I'm looking to launch a business in the health insurance industry. I would describe the business as semi-technical in that although coding will need to be done, there are other things that need to be done that I view as more difficult and more important. Particularly, establishing relationships with insurers and major healthcare providers.<p>My background is in finance. My brother works as an IT consultant to the health insurance industry and is very excited about the project. He also has mentioned the idea to some of his coworkers and they also are very excited.<p>Right now the business is just an idea. My next step is to finish writing a brief business plan describing the idea, market, and team.<p>But after this I don't know what to do. I need concrete advice on what next steps should be. Books and other resources would be helpful too.<p>Some of my many questions:<p>When and how should I seek funding? I would expect that the idea would take a fair amount of start up capital to produce revenue, but I have no idea about how to begin putting a budget together.<p>When should entity formation documents be drafted? When to discuss questions of ownership? I don't necessarily want to give equity to my brother's coworkers.<p>Ideally the company would hire a business development person from a major health insurer. I would expect this to make getting meetings much easier. How do I find the right person?<p>There are a million other questions that aren't coming to mind right now, but you get the idea. I'm sure that most entrepreneurs have dealt with similar questions. Any help is appreciated.<p>Chris
It sounds like some kind of marketplaces since its both insurance and healthcare providers. your going to need to talk with the people charge of making the decisions a those companies. Break the system down in the the smallest possible parts that could work. setup a pitch deck and pitch it some potential customers. be prepared for a long slow process. It took the insurance company I worked at about 6 years after basically everyone knew they wanted new claims software for us to buy it. The included 2 rounds of full RFPs with onsite demos etc. also, bringing on a top tier consulting company just to help us buy the stuff. we used another one as a systems integrator.