In this episode of Invisible Ink, Krista Bragg, Founder and CEO of KB Kinetics joins Shubha Chakravarthy to unpack what it really takes for startups to sell into the U.S. healthcare system. Krista offers a ground-truth view of healthcare from the inside—at a moment when hospitals face historic financial pressure, workforce shortages, and shrinking margins.

The conversation explores where real opportunities exist for founders, how health systems actually make buying decisions, why pilots often fail, and what healthcare leaders expect from AI-enabled solutions.

Krista shares practical, experience-based insights on:

The hidden financial crisis inside U.S. healthcare systems—and how it radically changes what gets bought (and what doesn’t)
Why most hospital leaders don’t care about “AI” and what they actually want solved when startups walk through the door
The biggest near-term opportunities for healthcare founders, and how to leverage them
The single fastest way to get rejected by a health system and how smart founders plan around it
Why clinicians must stay in the loop—and how ignoring one stakeholder can kill an otherwise great product
How to avoid pitching the wrong customer and missing the real decision-maker
The common pilot mistakes that leave startups stuck in “zombie mode” with no path to revenue
What healthcare leaders actually mean by “value”—and the metrics that move C-suite decisions today
Why payer, provider, and employer incentives often conflict—and how founders can choose the right go-to-market lane
The overlooked risk in converting pilots to contracts and how to protect deals when it happens
Why flexibility in pricing, contracts, and even branding can make or break early healthcare deals
The one rule every healthcare founder should remember

and much more!