I wasted $40k on a fantastic startup idea (2020) • Hacker News Board

Re: I wasted $40k on a fantastic startup idea (2020)

#51

Post by jonathan-adly » Mon, Mar 28, 2022, 4:53 PM UTC

Like the last time this was posted, OP didn't have the right co-founder who could sell this. Drug Formulary management is a legitimate problem and a business, currently someone pays a pharmacist 6 figures to present and clean drug study data to hospitals and insurance companies who decide what to include/exclude from their drug formularies.

The work flow currently is Drug A comes to market with expense X, it is competing with older Drug B with expense Y. There are no head to head trials, but an expert (usually a pharmacist) can reach solid benefit/harm conclusions. That pharmacist writes up a nice summary with a recommendation and present to a committee made up of other experts (usually doctors w/ academic background). They discuss and come to a formulary decision for the whole hospital.

In insurance companies, some background financial shady stuff can take place (kickback schemes) that influence this process, but some form of honest data analysis takes place anyway.

I used to do this for a while, it can work. Just have to convince the right people that your software would be better than the pharmacist. The market incentives doesn't really encourage that kind of automation/savings, so it will be an uphill battle that need experienced sales folks and good VC money.

Re: I wasted $40k on a fantastic startup idea (2020)

#52

Post by tehlike » Mon, Mar 28, 2022, 4:54 PM UTC

hjorthjort wrote: post #49

My first thought was "you know who would want this? Insurance companies!" Doctor have a moral incentive -- often a strong one! -- to maximize your health, but they actually don't have the economic incentive to keep you healthy. Their incentives are similar to those of drug companies. But insurance companies want you to need as little care as possible. They are the ones who will sponsor your checkups, may encourage yo…

i am not sure if this is true from incentive pov. Insurance would love to tuck in as much premium as possible, and if it comes at greater cost for care, be it.

https://www.healthcare.gov/health-care-law-protections/rate-...

Re: I wasted $40k on a fantastic startup idea (2020)

#53

Post by runevault » Mon, Mar 28, 2022, 4:55 PM UTC

I wonder if he could have made money working with the marketing depts of various drug companies instead of trying to sell stuff to the doctors. Especially if he added the right visuals the ad depts could use in commercials/print ads/etc.

Re: I wasted $40k on a fantastic startup idea (2020)

#54

Post by pandemicsoul » Mon, Mar 28, 2022, 4:55 PM UTC

Like others below have said, this seems like the absolute wrong conclusions to come to. Someone else mentioned he didn't have enough runway and that's what it feels like to me, too. Someone close to me has terrible migraines and has spent years trying to figure out how to treat them to no avail. If this tool could have shown me data that would have helped the person I love, I would have paid a lot of money for it.

I have no idea what kind of marketing he did and for exactly how long, but it feels like there's a lot of people, organizations, and companies that could have been interested here beyond a few doctors in SF. Like, not to put too fine a point on it, but how many disabled people did he talk to? How many industry groups (American Lung Association, etc.)?

Re: I wasted $40k on a fantastic startup idea (2020)

#55

Post by klabb3 » Mon, Mar 28, 2022, 4:55 PM UTC

snarf21 wrote: post #37

Barrera wrote: post #15

The main reason this didn't work is that the founder didn't identify a customer willing to spend money . A lot of startups fail because they never identify a customer. Or even a problem. This one failed because before writing a line of code the founder did not take the next step and ensure that the prospective customer was willing to spend money on a solution. This is why so many failing startups try to pivot to two-…

Ideas are nothing. Execution is everything . Scale is unlikely.

> Ideas are nothing. Execution is everything.

I always feel discomfort when this gets parroted. It's clearly not true, unless you're willing to shift the definitions of "idea" and "execution" around after-the-fact.

Indeed the article comes to the conclusion that the idea is near-impossible to execute – due to realities within the business domain of healthcare. If the idea was "nothing", good execution could've fixed it.

Re: I wasted $40k on a fantastic startup idea (2020)

#56

Post by bayesian_horse » Mon, Mar 28, 2022, 4:56 PM UTC

"What's relieving pain the most" is just not the right question. Ibuprofen for example has more severe side effects, especially when used often, than aspirin.

Also other factors apply, because a "headache" is really a rather complicated phenomenon...

Re: I wasted $40k on a fantastic startup idea (2020)

#57

Post by europat » Mon, Mar 28, 2022, 4:57 PM UTC

Has been discussed before. Can only find https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27231114 but there has been a longer discussion than that.

Re: I wasted $40k on a fantastic startup idea (2020)

#58

Post by SQueeeeeL » Mon, Mar 28, 2022, 4:57 PM UTC

elpakal wrote: post #46

ilamont wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's right. A lot of founders don't make it to #3 in your list, or they only get the "make something people want" part. It's not enough. Build something people want and will pay for . Not just say they want. Not just say they'll pay for. Make something that they see and will immediately take out their cash/cc/paypal/venmo and pay for on the spot .

I’m not sure I agree with you about your extra > and will pay for. People want Reddit, people want FB and Insta. Do they pay for those? I’m not saying those are good or realistic models to follow but I think the scale of your product needs to be taken into account with your statement. ie landing millions of users can forgive the lack of a business plan _at that scale_ whereas a SAAS platform targeting B2B customers s…

Advertisers want eyeballs, and will pay for it on the spot.

People aren't the customers of Reddit/Facebook, they're the product, that's why social media has such negative effect on mental health, the users aren't a concern beyond how many minutes they dump in for advertisers to pay for.

Re: I wasted $40k on a fantastic startup idea (2020)

#59

Post by amelius » Mon, Mar 28, 2022, 4:58 PM UTC

He effectively made a search engine, but nobody wants to pay for search.

Re: I wasted $40k on a fantastic startup idea (2020)

#60

Post by dchuk » Mon, Mar 28, 2022, 5:00 PM UTC

Barrera wrote: post #15

The main reason this didn't work is that the founder didn't identify a customer willing to spend money . A lot of startups fail because they never identify a customer. Or even a problem. This one failed because before writing a line of code the founder did not take the next step and ensure that the prospective customer was willing to spend money on a solution. This is why so many failing startups try to pivot to two-…

This is timely, as I’ve been riffing on a revised lean business canvas that much more directly digs into what you list as critical to any idea.

I really need to publish and share that thing…