How Woden’s “Foresight” Guided PE-Backed Streamline Health to Acquisition
Streamline Health was founded to optimize the mid-revenue cycle. Its software was built to ensure pre-bill revenue integrity and backed by private equity for growth. But, in a crowded market, the products didn’t stand out.
Streamline’s existing customers were loyal to their eValuator and RevID platforms. Yet, potential customers were wary of switching from their incumbent solution. Through an engagement with Woden, Streamline used its strategic narrative to develop strong cost-of-inaction and execute a differentiated go-to-market strategy.
Woden’s proprietary StoryKernel uncovered a new category—revenue foresight—that Streamline was able to use throughout its buying journey to win new buyers and ultimately be acquired by MDaudit for $37.4MM.
We wanted to simplify the way our brand shows up in the market, including clarifying various differentiators and our position within the market.
THE CHALLENGE
Every hospital already has a pre-bill solution in place. The market is crowded with both software and outsourced providers; incumbents are difficult to dislodge, and when hospitals do switch, they have countless options. Streamline was seen as just one more.
New CEO Ben Stilwill had united the company’s two SaaS produced, eValuator and RevID, offerings through a client success program that customers raved about. But “better” wasn’t enough to win new logos, and the company saw its aggressive growth targets slipping away.
Streamline, like competitors, positioned itself around the benefit of increased revenue for hospitals. This made it sound like just another reconciliation and coding product. Stilwill came to Woden with a question: how do we tell a unique story that draws buyers to Streamline?
WODEN’S SOLUTION
Companies with happy clients have a story waiting to be uncovered. Woden interviewed employees and customers, surveyed users, and analyzed competitors to reveal how Streamline was seen in the market. Clients valued them but even they didn’t fully understand what made them unique.
Every hospital knows optimizing the revenue cycle is important. They also know every vendor in the space promises “more.” What they truly needed was to know what they would collect, so they could plan and continue their missions.
Woden crafted Streamline’s strategic narrative, the StoryKernel, to create its own category of one. Competitors promised more collections, an ROI-driven story that was easy to ignore. Streamline’s StoryKernel focused on bringing certainty to pre-bill, emphasizing cost of inaction, exactly what’s needed to spur action in out-of-market buyers.
The StoryKernel was built on a novel category for Streamline: Foresight that transforms the mid-revenue cycle.
The story of foresight immediately created differentiation. Streamline used its StoryKernel as the foundation of an entire messaging hierarchy: the strategic narrative defined a unified story for both of Streamline’s products and provided a framework to rethink the entire go-to-market strategy, away from product-driven sales to one that helped buyers understand the changes in their market and why the status quo was not longer tenable.
Streamline integrated a StorySeminar into their annual sales kickoff. This collaborative session provided the entire go-to-market team an opportunity to shape storytelling applications collaboratively. When it came time to put the narrative in market using the StoryGuide, the team was fully aligned and pulled buyers through the customer journey.
The impact on Streamline’s growth was immediate. Within weeks of delivering the StoryGuide, an opportunity went “closed won” using the new story after being stalled in the funnel. And Streamline began seeing record attendance at the webinars that were the primary driver of its top-of-funnel.
THE MAKING OF AN ESSENTIAL BRAND
When Streamline engaged Woden, it was just one of many brands with a pre-bill software solution. Just a few months later, it was the market’s only solution for revenue foresight. This story positioned them for acquisition: MDaudit purchased Streamline in an all-cash deal valued at $37.4 million—a 138 percent premium for its private equity sponsor.
By creating a category of one, Streamline discovered the differentiation they needed to scale. When a company crafts a customer-centric story rooted in cost of inaction, it becomes an essential brand.
