Healthcare is a $4.5 trillion dollar industry.

I can’t tell you how many startup pitch decks start by stating this fact. Unfortunately, without more details, this number is somewhat meaningless with regard to the vast majority of healthcare companies. Better to break the $4.5t down into parts and talk about the share that your company will seek to impact or how it may shift dollars across categories. Here’s how the $4.5t breaks down at a high level:

Hospitals and Healthcare Facilities – 31% (~$1.4 trillion)
Physician and Clinical Services – 20% (~$900 billion)
Prescription Drugs and Pharmaceuticals – 10% (~$450 billion)
Health Insurance and Payers – 29% (~$1.3 trillion)
Medical Equipment and Devices – 6% (~$270 billion)
Healthcare IT and Digital Health – 4% (~$180 billion)
Home Healthcare and Long-Term Care Services – 5% (~$225 billion)

Even these categories are way too broad to tell a good story around (as an example, the EHR industry is about $35 billion out of the $180 billion healthcare IT industry; cancer drugs are about $200 billion out of the $450 billion pharma industry).

I love a company story that starts at a high level that everyone can understand and then zooms in deeper and deeper, educating the listener along the way. So it’s a great idea to start with the $4.5t, but that’s just the start of a much more interesting drill down into what you plan to do and how you plan to do it.