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I wasted $40k on a fantastic startup idea

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231–240 of 408 posts

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

#231
post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He had not the slightest idea of how doctors prescribe drugs. The typical doctor has minimal training in evaluating medicines - that is not their job. They defer to so-called opinion-leaders, who are the experts on particular diseases. These people are the targets of drug companies' marketing - think scientific conferences in 5 star hotels in exotic locations. The cost of influencing them would be millions. So,the au…

Part of regulatory capture and the industrial complex, why medicines like MDMA and psychedelics have been illegal for decades due to them not being patentable - and being competition that most recent research shows is far more effective and without the "side" effects of many big pharma's drugs.

Far more effective? Source?

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

#232
post #230

You say “ So I built something people wanted. Consumers wanted it, doctors wanted it, I wanted it. Where did I go wrong?” The fact that the people giving you the money I.e doctors / hospitals didn’t want to pay for your product proves you built something no one wanted. Wanted enough that they were willing to pay you money for it. Or go out of the way to find the budget for it.

Or the incentive systems in the US are completely screwed up when it comes to healthcare.

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

#233
This sounds like a classic Solution In Search of Problem (SISP)". I think the author has a great idea but it just took so much effort to find the problem. When nobody jumps out of the chair and starts writing a check, then it is time to start iterating the MVP or pivot. I'm pretty sure there's a problem in the world that needs this solution, but it just take inundated effort to find product market fit. Instead, when you start with the problem it is somewhat easier to get to the point of the product market fit.

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

#234
post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of regulatory capture and the industrial complex, why medicines like MDMA and psychedelics have been illegal for decades due to them not being patentable - and being competition that most recent research shows is far more effective and without the "side" effects of many big pharma's drugs.

Far more effective? Source?

For a user named ketamine_ are you really questioning the well known efficacy of few-shot therapies for treatment resistant depression and PTSD?

Psychedelic-Assisted Psychotherapy: A Paradigm Shift in Psychiatric Research and Development: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6041963/

Reviewing the Potential of Psychedelics for the Treatment of PTSD: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7311646/

etc.

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

#235
post #109

I'm kind of concerned that people read this as satire but miss the most important part, namely the absence of concern about the safety and validity of the results. You know, the part where he stuck some statistical software in front of a database populated by a "motley crew" of contractors and wanted doctors to use it as a shortcut for making patient care decisions. The part where he implicitly compares the HTML spit…

Yeah ... I was actually thinking he may have dodged a bullet because if he got any further with this he could have gotten on the end of a law suit or getting shutdown and / or fined by the FDA if things went the wrong way.

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

#236
post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't even close to how doctors prescribe medications. You don't prescribe meds without having a working diagnosis. Once you have that, you use the knowledge gained in med school and residency to pick the first line drug. If there are contraindications due to comorbidities (which there often are), you have to figure out what other meds you can use. You can consult online resources (e.g. UpToDate) to look up seco…

This is what I saw my doctors were doing. Also I saw cardiologist comparing my diagnosis using Google images.

Yeah, I believe your experience, and I think it highlights the issues we have with communication in medicine. While it may look like your doctor is just blindly Googling something, I would imagine they're probably using it as more of a reference source (at least that's what I often do). I regularly use radiopaedia.org just to look up a quick fact or find alternative examples of a diagnosis I'm working with.

It's like Googling coding questions and reading a StackOverflow thread. Obviously no programmer is solely relying on StackOverflow to do their job as no physician is solely relying on Google, UpToDate, or any other resource. They're simply quick references.

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

#240
post #222
post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This article was posted before several years ago. The whole premise is bumptious - "I can copy data out of a bunch of papers [which I am in no position to screen for quality or relevance], run a canned 'gold standard' analysis in R [the idea that there is one true way to generate valid data is ridiculous], and then go tell the professionals what they are doing wrong." He even brags that his meta-analysis for depressi…

Statistically speaking, isn't it sound to throw all the papers into the mulcher and see what comes out the other end? We do use the term "outliers" a lot in statistics, do we not? I understand that the quality might not be up to snuff for some, but won't the law of averages take care of that?

This assumes all papers are of equal quality, peer-review and accuracy of results. Which we know they are not. Some studies should have more weight than others. Which has been mentioned in a previous comment; there is no 'right' answer, just a variety of ways to allocate different weights to papers based on various metrics.
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