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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

#371

Post by RobertKerans »

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.

How is that a "classic example" of drifting away from reality? "I don't think this startup business that doesn't seem likely to succeed will succeed" is a comment that looks funny in hindsight, that's all

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

#372

Post by xiphias2 »

driverdan wrote: post #370
xiphias2 wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are on point. For common diseases there are guidelines manually created and periodically updated by 40 doctors. Doctors should just use the last updated protocol for easy decisions. Even though for headache this is the recommended first line medication: Ibuprofen 400 mg, ASA 1000 mg, naproxen sodium 500–550 mg, acetaminophen 1000 mg https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4541429/#!po=0....

That's for migraines, not general headaches.

For both in case it’s acute...table 2 and 3 starts the same :) (I was lucky though, I didn’t check)

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

#374

Post by cestith »

mirthflat83 wrote: post #191
james1071 wrote: post #122

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…

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.

Nobody has to be evil or bad to read the white papers presented by their vendors rather than doing independent research. A doctor's job is not to figure out the best possible treatment for each patient, as nice as that sounds. It's to improve the life enough of enough people given the time available. If four drugs are approximately equivalent don't blame your doctor if you get the one that's only 90% as effective in your particular case.

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

#375

Post by quintushoratius »

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…

At it's core "modern medicine" is not actually a science. We've added a veneer of science, there's science at the edges, but at it's most basic form it remains an art from inception in the 19th century to today.

* Pharmaceuticals: science, mostly, but beware of "pseucutcals" like supplements and herbal remedies. Also beware of new ideas that cut into profits.

* Cutting-edge surgery: science

* Mental health: art, with a dose of science from big pharma

* General practice: mostly the art of laying on hands, distilled experience, a bit of research with your sales rep and whatever you took with you from medical school.

If this feels harsh, remember that, despite solid scientific evidence, it took over two decades for the conventional medical wisdom to move stomach ulcers from "caused by stress you need to relax" to "caused by helicobacter pylori we can treat it with a convenient antibiotic." Inertia is a helluva drug.

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

#376

Post by cestith »

redkoala wrote: post #256
xivzgrev wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Healthcare providers hope for better outcomes I'm sure, but it's true there's not much financial incentive in most cases. Your comment sort of suggests the model for such a service should be on a per-use model, covered by an insurance company when a doctor uses it for their patient. That's a trickier model than subscriptions, but it may be viable.

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

#377

Post by cestith »

wolco5 wrote: post #184
loceng wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Psychiatrists are simply experimenting on each person they prescribe medications to. The status quo is indoctrination, and in this case, the psychiatrist wasn't even willing to use actual research based data to improve the treatment of their patients - even referencing that they won't make anymore money because the patient won't come back more often or refer more patients because of it. This is abhorrent unprofession…

I've seen this happen and the entire process of adding new drugs and waiting a week or more between visits seems cruel.

Lots of psychoactive medications take days or weeks to build up in the body to the point of effectiveness. They're finding out neat things about esketamine and psilocybin, but in general a large enough dose of a mood-altering drug to take immediate effect is a bad or at least very risky thing.

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

#378

Post by aembleton »

paxys wrote: post #257
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, 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 suc…

He still has the DB, so it should be possible to generate a static site based off of it with advertising.

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

#379

Post by d0liver »

How did you write 200k lines of code in nine months? Was that all functioning code? Was some stuff generated? Retaining ~730 LoC per day including weekends for nine months is a really crazy pace and I'd love to hear more about that workflow.

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

#380

Post by hef19898 »

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...”

At least the last part seems to be right, doesn't it? As a user I love Airbnb, way cheaper and better than hotels, epsecially with a family.
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