Healthcare CEO Reveals The 'Biggest' Lesson She Learned From 40 Investor Rejections

We sit down with Farzana Rahman, consultant radiologist and CEO and co-founder of Hexarad, a health technology company on a mission to deliver fast and accurate diagnosis for everyone, everywhere.

Farzana has helped over two million patients get diagnosed, reduced wait times from weeks to hours, and raised Series B funding despite facing rejection after rejection.

We talk about:

◼️ How getting REJECTED from a surgical job became the resilience training every founder needs

◼️ The problem killing healthcare: Too many scans, not enough radiologists (and how AI solves logistics, not just diagnosis)

◼️ Why hospitals make patients wait WEEKS for scan results when Hexarad delivers them in 15 minutes

◼️ How to raise Series B as a woman of color after FORTY investor rejections (and why the right investor must understand healthcare)

◼️ Why being a child of immigrants shaped Farzana's founder mentality (work 4x harder, never stop)

◼️ The ONE quality every healthcare founder needs: Problem solving under pressure with high stakes

◼️ Why "progress over perfection" is the ONLY way to scale from 4 co-founders to 100 employees serving 2 million patients

◼️ Why your FIRST customer must be your biggest cheerleader (and how Farzana found hers through a joint venture)

◼️ How to know when you need to quit your medical job and go ALL IN on your startup (burn the bridges)

◼️ Why hospitals need tech-enabled services, NOT just SaaS (and why most investors don't get this)

◼️ The leadership framework that scales: OKRs, radical candor, and measuring what ACTUALLY matters

◼️ Why Farzana's North Star metric is patients treated, not revenue (patient-first in health tech)

◼️ How to balance being a CEO and a mother

◼️ The BIGGEST mistake healthcare founders make

◼️ Why Farzana's impatience is both her weakness AND her superpower as a founder

Find Farzana here:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/farzana-rahman-4539a14a/

Find Dasha & Martini here:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/dashaangelova/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/martinisiu/

If you are a clinician looking to build your personal brand, connect with us on LinkedIn at Dasha Angelova and Martini Su.

If you are a healthcare business looking for support with your marketing, video, sales or social media assets, email us at [email protected].

Join our free healthcare thought leadership masterclass workshop here: https://www.digitalhealthcareleaders.com/registration-workshop