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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

#341

Post by GordonS »

a-dub wrote: post #264

> "Hmmmm," she said, picking at her fingernails. "Not directly. Of course I always have the best interests of my patients in mind, but, you know, it's not like they'll pay more if I prescribe Lexapro instead of Zoloft. They won't come back more often or refer more friends. So I'd sorta just be, like, donating this money if I paid you for this thing, right?" this is the problem. the incentives in healthcare are messed…

I was horrified when I read that line too. I have this crazy idea that most doctors go into the medical profession because they want to help people - her attitude is awful, IMO.

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

#342

Post by jacobion »

SkyPuncher wrote: post #227
ummonk wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 - how to choose a medicine - and built a product to solve that problem. No, he didn't have a problem. He proposes that OTC is the target. The reality is, the problem is not very deep here. Without access to prescription medications, you basically have a handful of options that are more of less the same. It's like walking onto a rental car lot. You need to know what category you need, but everything…

Yes, this is a problem that a heavily regulated free market actually solved pretty well.

I go to my local grocery store and look at the painkillers they have. There are generic aspirin and Tylenol available for a price almost anyone can afford. There are branded versions which are still reasonably priced. There are reasonable variations such as with caffeine or with decongestant, again priced perfectly fairly. If you want to pay $2 extra for awesome marketing you can. In some stores you might find a 'natural' remedy - essentially a placebo, again priced ok.

Everything on sale is basically safe. Nothing has a business model that relies on addiction. Nothing costs hundreds of dollars. Nothing is adulterated or counterfeit. It's easy to get information about everything available. The vast majority people would be able to choose something to match their own needs (for example, they might be allergic to aspirin, or need to avoid Tylenol because of a kidney condition).

If you bought the worst painkiller on sale in the store, it would be fairly effective and not too expensive. The experience in most stores in large parts of the world would be very similar.

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

#343

Post by cryptica »

I can fully relate to this experience. I think it's no coincidence that the businesses which are the most useful for society are the poorest. Their target customers have no money. Value producers tend to be honest people. They believe that they have to work to get money. That's why they can't get any. Those who have direct access to the money printers know this better than anyone. You need to be a fraudster to make money in this economy. I learned this the hard way working in open source. Now I work in finance. If you can't beat them, join them... Help accelerate the financial collapse.

Education, medicine, software which lets people work more efficiently and save time; they're a waste of time financially. The fiat monetary system wants more bureaucracy, more jobs, more surveillance, more manipulation, less efficiency, less free time for everyone.

Most people who made money in this scam system are fraudsters, attention hoarders, legitimised money launderers, risk externalizers...

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

#344

Post by jacobion »

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #280
sova wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mean the Law of Large Numbers (LLN), not the Law of Averages, right? Both the Weak LLN and the Strong LLN presume all samples are independent and identically distributed. If we make a hierarchical model on the data of each paper, we can bind all the data into a single distribution, but assuming that each of these studies is independent is a _long_ shot. WLLN and SLLN _only_ apply to, roughly, sampling from the sa…

The Law of Large Numbers is an actual math theorem. The Law of Averages is a non-technical name for various informal reasoning strategies, some fallacious (like the gamblers fallacy), but mostly just types of estimation that are justified by more formal probability theory.

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

#345

Post by mattowen_uk »

GordonS wrote: post #340
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…

> I'll just prescribe what I normally do, since I'm comfortable with it This is actually something that drives me absolutely nuts about doctors in the UK (I presume they are the same elsewhere) - inertia . It's like doctors leave medical school with "best practices" about what they should prescribe - like they are glorified, human decision trees - and then across their 40-year career, they never read a paper, never r…

There is also the 'NHS approved medication' list that they can only prescribe from, which restricts whats available to you, and it takes years for something newish to make it onto that list (for reasons...)

If you want better options, the only choice in the UK is private healthcare.

But yeah, I do still agree with you - GPs don't seem to even be up-to speed on the latest info with regard to a patients condition - surely their industry requires on-going professional learning like the rest of us ?

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

#346

Post by jacobion »

f6v wrote: post #275
sillysaurusx wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...”

Well, Airbnb and Uber aren’t the best examples, are they? Their growth and “success” is fueled by either operating in a legal gray zone, or defying the local regulations all together. Many people all over the world think their lives were made much worse since Airbnb is negatively affecting the long-term rental market. Point is, the effect of the company on the society can’t just be measured by market cap. Back to the…

Arguably one reason those two businesses were successful in areas with entrenched players and business practices was because they handle the money. If AirBnB was asking either travelers or hosts to pay $X to be on a recommendation site, probably very few people would. There's always a cheaper competitor when you're selling information. Because you book through AirBnB, for a service which is relatively expensive, they can skim off quite a lot of money in an opaque way.

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

#347

Post by jacobion »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #278
f6v wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, Airbnb and Uber aren’t the best examples, are they? Their growth and “success” is fueled by either operating in a legal gray zone, or defying the local regulations all together. Many people all over the world think their lives were made much worse since Airbnb is negatively affecting the long-term rental market. Point is, the effect of the company on the society can’t just be measured by market cap. Back to the…

I think they’re ideal examples. Market cap is pretty much everything. It affects the world more than morals do. HN has drifted further and further from reality, which has been very strange to watch. The classic example was someone dismissing Dropbox when they first launched, but now it’s turned into dismissing billion dollar companies after they’ve clearly won.

Wasn't the someone who dismissed Dropbox when they first launched Steve Jobs?

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

#348

Post by jacksonastone »

GordonS wrote: post #340
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…

> I'll just prescribe what I normally do, since I'm comfortable with it This is actually something that drives me absolutely nuts about doctors in the UK (I presume they are the same elsewhere) - inertia . It's like doctors leave medical school with "best practices" about what they should prescribe - like they are glorified, human decision trees - and then across their 40-year career, they never read a paper, never r…

(Context: my wife is a fourth year Medical Student in the US) they generally go with drugs they are familiar with because what each drug does is subtly different and complicated. Each drug in a sense is a skill to be mastered all on its own because it’s interactions with someone’s body is very multifaceted. This is at least my second hand understanding from my wife! So they know all the typical signs of when it is working well or not working, the kinds of people it works well for, etc. there are far too many drugs to gain that level of deep knowledge with them all in a lifetime.

At no point does a typical Dr. close themselves off to new studies, but it’s a large time investment to become “competent” at using a drug and a potential risk to your patient if you are in personally new territory.

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

#350

Post by MrDresden »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #255
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…

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...”

Saying that there was a nuanced difference in what these two companies tried to accomplish would be a gross understatement.
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