What Startups Get Wrong with Meredith Barnes-Cook

Welcome back to Beyond Boundaries Series by Sønr.

This one is for the startups, vendors and tech providers trying to sell into insurance.

Because having great technology is one thing.

Getting insurers to understand it, trust it and actually buy it?

Very different game.

In this episode, Matt Connolly speaks with Meredith Barnes-Cook from Datos Insights, recorded at InsurTech America Symposium.

Meredith brings a proper “both sides of the table” view.

She has worked inside a major carrier.

She has worked in and around technology, operations and transformation.

She has been inside an AI startup.

And now, through Datos Insights, she works across carriers, MGAs, brokers, technology providers and startups.

So the conversation gets into the bit that is often missed.

Not the shiny demo.

Not the big AI promise.

The reality of selling into insurance.

The complexity.

The relationships.

The references.

The change management.

And the fact that insurance does not buy technology for technology’s sake.

It buys solutions to problems that matter.

In this episode, Meredith and Matt explore:

• What startups often misunderstand about insurance buyers• Why tier-one carriers are harder to navigate than they look• Why smaller logos can still build serious credibility• Why informal reference conversations matter so much• Why AI transformation is really a people conversation• Why vendors need to act like strategic partners, not just providers

A practical and very human conversation on what it really takes to build trust, sell well and drive change in insurance.

Read the full article on the Sønr website here!

Listen to the episode here on Substack, or follow the Beyond Boundaries Series by Sønr on Spotify and Apple Podcasts for more episodes on the go.

- Spotify: https://lnkd.in/dr8wqjCC

- Apple Podcasts: https://lnkd.in/dVAxcG6E

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