits the ego and just tells you, are you ready to go to this market? Partner strategy protects your leverage in the market and with the distributor and the 180 day reality check kills any delusion that you may have of going into wrong market. With the wrong strategy, because you're gonna have a checkpoint to say, these are the things that we need to have. And if your export plan only works in PowerPoint but falls apart on the commercial pressure, you don't have a strategy. At the very best, you have a narrative. So understanding where your export structure is strong and where you are commercially exposed is the key to bringing your MedTech device to the market on a global scale. So to find out. What is holding you back? Book a free healthcare export accelerator discovery. Call with me now via the link in the show notes and on this call, I will personally audit your systems and tell you the exact next steps you need to take to help you accelerate your international growth. Thank for listening. Keep listening and keep growing.