PM360 introduces you to the people who invest in and help startups succeed. In this case, meet Steven Krein.
Affiliation: CEO, StartUp Health
Current Healthcare Portfolio: 270 Digital Health Companies Globally
Preferred Level of Investment: Up to $500,000
What He Looks for in Startups: “We find that the mindset of the entrepreneurs is what matters most in a company’s long-term success. So, we’ve developed the health transformer mindset. It’s a set of eight mindsets that make up this scorecard, which presents us with a filter. As an example, the first mindset is about a long-term commitment—these are entrepreneurs who are all in, willing to do whatever it takes for as long as it takes, and have a multi-decade vision. The last one is batteries included versus batteries not included. Do they give energy to others? Do they protect the people around them from energy sucks by avoiding non-constructive arguments?”
Approach to Companies in Portfolio: “If there is one main role I have in engaging with entrepreneurs, it’s as their coach. I am coaching our companies on a regular basis. I coach a lot on the health transformer mindset. I coach a lot on how to tell stories and continually attract people—investors, customers, partners—to your company. And I think each of the different people in the organization—we’ve got 20 people at StartUp Health—most of those people are in one way or another coaching the entrepreneurs on their particular subject matter capability.”
Finding Startups to Invest In: “Every January we hold the StartUp Health Festival. Along with that, word of mouth and other investor events make us visible in many ways because we’ve got this global army of entrepreneurs. We enlist them to help by looking for people who share similar beliefs and value systems and similar types of ambition, and they connect with each other.”
Origin Story: “While I’m not a doctor, I make an impact in a way that I knew how as an entrepreneur. I’m a lawyer by education but an entrepreneur through passion and experience. By marrying this mission and this ability I found a passion to make an impact on someone’s life and hopefully multiply that to millions, if not ultimately billions of people.”
