After 777 customer discovery interviews for CLIN, I stopped thinking about healthcare practices as one market. They aren't different sizes of the same business. They're fundamentally different types of businesses, and each one needs a different product, different pricing, and a different sales motion.
Enterprise practices (2% of market, 40% of revenue). Revenue over $10M annually. Multiple locations, 50+ employees, institutional backing. Think HCA Healthcare, Aspen Dental, or large medical groups with PE behind them. They have CFOs, procurement departments, and multi-year vendor evaluation cycles. They park millions in checking accounts because moving money requires board approval. Their CFO cares more about operational efficiency than yield. They'll pay $50K+ annually for the right solution, but expect enterprise-grade treasury management, multi-entity accounting, complex approval workflows, and white-glove support. Don't compete on price. Build for their procurement process. Expect 12-month sales cycles.
Strategic growth practices (15% of market, 35% of revenue). Revenue $2-10M annually. Aggressive expansion plans, sophisticated operations, growth-minded owners. These practices have figured out operations and are ready to scale. Successful specialists opening second locations, primary care practices adding services. They actively manage cash flow, understand unit economics, and will switch banks for better lending terms or operational efficiency. Lead with data and analytics. Show them how your platform improves their unit economics. Price based on value delivery.
Scaling practices (30% of market, 20% of revenue). Revenue $500K-2M annually. Established but growing slowly, basic operations, time-constrained owners. The dentist who owns two offices, the dermatologist with a solid patient base. They want set-it-and-forget-it solutions. Hate complexity. Will pay reasonable premiums for simplicity but won't overpay for features they don't use. Simplicity wins. Don't oversell. This is your highest-margin segment if you build right.
Lean boutique practices (53% of market, 5% of revenue). Revenue under $500K annually. Solo practitioners or small teams, cost-sensitive, basic needs. The majority of healthcare practices fall here. They're bootstrapping growth and every dollar counts. Extremely price-sensitive. Will switch for $10/month savings. Limited time for financial management. Often use personal banking for business needs. This is a land-and-expand play. Capture them early with great pricing, then grow with them.
The uncomfortable truth in the revenue distribution: 2% of practices generate 40% of revenue, while 53% generate only 5%. That creates a strategic choice. Go upmarket with complex, expensive solutions. Go broad with simple, scalable products. Or build a platform that serves multiple segments (harder but more defensible). Most successful healthcare fintech companies pick one and execute flawlessly. The companies that fail try to do everything.
We made that mistake initially at CLIN. Tried to be everything to everyone. Once we mapped our customer base to these segments, everything became clearer. Separate feature sets for different segments. Segment-based pricing instead of flat-rate. Different sales motions (enterprise required relationship selling, lean practices preferred self-service). Different support models (dedicated account managers vs. self-service resources and chat).
Red flags I learned to watch for. Enterprise prospects with no clear procurement process or decision makers that keep changing. Strategic growth prospects with vague plans and no understanding of unit economics. Scaling prospects that constantly price-shop and want features from other segments. Lean boutique prospects with unrealistic feature expectations and no budget allocated for tools.
Here's the real opportunity: practices don't operate in isolation. Enterprise practices refer patients to specialists. Strategic growth practices acquire lean boutiques. If you can serve multiple segments well, you become the infrastructure layer for entire healthcare ecosystems.
Traditional banks fail at healthcare because they treat all practices the same. They either oversell enterprise features to small practices (who churn) or undersell simple solutions to large practices (who leave). The winning strategy is segment-specific solutions with seamless transitions as practices grow. Pick your segment. Dominate it.
This analysis is based on 777 customer discovery interviews conducted while building CLIN's healthcare banking platform. The segment definitions and revenue distributions reflect our actual customer data from 2023-2024.