Ask enough successful entrepreneurs how they built their businesses and a pattern begins to emerge. Most didn’t start with a revolutionary product. They started with a problem that they could not ignore.
It’s a lesson from a billionaire entrepreneur Marc Cuban we’ve been talking about it for years. The biggest opportunities often come from solving real problems rather than chasing trends. Entrepreneurs who win are usually the ones who find a problem that frustrates people, costs money, or creates inefficiencies, and then builds a solution around it.
This philosophy is easy to see in the journey of André EstevaCEO and co-founder of ArteraAI.
Today, Esteva is one of the most recognized names in healthcare AI. He was recently appointed to TIME Magazine’s 2025 TIME100 Health Listrecognizing the world’s most influential people in healthcare. His company, ArteraAI, was named one of TIME’s best inventions and selected by the World Economic Forum as a global innovator.
But neither started with a quest start an AI company. It started with a problem.
Beyond technology
Artificial intelligence has become one of the hottest topics in the business world. Every week seems to bring a new AI product, platform or startup promising to revolutionize an industry.
Esteva believes the conversation should start elsewhere.
“AI is the most transformative technology we’ve had in a long time,” he said in a recent interview. “The impact of AI on the healthcare system, I believe, is as powerful as the impact of computers on the healthcare system. »
This is an important statement coming from someone who has spent much of his career working at the intersection of healthcare and technology. Before launching ArteraAI, Esteva served as Head of Medical AI at Salesforce Search and held engineering positions at Google Search, GE Health And Sandia National Laboratories. His research has been cited more than 25,000 times and helped demonstrate some of the first examples of AI performing at levels comparable to doctors in specific medical tasks.
Despite these accomplishments, Esteva saw a greater challenge. Medicine has made remarkable advances in recent decades, but doctors still face difficult decisions when determining the best treatment. treatment options for cancer patients. Two patients with similar diagnoses may respond very differently to the same treatment. This uncertainty became the problem he wanted to solve.
Helping doctors personalize treatment
Unlike many healthcare AI companies focused on diagnosis, ArteraAI focuses on treatment decisions.
“Artera does not diagnose cancer,” Esteva said. “We help personalize therapies.”
This is an important distinction. The company’s technology helps doctors make more informed treatment decisions by analyzing pathology images and clinical information using artificial intelligence.
The goal is not to replace doctors. This is to give them better information. In the health field, this is important. Patients want assurance that they are receiving the right treatment. Doctors want additional information to support complex decisions. Health systems want better results while controlling costs.
According to Esteva, these objectives do not necessarily have to compete. “Artera helps everyone,” he said. “Patients, clinicians and the health system. »
This is one of the reasons why ArteraAI has gained traction in the healthcare community. The company ArteraAI prostate test is currently the only predictive tool for short-term androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) recommended by the National Comprehensive Cancer Network Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology for prostate cancer care.
The test is also fully reimbursed according to the payment rate established by Medicarewhich means that patients covered by Medicare Part B have no out-of-pocket costs.
For many startups, developing the technology is the hardest part. For healthcare companies, achieving clinical adoption and reimbursement can be equally challenging.
A lesson for entrepreneurs
One of the greatest entrepreneur mistakes make is about falling in love with a product before you fully understand the problem.
The strongest companies often do the opposite. They become obsessed with solving a challenge that people face every day.
That challenge could be helping consumers find healthier beverage options. This could make home loans more efficient. Or it could help doctors make more personalized treatment decisions for cancer patients. The industry doesn’t matter as much as the problem. For Esteva, the opportunity didn’t just lie in artificial intelligence. She was using AI to address a challenge that affects millions of patients and families. This is what sets many successful businesses apart from others.
Technology evolves. Markets evolve. Trends come and go. But companies that solve important problems have a way to stay relevant. As AI continues to reshape industries, the entrepreneurs who create lasting impact may not be the ones who create the most advanced technology. Perhaps they are the ones who understand a simple truth that successful founders have known for decades: Find a problem worth solving and opportunity often follows.
