Medical Supply Startup Bttn Struggles To Inject Itself Into A World Of Established Brands

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The medical-supply startup Bttn was supposed to be disruptive. The founders, Forbes Under 30 alumni JT Garwood and Jack Miller, envisioned a “one-stop shop” for healthcare workers, offering everything from N95 masks to wheelchairs without hassle.

This argument, however, hinges on the bet that customers won’t be reluctant to operate with one more middleman, especially when they have the option of buying their products directly from the distributor. The relationships between, for instance, doctors’ offices and their preferred longtime suppliers has proven to be a tough bond and, according to some of Bttn’s former employees, the startup has failed to insert itself.

The worst of these scenarios, according to Henderson, came when he was dealing with a customer who’d purchased syringes for her diabetic son, only to be notified the syringes were on backorder. “When I said, look, it’s going to be another three or four days, maybe a week, she said, ‘My son has diabetes. This isn’t a case of “maybe.” I need to know.’”

. The company “was basically giving me the runaround.” Vasiliadis, who usually buys her supplies from larger distributors, notes this experience was a big difference from dealing with companies like McKesson, which sends her weekly emails when items are on backorder or out of stock. Experts like Wally Hopp, a University of Michigan business professor, say they haven’t seen Bttn find and implement a solution to the problem of supply disruptions. Hopp says the history of dysfunction within the industry makes him wary.

It was into this pandemic backdrop that Garwood, a self-proclaimed “marketplace nerd,” co-founded Bttn after leaving his first company, another healthcare ecommerce business, which he sold in March of 2021. Through his experience with his first startup, along with the host of issues revealed by Covid, Garwood says he was spurred to take action against what he calls “the underlying destroyer of healthcare.

 

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Medical Supply Startup Bttn Struggles To Inject Itself Into A World Of Established BrandsConvincing healthcare professionals to break off relationships with their longtime distributors has proven to be a tough sell in the $345 billion industry.
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Medical Supply Startup Bttn Struggles To Inject Itself Into A World Of Established BrandsConvincing healthcare professionals to break off relationships with their longtime distributors has proven to be a tough sell in the $345 billion industry.
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Medical Supply Startup Bttn Struggles To Inject Itself Into A World Of Established BrandsConvincing healthcare professionals to break off relationships with their longtime distributors has proven to be a tough sell in the $345 billion industry.
Source: Forbes - 🏆 394. / 53 Read more »

Medical Supply Startup Bttn Struggles To Inject Itself Into A World Of Established BrandsConvincing healthcare professionals to break off relationships with their longtime distributors has proven to be a tough sell in the $345 billion industry.
Source: Forbes - 🏆 394. / 53 Read more »