Serim Tarcan

A framework for evaluating opportunities in digital health

Here are some of the diligence questions I have collected over the years, that I share with my students. They are broken down into categories of risk: Market, Execution, and Product. 

Market risk

At a high-level, does this address a real problem in healthcare (cost, quality, access)

Is there a ... See more

Healthcare-specific investors

This section includes both healthcare-specific funds, as well as individual investors who exclusively focus on healthcare at funds that invest across multiple industries.

Oak HC/FT

Who: Annie Lamont

Check size: Early to growth

Portfolio includes: Devoted Health, Maven, Noom, CareBridge

Why I recommend them: They are commited... See more

There’s a famous WWI poem about how one generation sacrifices for another, hopes that they can carry the work onwards. “To you from failing hands we throw,” it reads, “The torch; be yours to hold it high.”

time pressure hinders creativity and problem-solving by prompting people to reach for the simplest option or solution rather than allowing the space to reach a more eloquent one.

There are at least 4 types of wealth:

Financial wealth (money)

Social wealth (status)

Time wealth (freedom)

Physical wealth (health)

Be wary of jobs that lure you in with 1 and 2, but rob you of 3 and 4."

Poet Emily Dickinson on the value of small actions:

"If I can stop one heart from breaking,

I shall not live in vain;

If I can ease one life the aching,

Or cool one pain,

Or help one fainting robin

Unto his nest again,

I shall not live in vain."

Source: "If I Can Stop One Heart From Breaking"

The Arctic is warming four times faster than the world at large, causing ice to shrink by an area the size of Austria each year. Since the 1980s the volume of ice has fallen by 70% or more. The Arctic’s first ice-free day may occur before 2030.

Augustus thought “nothing more derogatory to the character of an accomplished general than precipitancy and rashness.” To quash such impulses, Augustus trained his generals to instead make haste slowly and that “the cautious captain is better than the bold.”

FarmboxRx founder Ashley Tyrner, 39, sees healthy food as a form of health care. In 2014, she launched Farmbox Direct, which shipped boxes of fresh food anywhere in the U.S. In 2019, she pivoted to focus on the health care market, partnering with Medicare Advantage and private health insurance plans to offer produce boxes as a benefit to members, a... See more