81–90 of 336 posts
Out of curiosity - the author never mentioned the most "successful" drug for depression the same way the mentioned naproxen. Did anyone catch what the name of the drug for depression treatment was?
The main reason this didn't work is that the founder didn't identify a customer willing to spend money . A lot of startups fail because they never identify a customer. Or even a problem. This one failed because before writing a line of code the founder did not take the next step and ensure that the prospective customer was willing to spend money on a solution. This is why so many failing startups try to pivot to two-…
They had no idea at all how they'd make money but there was a significant cost building and running the product.
Yet VC's had no problem funding this moonshot startup. Then another startup invented a solution that could allow them to monetize. Only problem was that it was very controversial and there were dozens of blog articles criticizing the idea. But they adopted it anyway and found incredible success.
That company if you haven't already recognized it was Google. Anytime you try and take your experience and generalize it across all startups you would be wrong.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ideas are nothing. Execution is everything . Scale is unlikely.
> Ideas are nothing. Execution is everything. I always feel discomfort when this gets parroted. It's clearly not true, unless you're willing to shift the definitions of "idea" and "execution" around after-the-fact. Indeed the article comes to the conclusion that the idea is near-impossible to execute – due to realities within the business domain of healthcare. If the idea was "nothing", good execution could've fixed…
I think the takeaway from the blog post is wrong and comments focusing on building a faster MVP miss the point. Not everything is a startup. This is a research project - and should be approached that way. There should be donors, a foundation, free access to all participants, reputation-building by writing (& publishing in reputable journals / conferences) studies about its efficacy, a board of doctors actually review…
There was clearly value on the table, working out how to make money form it would have been 80% of the effort, but I suggest there's something there.
He should have given it away for free.
There's a 1000% chance that if all of a sudden, doctors all over the place start using a tool because they think it's useful, and recommend it to their friends, that it would find a way to be successful.
A drug company would buy that just for the data.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's right. A lot of founders don't make it to #3 in your list, or they only get the "make something people want" part. It's not enough. Build something people want and will pay for . Not just say they want. Not just say they'll pay for. Make something that they see and will immediately take out their cash/cc/paypal/venmo and pay for on the spot .
I’m not sure I agree with you about your extra > and will pay for. People want Reddit, people want FB and Insta. Do they pay for those? I’m not saying those are good or realistic models to follow but I think the scale of your product needs to be taken into account with your statement. ie landing millions of users can forgive the lack of a business plan _at that scale_ whereas a SAAS platform targeting B2B customers s…
The main reason this didn't work is that the founder didn't identify a customer willing to spend money . A lot of startups fail because they never identify a customer. Or even a problem. This one failed because before writing a line of code the founder did not take the next step and ensure that the prospective customer was willing to spend money on a solution. This is why so many failing startups try to pivot to two-…
OK, how about a startup that built something that was better for a completely solved problem on the web? They had no idea at all how they'd make money but there was a significant cost building and running the product. Yet VC's had no problem funding this moonshot startup. Then another startup invented a solution that could allow them to monetize. Only problem was that it was very controversial and there were dozens o…
That seems to cover Google just fine.
> But then I look at WebMD’s 10-Qs and start to spiral. Turns out the world’s biggest health website makes about $0.50/year per user. That is…not enough money to bootstrap GlacierMD. I’m pouring money into my rent, into my Egyptian contractors, into AWS—I need some cash soon.
The take away here should have been not to pivot entirely, but raise money. You are in Silicon Valley! This is literally why this entire ecosystem exists. Sometimes bootstrapping can be beneficial, but when you have spent $40K of your money, have a good enough prototype with a clear story, and are going up against giant established competitors, forget customers for a while and sell to VCs instead.
If you are really sure that the service adds value for doctors, give it to them for free for a year and prove it. Open up your service for users without worrying about AWS bills or ad revenue. A boatload of money in the bank makes all of this trivial.
... are there? I mean, I guess you got paid handsomely, but still. Leaving that aside there aren't many tech jobs I would be ashamed of having more than that one.
Anyways, I wouldn't pay for this as I love doing the research myself. Google for the plebs and pubmed and more specialized websites for the patricians is usually good enough.
I would pay for Doppelgänger though. I would pay more than 1 € even! Maybe 4.99! I would even consider 9.99 if the database is huge. The idea of finding my doppelganger sounds amazing.
I think the takeaway from the blog post is wrong and comments focusing on building a faster MVP miss the point. Not everything is a startup. This is a research project - and should be approached that way. There should be donors, a foundation, free access to all participants, reputation-building by writing (& publishing in reputable journals / conferences) studies about its efficacy, a board of doctors actually review…