Samson Magid and the Work After the Handshake

A founder can get quite a lot of mileage out of a handshake. There is the introduction, the photograph, the announcement that everyone is delighted. Samson Magid’s account of building HealthSnap puts the difficult part a little later. Someone has agreed to work with you. Now your company has to do what you said it would do.

That sounds almost comically modest beside the customary startup ambitions. Magid has put it plainly: “doing what you say you’re going to do.” There is a whole management curriculum tucked into those eight words, mercifully without the tuition.

Magid is HealthSnap’s co-founder and chief executive, based in Miami. The company began in 2015, with roots at the University of Miami. He became CEO in August 2020. That distinction matters: the founding date and the beginning of his tenure in the top job are different chapters. He helped bring the enterprise into existence before taking responsibility for leading it.

Five years before the corner office

The university connection runs through his education as well as the business. Magid earned both a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree at Miami. Fellow co-founders include Chase Preston and Wesley Smith. The familiar shorthand of a single founder with a single idea leaves quite a few people out of this picture.

By June 2019, Magid was celebrating a $3 million financing announcement on LinkedIn. His opening was cheerfully informal: “the cat is out of the bag.” He thanked friends and family, the team, the university, mentors, investors and partners. He also called the announcement a win for Miami.

The thank-you list is a useful early glimpse of how he described the undertaking. He placed himself inside a network of people who had helped it happen. Funding announcements tend to have a very small speaking cast; his made room for the supporting credits.

Then came the promotion. In January 2021, a few months after he had taken over as CEO, HealthSnap employed 18 full-time staff and 12 contractors. Its next $4 million financing had just been announced. Those numbers give the title some scale: this was still a business in which assembling the organization was a substantial part of the job.

The company on one sheet of paper

An executive summary prepared for Venture Atlanta in 2021 offers a wonderfully unromantic snapshot of the next stage. HealthSnap listed 22 full-time employees, two part-time employees and three contractors. Alongside the management team were the figures a prospective investor would want to inspect: $7.3 million in past financing, a monthly burn rate of $175,000, and $10 million in financing sought.

These were figures in a pitch document, each belonging to that moment. They describe a company making its case for the resources to become larger. The arithmetic is less glamorous than an origin story, but rather more revealing about the work occupying a chief executive.

The management list also showed the breadth of the assignment. Revenue, technology and operations had named leaders. Brad Blakey brought experience at several established software businesses. Nicola Onassis led technology; Lizette Ramos led operations. A founder’s ambition had acquired job titles, reporting relationships and a payroll.

HealthSnap was selected to present at Venture Atlanta that year from a field of more than 400 applicants. For Magid, another audience meant another opportunity to explain the business. The conference appearance sits naturally beside the one-page summary: the public pitch and the underlying numbers belonged to the same effort.

Who gets invited back?

The next financing chapters introduced a different sort of endorsement. In May 2023, HealthSnap announced a $9 million Series A led by Asclepius Growth Capital. Existing business partners UnityPoint Health and Tampa General Hospital joined as strategic investors. Florida Funders and MacDonald Ventures also participated, and David Jahns joined the board.

A customer and an investor ask different questions. One wants to know whether a product belongs in an organization’s daily work. The other has to decide whether the business is worth backing over time. When an existing partner takes both positions, the relationship moves beyond the initial buying decision.

That does not settle every question about a company. It does give Magid’s emphasis on delivery a concrete business context. The people supplying some of the capital already had experience working with his team. They could examine something more substantial than a presentation.

In February 2024 came a $25 million Series B led by Sands Capital, with new investors including Comcast Ventures, Acronym Venture Capital and Florida Opportunity Fund. Returning investors participated too. The company said its total funding had reached $48.5 million. Magid was now leading a business with a broader collection of financial backers and expectations.

The useful person in the room

Listen to Magid discuss selling and the emphasis shifts quickly from persuasion to experience. He has described recruiting people with long industry careers, including people who had helped businesses develop from their earliest stages. His approach gives considerable weight to knowing how a buyer’s organization actually works.

He also describes connecting executives at prospective customers with executives at existing partners. A conversation between peers can answer questions that a seller cannot resolve simply by repeating the pitch more enthusiastically. There is a limit to what another slide can accomplish, however attractive the slide.

As the commercial organization developed, Magid remained involved in messaging and positioning. That is a recognizable transition for a founder: the person who once carried the whole explanation helps other people make it clearly. The task becomes deciding which promises the company should make, then helping the team express them accurately.

This is where the handshake acquires its afterlife. A buyer can call a previous buyer. An employee can inherit an account. A founder can step away from the center of a conversation only if the organization knows what to do next. Magid’s descriptions of peer introductions and experienced hires show how he has approached that handover.

“doing what you say you’re going to do”

Samson Magid, on execution

A much larger set of colleagues

By March 2025, the company was reporting 500 employees. It also reported three patents. Julia Lucidi’s Founder Tactics conversation with Magid ran for roughly 104 minutes, a useful allowance for a story that had already occupied a decade. Some companies get a founding myth; this one had enough operational history for a long conversation.

The distance from 18 full-time employees in early 2021 to the workforce reported in 2025 is considerable. The figures describe different moments and staffing categories, so they deserve their dates. Together, they still make clear how much the organization surrounding Magid had changed.

The company appeared at No. 165 on the 2025 Inc. 5000. Rankings are convenient markers because they compress a complicated business into a number. They are also company achievements. Preston, Smith and the expanding team belong in the frame alongside the chief executive.

Magid’s own public writing offers another view of the role. In January 2022, he shared HealthSnap’s 2021 annual shareholder letter on LinkedIn. Publishing a shareholder letter puts the explanation of a year’s work in front of an audience beyond its original recipients. It gives the next announcement something to sit beside.

Two announcements, the same $25 million

In August 2026, HealthSnap announced another $25 million transaction. This time it was a senior secured growth financing facility led by Eastward Capital Partners. It was a loan facility, with purposes including refinancing existing debt, strengthening the balance sheet and supporting further expansion.

The distinction from the 2024 Series B is essential to understanding this chapter of Magid’s career. Identical dollar amounts can conceal quite different financial arrangements. A chief executive has to manage the obligations attached to capital as well as announce its arrival.

For Magid, the new facility brought another financial partner into the company’s story. The announcement identified investment in engineering, product development, commercial operations and customer success among the uses of capital. Each is an organizational commitment, requiring people and decisions after the financing headline has passed.

A book with a long middle

Asked for a favorite book, Magid names Phil Knight’s Shoe Dog. The choice offers a small personal detail amid all the capital and headcounts. It is a founder’s memoir, and the account of his interview draws attention to his interest in Knight’s long company-building journey.

There is an appealing fit between that preference and the chronology of Magid’s own work. Five years separated HealthSnap’s beginning from his CEO appointment. Another six brought him to the 2026 financing. Plenty happened between the dates that fit neatly on a timeline.

The useful thing about following his career through those intervals is that the job becomes easier to see. Recruit the person who understands the customer. Introduce a prospective partner to someone already doing the work. Explain the year to shareholders. Find capital suited to the next stage. Keep the organization capable of delivering the next promise.

Magid’s story is still being written through those choices. The financing announcements supply the punctuation. The people hired, the partners retained and the work completed supply the sentences. A handshake is an excellent beginning. He has spent much of his career attending to what follows.