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I wasted $40k on a fantastic startup idea

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

#251

Post by Aperocky »

Luvnit wrote: 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.

Nah, everyone wanted it, but for free.

I think the only thing that went wrong is the budgeting, OP might have made it had he dumbed it down a little and made it 100x more simple (on the backend).

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

#252

Post by conductr »

marcinzm wrote: post #198
mirthflat83 wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is so removed from reality to the point that it’s hilarious. Doctors evil. Doctors bad. Doctors corrupt. Doctors rich. That psychiatrist in the article sure must have been bribed to prescribe those 30-year-old drugs, right? There’s this thing called evidence-based medicine, go educate yourself.

I mean, there's a reason pharmaceutical companies in the US spend $20 billion a year marketing to physicians and it's not because it doesn't work. Doctors in the end are human and as capable of being influenced and biased and taking shortcuts as any other person. That doesn't mean they're evil, just human.

A big chunk of that $20B is on high cost ads to the general public, which doesn’t occur in many other parts of the world. It’s a backwards system when a patient is told to ask their doctor for a prescription to a medication by the company that manufactures said medication.

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

#253

Post by conductr »

chefandy wrote: post #99
yunohn wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’d be surprised how many doctors neglect the state of the art in medicine... That’s also why second opinions are a thing. Medicine is a science and hence, an ever changing field.

I probably would be surprised if that's true considering that in most states in the US, doctors are required to complete between 20 and 50 hours of structured CME (continued medical education) annually as a prerequisite to relicensure, and every one I've spoken to took it pretty seriously.

They are not unaware of the new stuff. But it doesn’t enter their day to day until it’s reached critical mass or if they’ve identified a couple suitable patients to recommend it to. Eg. Advil’s not working for a patient’s headache so, tell patient to try Tylenol because I learned about it during CMEs. Advil remains default for a long while. In many cases, until this doctors kid replaces him in the practice. Their generation learned in med school that Tylenol should be default.

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

#255

Post by sillysaurusx »

Gatsky wrote: post #212
nickjj wrote: post #9

That was a fun read. I wish the author mentioned how much he was trying to sell the service for. It could have been $59 a month or $599 a month and with doctors you could potentially expect the same answer. I'm not a psychologist but some of the author's quoted text came off extremely demeaning in written form. If the author happens to read this, did you really say those things directly to them? For example, Susan (p…

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…

With all the negative pushback this is getting, it’s making me think he was onto something. The exact same criticisms would apply to Airbnb, for example. “They have not the slightest idea how the hotel industry works. This is a very professional industry with a lot of legal hurdles...”

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

#256

Post by redkoala »

xivzgrev wrote: post #54
dan-robertson wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The conversations are surely paraphrased and exaggerated—just look at the style of the rest of the article. The position that doctors should be trying new things to improve their care sounds good but in practice most doctors are strongly biased towards the status quo and usually inaction is preferred to a slightly unknown action, even if that action has better expectancy.

I don’t think that was the point. The point was better healthcare doesn’t necessarily translate to more revenue. Healthcare is weird like that - you get paid a flat fee for visits. There might be an argument to be made that better prescriptions = happier patients = more retention, but it’s a stretch. If your practice is already booked full what’s the point? This biz was clearly made for consumers but yea ads are toug…

Better healthcare outcomes are of interest to health insurance companies and employers, not the healthcare providers. A reduction in overall claims over a patient's lifetime and better employee health are quantifiable financial results.

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

#257

Post by paxys »

ummonk wrote: post #98
fourseventy wrote: post #46

This is the classic case of building a product that you hope will solve a problem instead of finding a problem first then building a product to solve it. The correct approach would have been to have those conversations with doctors before spending $40k to build the product. I've made this very mistake myself but I was lucky enough to have enough runway to start over and talk to customers first then pivot the product…

Uh no. He had a problem - how to choose a medicine - and built a product to solve that problem. The issue was that solving the problem isn't something people wish to pay for, not that the problem doesn't exist.

He had a problem, but then decided to solve a completely different problem. The process of an end user picking an OTC drug for a headache vs a doctor prescribing something are worlds apart. I'd personally love a site which compared all generic + branded medication available over the counter and ranked them based on some criteria. I'm sure there would be a ton of advertising and affiliate marketing potential for a successful one as well.

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

#258

Post by tptacek »

It's been mentioned a couple times on the thread but I'll third it: this post succinctly captures the problem statement of _The Mom Test_, which is a short book about how to structure your product/market fit work to cut the crap and lock in on a product that people will actually pay money for. It's good, more people should read it.

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

#259

Post by flatline »

sova wrote: post #222
Gatsky wrote: 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?

You get some numbers, they look good - fine, but at best it’s grounds for a proper study, at worst wildly misleading. You can easily fool yourself with statistics, and other people too.

For a good read about studies with solid statistics and bogus results, see [0].

[0] https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/04/28/the-control-group-is-o...

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

#260

Post by JanisL »

sxg wrote: post #236
intricatedetail wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Obviously no programmer is solely relying on StackOverflow to do their job

I've encountered a few people who were doing something very close to this. I really hope that doesn't happen in medicine too.

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