22 May The Relentless Hunt for “The One Thing”: How Healthcare SaaS Companies Search for the Unlock That Changes Everything

There are infinite potential paths to unlocking your next stage of growth. You must determine which to walk down next.

Every CEO or founder is hunting for the next unlock, whether they call it that or not.

It may not show up on the board deck that way. It may not be written into the quarterly plan. But somewhere underneath the revenue targets, investor expectations, sales forecasts, and marketing conversations is a quieter question that tends to haunt founders, CEOs, and growth leaders.

What is the thing that gets us to the next level?  What unlocks our next stage of growth?

Not just another campaign. Not another vendor. Not another isolated tactic. The thing.

The one partnership. The one market insight. The one positioning shift. The one channel. The one workflow insertion. The one direct growth motion. The one strategic relationship. The one commercialization pathway that suddenly makes the company feel less stuck and more inevitable.

At SRGP, we call it “the one thing.”

The phrase captures the reality of the search. Every company is looking for the growth mechanism that makes the next stage possible.  But in healthcare SaaS, that unlock mechanism is rarely obvious.

Some Companies Grow Before They Fully Understand How They Scale

One of the more dangerous assumptions in software is the idea that early traction automatically validates long-term commercialization.

A company can build a strong product, win customers, raise money, hire a team, expand revenue, and still not fully understand the most scalable way its product should enter and spread through the market.

That sounds counterintuitive, but it happens constantly.

Early growth often comes from founder charisma, relationships, referrals, investor confidence, timing, channel relationships, or the simple fact that a product is new and interesting enough to get attention. Those forces are real. They can create meaningful traction. In many cases, they are exactly what gets a company off the ground.

But they are not always proof of a scalable commercialization pathway – the kind that reliably carries a company into its next VC raise, materially increases valuation, or ultimately creates the conditions for a strong acquisition or exit.

Eventually, the easy wins slow down. The founder cannot personally carry every major deal. The original relationship network becomes saturated. Early channel momentum levels off. The company is larger, more mature, and more expensive to operate, but the next layer of growth becomes harder to find.  Starting to sound familiar?

That is often when leadership teams decide they need more marketing, more lead generation, more awareness, more content, more paid media, more outbound, or more sales support.

Sometimes they are right.

But before prescribing the motion, a company may first need to pause long enough to look deeper at itself – beyond assumptions, beyond internal narratives, and beyond the default go-to-market story that has formed over time.

Because one of the most surprising things we have encountered in healthcare SaaS is that different parts of the same company often have completely different understandings of how the company truly scales. Leadership may believe one path is obvious, product is excited about a roll-out (that the competition already has), while sales teams quietly see friction, resistance, or structural barriers every day that never fully surface in strategy conversations.

Sometimes the biggest commercialization blind spots are not external at all. They exist inside the company itself.

That is why understanding what kind of commercialization opportunity a company actually is has to happen before serious scale decisions are made.

There Is No Universal Growth Playbook

This is one of the clearest lessons we have learned after 18-plus years working in and around healthcare SaaS companies of many shapes and sizes.

One company may need a classic direct GTM motion: better positioning, stronger creative, sharper demand capture, higher-converting landing pages, better email sequences, cleaner sales enablement, improved trade show assets, more disciplined paid media, and a narrative that finally makes the product easier to understand and easier to buy.

Another company may need demand creation. The market may not fully understand the category yet. Prospects may not know the solution exists. The pain may be real, but unnamed. In that case, the work is not just to capture demand, but to create readiness before traditional lead generation can fully work.

Another company may need a very different path entirely. The best route to revenue may be through an integration, reseller relationship, reimbursement mechanism, association partnership, enterprise rollout, bundled offering, strategic alliance, or some other side door that has little to do with conventional lead generation.

Many companies need a hybrid of these motions.

That is why one-size-fits-all growth advice is so dangerous. The question is not simply, “How do we get more leads?” The better question is:

What commercialization pathway is most likely to unlock the next stage of growth for this specific company?

Harvest Markets vs. Creation Markets

One of the most important distinctions we use internally is the difference between a harvest market and a creation market.

A harvest market already contains active demand. Buyers understand the category, recognize the problem, and are actively searching for solutions. In these environments, traditional lead generation tends to work well because intent already exists within the market.

There are usually several indicators that a company is operating within a harvest market:

• Search behavior exists. Prospects are actively searching Google or LLMs using language closely related to the product or problem space.
• The company may already receive a measurable level of inbound demo requests, organic form fills, direct inquiries, or branded searches without significant outbound effort.
• Buyers generally understand what the product category is and where it fits operationally.
• Sales cycles are generally shorter with lower-friction pricing.

Competition is another indicator. If multiple vendors are competing aggressively within the same category – particularly through paid search, SEO, review sites, comparison pages, conferences, or outbound sales teams – that is often evidence that an active market already exists.

Harvest markets also tend to support relatively straightforward commercialization mechanics. The company can usually sell directly from itself to the end buyer without requiring unusually complex adoption pathways, ecosystem relationships, reimbursement dependencies, or extensive market education before a sale can occur.

Most importantly, the market itself already acknowledges the problem. Buyers may not know which vendor they want, but they generally know they need something.

Creation markets operate very differently:

In a creation market, the buyer may not fully understand the problem yet. They may not realize alternatives exist. They may not know your category exists at all. In some cases, they are experiencing the pain every day but still do not frame it as something worth solving operationally or financially.

This is extremely common in healthcare SaaS, particularly with innovative or workflow-disruptive products.

There are usually indicators here as well:

• Search behavior is often weak or fragmented.
• The company may receive very little true inbound demand despite having a legitimately valuable product.
• Buyers may struggle to describe the category consistently, or different stakeholders may use entirely different language to describe the same operational issue.
• Sales conversations tend to require heavy education.
• Prospects often need to be convinced the problem itself deserves attention before the product can even be evaluated.
• Adoption may depend on multiple departments aligning simultaneously, or the real economic beneficiary may not be the person interacting with the product day to day.
• Sales cycles are generally longer with the product at a higher price-point.

Creation markets also tend to produce confusion around GTM strategy. Leadership teams often assume poor lead volume is a marketing execution problem when, in reality, the market itself has not yet matured enough to support traditional demand capture at scale.

We have encountered situations where a leadership team essentially says: “Let’s do the Google thing and generate a lot more MQLs for the sales pipeline.”

The problem? Nobody is searching for the product.

A company can rank #1 organically for the most relevant keyword in its category and still generate almost no traffic if the market is not actively searching for that category in the first place.  We can bid on those keywords in Google Ads, but the ads will rarely serve because nobody is searching for the terms that trigger them.

That is why the distinction between a harvest market and a creation market matters so much.

Harvest markets are generally powered by lead generation and optimization. Existing intent is already present, so the goal becomes capturing, converting, and scaling demand that already exists.  Here, yes, the world is measured by MQL volume.

Creation markets require something very different.

They require demand generation. The audience often needs to be introduced to the pain point itself, the category surrounding it, and the idea that the problem is even solvable in the first place. Only after that foundation exists does traditional demand capture become fully effective.

In creation markets, the challenge becomes one of:

• Education
• Awareness
• Trust development
• Category framing
• Narrative positioning
• Market conditioning

Demand generation becomes literal. The company is not merely capturing intent; it is helping create it.

The problem is that many organizations never stop to determine which type of market they are actually in.

Classic GTM Is a Commercialization Pathway Too

It is important not to create a false divide between “marketing” and “commercialization.”

A strong direct go-to-market motion can absolutely be the commercialization pathway.

For some companies, the next unlock is better execution of the classic growth engine:

• Sharper positioning
• Stronger creative
• Clearer messaging
• More effective paid media
• Higher-converting landing pages
• Better nurture sequences
• More useful content
• Improved sales materials
• Stronger trade show support
• More disciplined conversion rate optimization

That is not “just marketing.” Done correctly, it is a commercialization system.

For other companies, the classic motion only works after the market has been warmed up. They may need priming and activation, thought leadership, category education, strategic repetition, and a more intentional narrative layer before buyers are ready to engage.

And for others, even that may not be the primary path. Their next growth opportunity may live inside the ecosystem around them rather than in a direct buyer funnel.

The point is not that one path is better than another.

The point is that the company has to know which path it is actually on.

Some Companies Are Trying to Scale Through the Wrong Door

Healthcare adds another layer of complexity because the buyer, user, approver, payer, beneficiary, and operational owner are often not the same person.

That is where many growth assumptions break down.

A company may assume the end user is the buyer, so go straight after them. Or that the economic beneficiary controls adoption. Or that direct sales is the natural path to scale. But healthcare rarely works that cleanly.

The operator may love the product while procurement blocks it. Clinicians may see value while administrators resist workflow disruption. Finance departments may benefit financially while operational teams inherit the burden of implementation. In some cases, channel partners or ecosystem relationships quietly control access to the market altogether.

This is why some excellent products struggle despite strong teams and competent execution. The issue is not always the quality of the product or the sophistication of the marketing. Instead, the underlying commercialization mechanics have not yet been discovered.

You cannot optimize your way out of the wrong commercialization pathway.

If a company fundamentally misunderstands how the market wants to buy from it, the result is often an exhausting cycle of forcing tactics onto structural problems. More campaigns. More outbound. More content. More spend. More pressure on sales. Meanwhile, the real friction remains unresolved underneath it all.

In some ways, commercialization discovery can resemble a process of elimination. Companies test motions, channels, partnerships, narratives, ecosystems, and market assumptions looking for traction that truly scales. Some paths produce small wins but ultimately hit ceilings. Others reveal invisible resistance that leadership teams did not initially see.

That exploration is not failure. It is often the work itself.

Thomas Edison famously described invention as discovering thousands of ways how not to make a light bulb. Commercialization can feel similar. The objective is not to randomly try everything. It is to intelligently and rapidly narrow the field, eliminate pathways that are unlikely to scale, and move progressively closer to the motion(s) that unlocks disproportionate traction.  After years inside healthcare SaaS companies, it’s quite honestly a large part of why we built SRGP.

Eventually, certain paths begin pulling harder than the others.

That is often where companies finally begin discovering “the one thing.”

The One Thing

Most successful healthcare SaaS CEOs and founders eventually experience some form of commercialization breakthrough.

It is the realization, relationship, partnership, integration, market motion, or strategic pathway that changes the trajectory of the company.

Sometimes founders describe these moments almost accidentally in hindsight. They tried one motion. Then another. Then another. Some worked a little. Some did not work at all. Then, somewhere along the way, a conversation happened. A partnership appeared. A buyer pattern became clear. A workflow insight surfaced. An adjacent company became a strategic ally. A new channel opened. A message finally landed. A hidden economic beneficiary emerged.

Suddenly, the path became clearer.

That is the one thing.

It might be a classic GTM motion that finally makes the company understandable to the market. It might be a demand creation strategy that warms up a market that did not yet know how to buy. It might be a reseller relationship, integration partnership, reimbursement trigger, enterprise rollout, bundled offering, or some other commercialization doorway.

And sometimes, the one thing is not the final thing.

A company may have already found one successful pathway and still have others waiting to be discovered. One channel may be working, but another could scale faster. One market may be producing revenue, but another may offer a better expansion path. One message may be converting, but another may unlock a different buyer entirely.

That is why commercialization discovery does not end just because a company has achieved some success.  The next unlock may still be out there.

Commercialization Is Business Strategy

One of the biggest misconceptions in healthcare SaaS is the tendency to separate commercialization from marketing, sales, partnerships, and business strategy.

In reality, commercialization sits above all of them.

It determines how a product enters the market, who must believe in it, who must carry it, who must pay for it, who must approve it, and who must benefit from it.

The right questions are often simple, but they are not always easy.  We ask:

• Who benefits financially?
• Who introduces it?
• Who operationalizes it?
• Who approves it?
• Who pays for it?
• Who bills around it?
• Who reduces cost because of it?
• Who increases revenue because of it?
• Who gains leverage or status from its adoption?

Those are not merely marketing questions. They are business questions.

Until those dynamics are clearly understood, companies often end up over-investing in tactics while under-diagnosing the actual friction preventing scale.

Some Companies Need Amplification. Others Need Discovery.

Not every healthcare SaaS company has the same problem.

Some organizations already possess a functioning commercialization pathway. They understand how the market buys. They have proven demand. Their challenge is amplification – refining positioning, scaling acquisition, improving conversion efficiency, strengthening narrative strategy, or accelerating visibility.

Those companies already have fire. They simply need gasoline.

Others are in a very different position. They may be relying too heavily on founder-led growth, uncertain which commercialization pathway is truly scalable, or attempting to force traditional lead generation into a market that has not fully matured yet.

Those companies need discovery before scale.

And many companies sit somewhere in between. They may have a working direct GTM motion but still need ecosystem leverage. Or they may have a strong channel relationship but weak brand demand. Or they may have inbound interest but poor narrative clarity. Or they may have a valuable product that requires both market education and a side-door commercialization strategy.

That is why the answer cannot be assumed in advance.

Why We Built GTM//Zero

Over time, this realization began changing how we approached healthcare SaaS growth entirely. CEOs and founders frequently come to us wanting to move immediately into campaigns, lead generation, demand creation, positioning, content, paid media, outbound, websites, or commercialization execution. And yes – SRGP can operationalize all of it.

But after years inside healthcare SaaS, we learned something important: companies that appear similar on the surface often have radically different commercialization realities underneath them.

That is why we increasingly found ourselves telling clients to slow down to speed up.

Before prescribing the motion, we first need to understand what kind of commercialization opportunity the company actually is.

Sure, we would love to earn the business and help operationalize whatever comes next. But whether a company ultimately hires SRGP or not, the same reality still holds true: these commercialization questions have to be processed honestly and deeply first. The objective is to narrow the field intelligently, eliminate hundreds of pathways unlikely to scale, and move progressively closer to “the one thing” most capable of unlocking the next stage of growth.

That realization ultimately became the foundation for GTM//Zero. Because the real starting point comes before the next move.

Over time, we realized many companies do not immediately need another agency, campaign, or vendor relationship.

They need clarity first.

GTM//Zero is a 30-day diagnostic and immersion engagement designed to help healthcare SaaS companies better understand the market they are truly operating within and the commercialization pathways most likely to unlock growth.

The objective is not simply to produce more activity. It is to determine what kind of growth motion the company actually needs.

Sometimes the conclusion is straightforward:

“You are in a harvest market. Let’s scale demand capture.”

Sometimes it is the opposite:

“You are in a creation market. Awareness and market conditioning must happen before demand capture becomes meaningful.”

Sometimes the answer points toward a classic GTM buildout: stronger positioning, better creative, sharper conversion paths, better content, better campaigns, and a more complete demand engine.

And sometimes the answer is more foundational:

“Your product may need to enter the market through an entirely different door.”

That distinction matters enormously.

Because before a company commits to more campaigns, more channels, more sales activity, or more spend, it should first understand the commercialization reality underneath the growth plan.

A company can be successful and still not be fully optimized.

A company can be mature and still have undiscovered pathways.

A company can have found one thing and still be searching for the next one.

That is the real work: finding the path most likely to unlock the next stage of growth.