In cardiometabolic health, product makes the difference between a member who enrolls and one who engages, logs, scans, and actually improves an A1C. We place a growth product operator on the activation and adherence funnel – the surface where your clinical outcomes and payer renewals succeed or fail.
The Challenge
No one owns the gap between 'enrolled' and 'engaged'
Your clinical team owns care delivery. Marketing owns enrollment. Engineering owns the app. But the onboarding funnel – device pairing, first glucose scan, first coaching session, first logged meal – falls between all three and belongs to none of them. That gap is where 30 to 50 percent of enrolled members go dark before they ever activate, and it is invisible on a dashboard that only tracks signups and MAU.
Your roadmap is a list of features, not a model for outcomes
Cardiometabolic products ship features because a payer asked, a clinician wanted it, or a competitor has it. What is missing is a model of which product moments actually drive the 90-day adherence that determines clinical results and contract renewal. Without that model, engineering burns quarters on features that do not move the number that matters, and the growth PM function – the person who should connect product decisions to member behavior – simply does not exist.
Onboarding was designed around the clinical workflow, not the member
Diabetes onboarding often requires insurance verification, device shipment, an EHR handshake, and a clinician intake before a member does anything valuable. Each step was added for a good operational reason and none were designed as a funnel. The result is a multi-day, multi-friction path where a motivated newly-diagnosed member loses momentum waiting for a CGM to arrive, and re-engaging them costs more than acquiring them did.
Adherence is viewed as a clinical issue, rather than a product issue
When members stop logging or scanning, the instinct is to add a coaching call or a nurse outreach. Those help, but they are expensive human patches on a product that is not pulling members back on its own. The highest-leverage retention work in cardiometabolic – streaks, meaningful glucose feedback, timed nudges, habit loops – is product work that no one is prioritizing because it is not a clinical feature and not a marketing campaign.
How We Can Help
We start by instrumenting and mapping the funnel no one owns: enrolled to device-paired to first-scan to first-meaningful-action to 30-day-active to 90-day-adherent. Most cardiometabolic teams have never seen these stages mapped with the drop-off at every step. That map alone changes the roadmap conversation by revealing exactly where enrolled members are leaking and what every recovered point means for retained revenue and clinical outcomes.
Next, we build the outcome model – the connective tissue linking product moments with 90-day adherence. We pinpoint the two or three activation moments that statistically predict which members will stick, then make them the north star for the product roadmap. This is what a growth PM accomplishes that a feature-request-led roadmap cannot: aligning the entire team around the behavior that drives the business, rather than the loudest stakeholder.
We then tackle onboarding as a funnel instead of a workflow. We cannot eliminate insurance verification or device shipment, but we can redesign the waiting period – with interim value while the CGM ships, a clear activation ladder, and momentum-preserving nudges – so operational friction no longer quietly loses motivated members. We prioritize the work by impact and ship on a real cadence.
For adherence, we approach retention as a product surface. We develop and test habit mechanics that bring members back – meaningful glucose feedback, streaks grounded in clinical reality, and timed nudges based on individual behavior – so the app handles retention work that would otherwise require costly human outreach. Each change is measured against the adherence metric, never shipped on faith.
What sets us apart is that we work as an embedded growth product leader, not a strategy vendor. We draft the specs, lead roadmap prioritization, work between clinical and engineering, and share ownership of the activation and adherence numbers with your team. We connect with your growth strategy and measurement work so product and channel decisions use the same model of what a good member looks like.
What we deliver
- Full activation and adherence funnel map with drop-off at every stage
- Outcome model linking specific product moments to 90-day adherence
- Reprioritized product roadmap aimed at activation, not stakeholder requests
- Onboarding redesign that preserves momentum through operational wait times
- Adherence habit mechanics built and tested as a product surface
In cardiometabolic health, adherence is not a clinical problem you can solve through staffing—it is a product problem. The company that creates an app capable of pulling members back wins on outcomes and unit economics alike.
Our Methodology
We operate in a 90-day sprint. Days 1-30 focus on instrumentation and diagnosis: mapping the enroll-to-adherent funnel, assigning real numbers to every drop-off, and creating the first outcome model connecting product moments with 90-day behavior. During days 31-60, we reprioritize the roadmap around the activation moments that predict retention and begin shipping the highest-leverage onboarding and adherence improvements. In days 61-90, we compound the work – testing and productionizing habit mechanics, refining the outcome model using real cohorts, and beginning to transfer growth PM discipline to your team.
Unlike traditional product consulting, we do not hand over a strategy deck and leave you to execute it. We embed as the growth PM – writing specs, leading prioritization, and owning the activation and adherence numbers. A consultant says your onboarding is broken; we work between your clinical, marketing, and engineering teams to repair it week by week.
The engagement is structured for handoff. By day 90, the funnel instrumentation, outcome model, and roadmap discipline belong to you. If you do not have a full-time growth PM yet, we can serve as a bridge until you hire one and help identify the right profile.
Our Working Approach
For the first 30 days, we immerse ourselves in your product analytics and onboarding flow, rebuilding the funnel and assigning drop-off numbers to stages your team has never tracked. By the end of month one, you will have a funnel map and an initial outcome model – often the first clear view of where enrolled members are actually leaking.
We provide an embedded growth product operator, along with analytical support to create and validate the outcome model. From your side, we need an engineering partner who can implement changes and access to your clinical and marketing leads, because the activation funnel spans all three functions and cannot be repaired in isolation.
The cadence includes a weekly product prioritization and review, where roadmap decisions are evaluated against the outcome model, plus a monthly read connecting activation and adherence trends to enrollment and retention economics. We lead the meeting most cardiometabolic teams lack: the one where product, clinical, and growth debate the same numbers.
Engagements generally last three to six months. By the end, your funnel is instrumented, the roadmap targets the right moments, onboarding is redesigned around member momentum, and adherence mechanics are live and tested. Many clients extend the work to bring this discipline into new product lines or a second cardiometabolic condition.
- Enroll-to-activated conversion lift
- 90-day adherence improvement
- Reduced reliance on human outreach for retention
- Roadmap aligned to outcomes payers renew on
If your diabetes & cardiometabolic health company needs growth product management leadership, we should talk.
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Frequently asked questions
What does a growth product management engagement cost for a cardiometabolic company?
The engagement is priced like a senior fractional product leader and billed monthly over three to six months – far below the loaded cost of a full-time VP of Product, a growth PM, and an analyst. You are purchasing a defined outcome: an activation and adherence funnel that is instrumented, prioritized, and improved.
How soon will we see results from a growth PM engagement?
Within 30 days, you will have a funnel map and drop-off numbers, which typically reshapes the roadmap immediately. Activation lift from onboarding improvements generally appears in month two; 90-day adherence gains require a complete cohort to assess, so a meaningful retention signal arrives in month three or four.
How does a growth PM work with our clinical and engineering teams?
The core value is our position in the gap between these teams. We embed as the growth product owner, draft the specs, and lead the prioritization meeting where clinical, marketing, and engineering align around one outcome model.
How is Winston Francois different from a traditional product consultancy?
A traditional product consultancy reviews your product and delivers a deck of recommendations. We embed as the operator responsible for the activation and adherence numbers, shipping improvements week after week.
How is ROI measured for a growth product engagement?
We measure ROI using the two numbers that power your business: enroll-to-activated conversion and 90-day adherence. Both are directly tied to clinical outcomes and payer renewal, so gains are not vanity metrics – they represent revenue preserved and contracts retained. We baseline both at the outset and evaluate them by cohort, while also tracking the decrease in costly human outreach enabled by stronger product mechanics.
Can you support us if we do not yet have a full-time growth PM?
Yes – that is a frequent reason companies engage us. We bridge the function while you determine whether and when to hire, building the instrumentation and roadmap discipline so a future full-time hire steps into a functioning system rather than starting from a blank page. We can also help define the role and assess candidates, ensuring you hire the right profile for a regulated cardiometabolic product.
What kind of cardiometabolic company is best suited to this service?
The ideal fit is a Series A through growth-stage diabetes or cardiometabolic company with meaningful enrollment volume, a shipping product, a leaky activation funnel, and no dedicated growth PM. If you are still pre-product-market-fit, the work is too early, and we will tell you. We begin with a call to review your funnel data and determine whether an embedded growth PM is the right lever at this point.
