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Ask HN: How do you ask users about their pain point?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you ask users about their pain point?

#111

Post by mattbrewsbytes »

impendia wrote: post #110

Read everything Atul Gawande has written. The following article, "Why Doctors Hate Their Computers", would be a particularly good place to start: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/11/12/why-doctors-ha... It illustrates a hugely significant problem you will face: decisions about what processes to follow and what software to use are made by administrators and not front-line doctors or nurses. If you ask front-lin…

Change from healthcare to any industry and you'll often find the people picking the IT systems aren't the ones that use it, don't care about users concerns all that much and could likely be categorized as morons. This is mostly for large enterprises where IT is some department "over there" and organization size is > 1000 people.

Re: Ask HN: How do you ask users about their pain point?

#112

Post by noashavit »

prewett wrote: post #85
IanCal wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should they spend their time talking to you though? You're asking busy people to help you come up with a business idea for free. > If they need money or a gift to tell me about their pain point, it's not a pain point. This just doesn't follow. There are issues I face, but still have no incentive to spend time explaining them to you.

"Kvetch and eat: aspiring entrepreneur wants to make practicing medicine easier. Will buy steak dinner if you complain about things that drive you nuts about practicing medicine. Side effects may include catharsis and hope for the future." If you phrase it that way, it sounds like win-win. Free dinner AND I get to complain with no social downsides!

Love this ^^

Yeah the coffee was just an idea to plant the seed that you value their time and feedback. It can be a steak dinner / massage to unwind from all the pain they experience around "X", etc.

Be careful how you position this so it does not come out as "paying for their time" and more like you value their time, this way you can weed out those that just want the incentive

Re: Ask HN: How do you ask users about their pain point?

#114

Post by [deleted] »

yr1337 wrote: post #55
beardbound wrote: post #33

That's an interesting thought. I've done quite a bit of work in the medical/healthcare space in tech in the past. I think part of your issue is that doctors are notoriously hard to get a hold of. Also they don't make any of the decisions for tech. If you're just generally trying to get an idea of pain points in the industry I think you should get more specific. Here are some for instances: - Are you trying to make th…

Thank you. YES on a lot of your bullet points. But I'm very open-minded about it and would work on any issue if enough people raise it. I've been thinking of reaching out to nurses and other pros that work around docs. I like the professional org idea.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: How do you ask users about their pain point?

#115

Post by yr1337 »

irridiance wrote: post #100

We’ve been developing niche medical software successfully for some decades. First, it helps that it’s niche—it avoids the “make healthcare better with electronic healthcare records” space, which can only but descend into making a much of text boxes available on a screen and promising that AI will do… something… Second, we will listen to our clients, and probe their needs. But we’re most successful when we observe our…

Thank you! I tip my hat to you for being successful in this difficult space.

Re: Ask HN: How do you ask users about their pain point?

#116

Post by yr1337 »

neom wrote: post #65

I found the 20 people I needed to talk to. I found out where they worked. I called the public number. I asked to talk to them. I explained I was thinking about starting a startup and I needed some help thinking through some ideas. 2 of them told me they couldn't give me the time. 15 gave me a longer than 1 hour call at a later date, 3 of them let me fly out to them and spend a day with them. Took me about 5/6 months.

It sounds great and motivating, but what was your field? I feel doctors to be less than enthusiastic about engaging with people outside of their circle, especially if I ask for help about doing a startup. It's weird but I feel like a lot of them see you as a competitor somehow.

Re: Ask HN: How do you ask users about their pain point?

#117

Post by yr1337 »

paulsutter wrote: post #103
yr1337 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a practical standpoint, do you just wait until they hit you up later asking for their money?

At the end of the call, you ask them for payment details, and usually they say "oh dont bother"

LOL I love it, they will think you're a scammer trying to get their bank info and you get a free call out of it. The hustle is real.

Re: Ask HN: How do you ask users about their pain point?

#120

Post by yr1337 »

jcims wrote: post #113

Read this and follow the links to what Jake’s wife wrote as well https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40114696 Article: https://jakeseliger.com/2024/04/22/the-emotional-trial-of-cl...

Thank you. I would love to build something to make trials easier to find by the patients themselves, so you don't have to wait for the bureaucracy to kick in.
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