Unfortunately, I feel like this is a lesson that's best learned the hard way. Everyone can tell you from the get-go to "have a business plan" before committing financially and professionally to a self-concocted venture. It's not until you run through it and witness the brutality of failure first-hand that you realize the importance of doing your homework first and having a plan.
When good ideas make bad business
51–60 of 361 posts
Re: When good ideas make bad business
#52I'm not convinced the idea could never possibly turn into a successful business.
Maybe he just tried to sell to the wrong people, maybe pharmaceutical companies could have been interested, maybe re-packaging the product differently...who knows...
The fact that it could provide real value for many people already sets it apart from most ideas.
Re: When good ideas make bad business
#53So 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.
Vaccines exist for a tiny fraction of conditions.
And in the market consumers revealed preference is for $1000/yr treatment over $20K vaccine, or equivalent multiples. When a new vaccine is invented, people balk at the price and complain it shouldn't have been created.
Far more investment is in "managing" conditions.
Re: When good ideas make bad business
#54Its kind of sad picturing the customer with a headache needing a app to tell him what medicine to buy at CVS...while there is a pharmacist right there.
I do like the quip at the end about lacing up all birds and jumping on the bird scooter. This makes me think how badly I need allbirds to join the sharing economy...how great would it be to have allbirds scattered all around your city sidewalks so you have a paid on demand when you need them without having the overhead of actually owning them. Its not sexy and doesn't scale well, ticking all the VC boxes.
Re: When good ideas make bad business
#55Re: When good ideas make bad business
#56At first I thought this was satire. Here's this guy, who uses a pretty straightforward analysis without any prior healthcare domain experience, thinks he's found the holy grail after a few weeks of work, and then spends all of his money (without first talking to actual domain experts) before he gives up, because Healthcare.
This is why I get so grumpy about startup narratives. If you ask successful unicorns how they got started, they'll usually explain that's exactly what they did. Garrett Camp was just trying to hire a private driver, and realized it was too hard, there's no reason it should be so hard. Jack Dorsey saw a guy who didn't accept credit cards and realized it would be great if he could accept credit cards.
If you don't realize what's going on, that companies pick their founding myth based on which story sells the best rather than which story occurred on the earliest calendar date, it's very easy to get a false picture of how good startup ideas originate.
Re: When good ideas make bad business
#57To get in the door with doctors you need to pay them to use your product and then sell the data they generate to other companies. (not HIPPA data, but metrics, etc)
Re: When good ideas make bad business
#58Realistically, while I feel that the author is on the right track with this data driven approach to evidence based medicine, the fact remains that the advantages/disadvantages between drugs within the same class of medicine tend to be negligible compared to drug costs. There are then other specific concerns that must be considered eg pregnancy/breastfeeding, liver failure, kidney failure and often what ends up is tha…
I had the same thought:
Sell this product to insurance companies so they can recommend cheaper/safer drugs to their customers, or show the more expensive one and if it truly had better outcomes. Everyone benefits from that.
That said, the medical establishment is a tough tough domain to move.
Re: When good ideas make bad business
#59lol @ giving up after 2 weeks.
Re: When good ideas make bad business
#60I would apply for an SBIR and try to get some academic support. Maybe the NIH would be interested. Your algorithm and analysis platform might be the real special sauce here. Maybe even license to a pharma company.