DigitalWell Ventures built an accelerator around the awkward bit of health innovation: getting a promising product through procurement, regulation and the raised eyebrows of real buyers.
The bootstrapped software company rode Washington's open-government wave into 25,000 organizations. Its sharper lesson came later: collecting ideas is easy; proving that one shipped is the business.

A green card, a beer-mat sketch and a near-empty bank account led Graham Stubbs to a durable idea: public services should be designed around the people who need them.