When good ideas make bad business • Hacker News Board

Re: When good ideas make bad business

#71

Post by tyri_kai_psomi » Fri, Jan 03, 2020, 5:32 PM UTC

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #56

ageyfman wrote: post #15

At 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 real…

The most realistic founding story so far is Bezos explanation for how he founded Amazon.

It was always a business-first mindset in an area of high growth.

That one short video filmed in 1997 should be a masterclass by itself.

Re: When good ideas make bad business

#72

Post by choeger » Fri, Jan 03, 2020, 5:34 PM UTC

If the technique is solid, they should sell to big insurance companies. That are the actors that are interested in paying for the most efficient treatments. At least when it comes to choosing between short and efficient or long lasting.

Re: When good ideas make bad business

#73

Post by planetzero » Fri, Jan 03, 2020, 5:34 PM UTC

If you are interested in creating a startup, you should first find something that can actually make money and then work on creating a great product around it.

Too many people come up with a great idea and then hope for the best when it comes to market fit and actually getting customers and achieving profitability.

Re: When good ideas make bad business

#74

Post by sicromoft » Fri, Jan 03, 2020, 5:34 PM UTC

leggomylibro wrote: post #9

Oof. The site was practically named after WebMD, and the founder didn't do any market research on that competitor to gauge how viable the business was before quitting their job? This person probably should have known that their main competitor made $0.50/user before they quit their job. Also: >It had been a bit of a working assumption of mine over the past few weeks that if you could improve the health of the patient…

> The founder didn't do any market research ... before quitting their job

That was the entire point of the article (written by the founder). What was the point of this comment?

Re: When good ideas make bad business

#75

Post by syntex » Fri, Jan 03, 2020, 5:35 PM UTC

It seems like you stopped far too early pursuing your idea.

Re: When good ideas make bad business

#76

Post by rmah » Fri, Jan 03, 2020, 5:35 PM UTC

This is one of the best startup post-mortems I've read on HN. Clear and engaging writing which also provided key insights into the mind of the entrepreneur during his journey. It's sad that it didn't work out but I think it can help teach valuable lessons to anyone reading it.

Re: When good ideas make bad business

#77

Post by dahart » Fri, Jan 03, 2020, 5:35 PM UTC

Congratulations on learning the hardest lesson, your next startup is now a lot more likely to succeed, so get to work!

A lot of comments criticizing what the author already knows, that the business plan was incomplete. I had the urge to do the same, but read to the very end and realized TJC clearly learned the most important lesson, and it's one I've learned myself, so I have no room to be critical.

BTW, I burned a lot more than $40k and 9 months in my own story, so maybe it helps to hear that other people have made the same mistake and gotten too convinced their idea is valuable without checking carefully enough -- without quite knowing how to check carefully. I know what it feels like to know that I'm doing the right thing, and then find out that it's not good enough.

Fun read, and an important lesson that many very bright people will still learn the hard way, even after reading a story like this. Thank you for sharing.

Re: When good ideas make bad business

#78

Post by ouid » Fri, Jan 03, 2020, 5:36 PM UTC

The reason that you don't get a result for "best painkiller" when you google best painkiller is that there's no such thing.

Why are you in pain? have you had a lot to drink recently? What kind of painkillers do you usually respond to? Why not simply combine them? Are you going to keep track of all of these predicates for each query?

This guy's mistake was not that he mismanaged a company. His mistake was having a shitty idea and being utterly deluded about its value.

Re: When good ideas make bad business

#79

Post by rconti » Fri, Jan 03, 2020, 5:37 PM UTC

rjkennedy98 wrote: post #66

leggomylibro wrote: post #9

Oof. The site was practically named after WebMD, and the founder didn't do any market research on that competitor to gauge how viable the business was before quitting their job? This person probably should have known that their main competitor made $0.50/user before they quit their job. Also: >It had been a bit of a working assumption of mine over the past few weeks that if you could improve the health of the patient…

That line stood out to me also. Anyone who feels that the primary goal of healthcare in the US is to improve health outcomes is incredibly naive about how this industry (which is over 20% of the us economy) works. There is only one group in the entire industry which has an incentive to keep people healthy (insurance) and that is the most hated of the bunch!

.. and the doctors he talked to felt they already had the knowledge they needed! If anything, they felt, perhaps, that this devalued their existing knowledge. And they don't make 10% more money for providing 10% better outcomes.

Re: When good ideas make bad business

#80

Post by RocketSyntax » Fri, Jan 03, 2020, 5:37 PM UTC

did you try selling to pharmaceutical companies what about healthcare provider networks what about EMR companies? they would probably compare you to open source tech R packages, but it's worth a shot.

you could make a "reference database" out of it and charge for access to the latest version