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MarketCraft

Roughly 75% of U.S. venture-backed start-ups – the cream of the crop among new companies - fail…if start-up failure is defined as ‘not delivering the projected return on investment, then 95% of VC-backed companies are failures.

SHIKHAR GHOSH

Professor, harvard business school

Most breakthrough technologies fail for a simple reason: The market never learns how to understand them.

Technical innovation alone rarely determines the winners. The companies that shape markets are the ones that engineer how those markets think.

This discipline is known as

Market Engineering.

Originally developed by technology executive and venture capitalist Bruce Cleveland, Market Engineering is the deliberate creation of the narrative, category, and thought leadership that allows innovation to gain traction.

Cleveland introduced the concept through his work as a venture capitalist and operator at companies including Apple, Oracle, Siebel Systems, and C3.ai, and through his bestselling book Traversing the Traction Gap.

His insight was simple but powerful:

Great products get you in the game.But Market Engineering determines who wins the market.

Bringing Market Engineering to Healthcare

MarketCraft

MarketCraft was founded to bring Silicon Valley’s Market Engineering frameworks into the world of medical technology and healthcare innovation.

MarketCraft is a team to talented, highly trained growth strategists and digital leads led by Omar Khateeb, an early mentee of Bruce Cleveland and one of the first practitioners applying Market Engineering specifically to the healthcare sector.

Omar’s path began inside the operating room...

After earning an academic scholarship to medical school, he chose a different path—leaving in 2012 to pursue innovation in medical technology.

At Mazor Robotics, the first robotic spine surgery company, he began as a clinical sales representative working alongside surgeons in the OR. Within a few years he was leading U.S. marketing, helping transform a pioneering surgical technology into a recognized category.

Over the next decade he helped multiple high-growth startups shape narratives, accelerate adoption, and scale toward public markets. Through that experience, one pattern became clear:

Breakthrough innovation does not automatically create adoption. Markets must be engineered.

Why Adoption Happens in Waves

New technologies don’t spread evenly through a market.

These early believers play an outsized role. They validate the innovation, shape perception, andsignal to the rest of the market that something new is happening.

But belief doesn’t happen automatically.

It must be cultivated, amplified, and propagated across the ecosystem. That is the role of Market Engineering.

By designing the narrative, activating early adopters, and amplifying proof through the right channels, companies can accelerate the natural adoption curve and move innovations from early belief to mainstream adoption.

Graph illustrating the Market Adoption Lifecycle with visibility on the y-axis and time on the x-axis, showing phases from Tech Enthusiasts and Visionaries in the early market, to Pragmatists, Conservatives, and Skeptics in the mainstream market.

In 2022, Omar founded MarketCraft

To apply the principles of Market Engineering directly to medtech startups.

Today the firm works alongside leadership teams as an extension of their executive staff by designing the narrative, positioning, and thought leadership that move innovations from early belief to widespread adoption.

MarketCraft combines Silicon Valley market-engineering frameworks with deep healthcare experience, supported by a team of strategists, digital leads, and market engineers whocollaborate with CEOs to shape markets.

How Markets

Omar is also the host of The State of MedTech, the leading podcast in the industry, where he interviews the founders, investors, and clinicians building the future of healthcare.

These conversations—combined with years spent launching technologies inside operatingrooms—give MarketCraft a unique vantage point on how innovation actually spreads withinhealthcare.

MarketCraft was built for one purpose:

Helping breakthrough medical technologies become market-defining companies.

What Youll Get   
A clear view of where you are, what’s missing, and what the market needs next.
If there’s no credible path to market pull, we’ll tell you.

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