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When good ideas make bad business

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Re: When good ideas make bad business

#241

Post by wayoutthere »

sweeneyrod wrote: post #240
pgsbathhouse wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Most new drugs come out of the US and socialized governments create generics at a fraction of the cost, because they don't have to put any money into R&D. This is a completely false right-wing talking point. It takes 10 minutes to uncover how just totally bullshit this is. Don't ever repeat again or anything remotely like it (aka the rest of your post). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK50972/ https://other98.co…

Your second link has a pie chart that claims that pharma companies spend around 200x as much on advertising as clinical trials. Do you believe that is true?

This has been known for a very long time in pharma circles. Marketing budgets are several orders of magnitude higher than R&D budgets. An extra dollar spent on marketing has much higher returns than an extra dollar spent on R&D. Most of the real "hard science" R&D is paid for with NIH grants.

Re: When good ideas make bad business

#242

Post by bcrosby95 »

This is why starting with low or no code is a great idea. He would have saved a lot of money if he went around to potential customers and seen if they would have paid for such a product. Or fake a product with fake data and demo it to see if there's anyone that would pay for the real thing.

Re: When good ideas make bad business

#243

Post by jstrong »

gkoberger wrote: post #38

I'm so confused by the tone of this article. Obviously some of the jokes are parodying startup culture and are meant to be funny, however I think the "fantastic idea" stuff is meant seriously? "So I built something people wanted. Consumers wanted it, doctors wanted it, I wanted it. Where did I go wrong?" As far as I can tell, nobody wanted it except the author. The one doctor he talked to didn't, and no consumer ever…

> Reading this was like watching someone you don't politically agree with doing comedy. You know they're trying to be funny, but you also know they're missing the whole point and aren't self-aware.

are you not supposed to laugh at the jokes of someone you disagree with politically? is it possible someone could be "self-aware" and still disagree with you?

Re: When good ideas make bad business

#244

Post by codegeek »

planetzero wrote: post #209
omegaworks wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is precisely why we need universal healthcare. The incentive structure of private markets don't properly value human life.

"This is precisely why we need universal healthcare. The incentive structure of private markets don't properly value human life." Government-run healthcare isn't a panacea that will 'value human life' any more than the insurance companies. You are still a number in a database somewhere. Most new drugs come out of the US and socialized governments create generics at a fraction of the cost, because they don't have to p…

I am on the fence between Single Payer and your proposed solution of "push the cost to patient to force the price down". I do think the same but the appeal of universal healthcare is similar to the appeal of things like fire department. We don't really always need it but when we do, we don't want to worry about it.

Honestly, as long we get rid of the mafia middleman a.k.a insurance company except for real catastrophic situations, I do agree that costs will plummet. Price transparency is another key aspect.

Re: When good ideas make bad business

#245

Post by qroshan »

jcims wrote: post #37
streetcat1 wrote: post #27

So one thing I will add, you might want to approach the companies that are at the top of the list and offer them the tool as a sale tool. But overall, the goal of health care as a commercial Endover is to keep you sick (I.e., not healthy, since then you will not spend, and not dead). So the goal of selling to health care professionals is actually the opposite of your goal of helping patients.

I think this is overstated most of the time, otherwise why would we have vaccines? However, I would be on board with saying that when situations get dire, risk management begins to diverge incentives between patients and providers.

Yeah it's dumb. A Cure will instantly make any product 10000x more valuable because it can be sold across the globe while care is very much limited to local hospitals. Even the incentive system doesn't add up.

It's as dumb as claiming that the cure for baldness is not invented because of the hat / wig / hair-transplant cartel that want's to keep you bald

Re: When good ideas make bad business

#246

Post by catchmeifyoucan »

utopian3 wrote: post #145
catchmeifyoucan wrote: post #136

I still think this idea is powerful. Not because I believe it transforms healthcare, but because it informs consumers a bit more. That’s what seemed to get you excited in the first place. There are a few paths I see still: a. Assuming you own a database, expose your dataset as an API. Consider possible consumers. Open source it, and monitor the usage. Who’s using that data. b. Cold message a few folks on Linkedin fro…

> I do product at MEGACORP and love product strategy. Where should one go/read/listen/watch to learn more about product strategy?

Biggest rec. is to talk to people who have done something interesting or catches your eye. I always email people asking how they did something - people usually are really friendly and willing to share.

Websites like Indiehacker, stratchery are good. Would also recommend the innovator's dilemma if you're at a big company. There are also a few videos on Youtube by CNBC on products of the past - and I've enjoyed those.

Re: When good ideas make bad business

#247

Post by cal5k »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #237
amitmathew wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm all for removing the broken system we have today, but a single payer system doesn't remove the challenge that the entrepreneur faces - it just changes it. Under single payer, you are now trying to sell to a large government organization, with all the pain and red tape that comes with that.

Not necessarily. Doctors can still have individual discretion over their choice of IT service provision (etc) under single payer. The only thing single payer does is eliminate insurance company opportunism. It doesn't suddenly convert the entire healthcare system into a dystopian concrete monolith. Although if it did it would make OP's job far easier, because if you could prove there were cost and health outcome bene…

> because if you could prove there were cost and health outcome benefits on a national scale you would be able to convert the idea into a viable business with a single corporate sales pitch, instead of trying to sell to every doctor individually.

As someone who ran a healthcare business in Canada, I can tell you that this is absolutely not the case. Single payers are outrageously conservative buyers... sure, you may convince them in 5-10 years, but no startup can spend 5-10 years burning cash without making revenue. Particularly since, unlike with drug discovery, there's no guarantee that you'll be the only one selling this if the single payer eventually approves it.

What actually happens is that the single payer orients itself to big, slow companies that more closely resemble it, thus devastating small businesses and rewarding large, established players. It is damn near impossible to create a startup that sells to a single payer healthcare system.

Re: When good ideas make bad business

#248

Post by utopian3 »

MFLoon wrote: post #169
utopian3 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ya, I'm surprised it's not just a static landing page for consumers with ads. At .50 cents per user, that's only 80k users required to break even (ignoring the time variable there)

I'm no adtech expert, but I'm pretty sure he would not be getting .50 cents per user per year - that's what WebMD, one of the top 1000 most trafficked web sites in the world makes, so I assume it can sell it's ad space at a much higher price than a greenfield site with no traffic would.

Fair point. I just searched for a bit, but can't seem to find a good "average revenue per user" for ad-based SaaS products. Anyone know?

Re: When good ideas make bad business

#249

Post by 0xdeadbeefbabe »

omegaworks wrote: post #187
wayoutthere wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a business standpoint, saving lives can actually be expensive. The longer someone lives, the more healthcare they consume. Health insurance companies are very aware of this, which is why they so frequently deny coverage for various life-saving cancer treatments. If you die while waiting for treatment, not only do they save the cost of the treatment, but also the entire cost of ongoing screening / care during rem…

This is precisely why we need universal healthcare. The incentive structure of private markets don't properly value human life.

> because tech people are so idealistic

Unless idealism is the strategy to combat idealism?

Re: When good ideas make bad business

#250

Post by gonational »

planetzero wrote: post #209
omegaworks wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is precisely why we need universal healthcare. The incentive structure of private markets don't properly value human life.

"This is precisely why we need universal healthcare. The incentive structure of private markets don't properly value human life." Government-run healthcare isn't a panacea that will 'value human life' any more than the insurance companies. You are still a number in a database somewhere. Most new drugs come out of the US and socialized governments create generics at a fraction of the cost, because they don't have to p…

Take all my karma...

Implementing something like what you describe, IMHO, would have the greatest positive impact on the health and welfare of Americans, of anything this century.

I have a friend who is very high up in one of the largest health insurance providers in the US, and I have often debated over the years with this person that same point, that the insurance layer is what creates the model for inefficiency, and abuse at the provider level ($5 Tylenol pill, $10 Band-Aid, minor treatments and return visits of dubious value, etc.), and that if we treated medical care as an ordinary consumer good, outside of the extreme emergencies that are bankruptigly expensive, things would be a lot better. The person I know at the insurance company doesn’t necessarily disagree either.

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