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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 qu

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 patients then, you know, the doctors or the hospitals or whatever would pay for that. This person uses the "X% of Americans" line, so they live in the United States, right? The one in North America that views healthcare as a business to wring money out of? They definitely should have done more market research if they could type that with a straight face. But hey, hindsight is 2020 and they only spent $40k on some very valuable firsthand experience. Sounds like a win if they're planning to run businesses in the future, but for ideas without a clear path to making enough money to sustain themselves, try to use other peoples' money next time :)

ghostbrainalpha 7y ago
I feel like the best play would have been to spend 100% of his effort to get WebMD as the first Angel Investor. If WebMD owned 20% of his product, for say $300k in Seed Money, he could have used that Runway to build something really cool. And WebMD would have an incentive to promote his site and help bring free users.
- professionalguy 7y ago
  that's exactly what I was thinking - plus what startup story is complete without some VC intervention?
- ghostbrainalpha 7y ago
  Does anyone know Bob Brisco the C.E.O. of Web MD? I'm going to try and get this in front of them using my contacts, but it is a long shot.
rjkennedy98 7y ago
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!
- rconti 7y ago
  .. 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.
  - larkost 7y ago
    This is probably the root of the problems in US medicine: there is no effective feedback. The ACA (Obamacare) did a little work on this with Medicare payments to hospitals, but that is an exception in the system. What could we do to make this the basis of the system? Without driving doctors away from patients who have bad prognocices?
    - ghayes 7y ago
      Take a look at HMOs, such as Kaiser Permanente. HMOs combine the function of insurers and medical providers in a way that aligns incentives (everyone pays about the same, but healthier people need less care and are thus more profitable customers). There are many problems that come with the HMO model (e.g. the potential for low quality care), but when it works, it directly solves the problem you addressed and exists in the US.
- beat 7y ago
  Perverse incentive structures are the fundamental reason US healthcare is so expensive and stupid. It's not "greed" in a simple sense, and it's not "regulation" in a simple sense. It's a system of interacting problems that needs treated in a systemic way. Blaming the insurance companies strikes me as the political equivalent of yelling at the cashier.
sicromoft 7y ago
> 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?
- lostgame 7y ago
  IMHO the point of the article is its title - and certainly, furthermore, the point made at the end: “To succeed, an offering must create value for all entities involved in the exchange—target customers, the company, and its collaborators.” I believe the point of this comment is 'do market research before quitting your job'. The author could have learned their presented points while operating this as a side project concurrent to their existing job.
harikb 7y ago
> they only spent $40k on some very valuable firsthand experience. This. It is very hard to get real world experience. $40k is cheap compared to a bootcamp that won't teach him even 1/10th of this life experience. Btw, actual figure is not $40k, but one should consider it close to $100k+ if you factor in that he used up his "make my parents support shelter, food, living expenses, car". Depending on the cultural background, they wont be doing this many more times. If you consider how much he lost on the (bay area) salary he otherwise would have earned, add another $100k
- CydeWeys 7y ago
  Yup. Depending on how attractive OP is to high-salary big tech employers, the opportunity cost alone of not getting paid for most of a year could easily be several hundred thousand dollars.
Uptrenda 7y ago
You spend the whole comment putting down the author for making mistakes and then try to make it look like you're retracting this by putting a positive spin on it towards the end. Not because you especially care, but because you don't want people to downvote you to shit for this obvious trash talking. "try to use other peoples' money next time (smiley face)" A++++ douchery. Nicely done.
SquishyPanda23 7y ago
He also seems to have misread Susan. In the story she describes the project as "fun" before he asks what she'd pay. At that point he probably should have picked up that she was being kind and was not in fact seeing a product she was interested in buying. He probably could have figured that out by asking doctors before he built the thing.
- jimbokun 7y ago
  > He probably could have figured that out by asking doctors before he built the thing. Which is the entire point of the article, made very explicitly.
riku_iki 7y ago
> WebMD I think he should target not WebMD audience, WebMD doesn't provide searchable and visualizable database of trials and outcomes, but more professional crowd: research institutions and universities, government, pharma corps, pharmacists, hospitals, and charge some subscription fee (e.g. $200/m), and it would be totally different story.

ghostbrainalpha 7y ago

I feel like the best play would have been to spend 100% of his effort to get WebMD as the first Angel Investor. If WebMD owned 20% of his product, for say $300k in Seed Money, he could have used that Runway to build something really cool. And WebMD would have an incentive to promote his site and help bring free users.

professionalguy 7y ago
that's exactly what I was thinking - plus what startup story is complete without some VC intervention?
ghostbrainalpha 7y ago
Does anyone know Bob Brisco the C.E.O. of Web MD? I'm going to try and get this in front of them using my contacts, but it is a long shot.

rjkennedy98 7y ago

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!

rconti 7y ago
.. 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.
- larkost 7y ago
  This is probably the root of the problems in US medicine: there is no effective feedback. The ACA (Obamacare) did a little work on this with Medicare payments to hospitals, but that is an exception in the system. What could we do to make this the basis of the system? Without driving doctors away from patients who have bad prognocices?
  - ghayes 7y ago
    Take a look at HMOs, such as Kaiser Permanente. HMOs combine the function of insurers and medical providers in a way that aligns incentives (everyone pays about the same, but healthier people need less care and are thus more profitable customers). There are many problems that come with the HMO model (e.g. the potential for low quality care), but when it works, it directly solves the problem you addressed and exists in the US.
beat 7y ago
Perverse incentive structures are the fundamental reason US healthcare is so expensive and stupid. It's not "greed" in a simple sense, and it's not "regulation" in a simple sense. It's a system of interacting problems that needs treated in a systemic way. Blaming the insurance companies strikes me as the political equivalent of yelling at the cashier.

sicromoft 7y ago

> 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?

lostgame 7y ago
IMHO the point of the article is its title - and certainly, furthermore, the point made at the end: “To succeed, an offering must create value for all entities involved in the exchange—target customers, the company, and its collaborators.” I believe the point of this comment is 'do market research before quitting your job'. The author could have learned their presented points while operating this as a side project concurrent to their existing job.

harikb 7y ago

> they only spent $40k on some very valuable firsthand experience. This. It is very hard to get real world experience. $40k is cheap compared to a bootcamp that won't teach him even 1/10th of this life experience. Btw, actual figure is not $40k, but one should consider it close to $100k+ if you factor in that he used up his "make my parents support shelter, food, living expenses, car". Depending on the cultural background, they wont be doing this many more times. If you consider how much he lost on the (bay area) salary he otherwise would have earned, add another $100k

CydeWeys 7y ago
Yup. Depending on how attractive OP is to high-salary big tech employers, the opportunity cost alone of not getting paid for most of a year could easily be several hundred thousand dollars.

Uptrenda 7y ago

You spend the whole comment putting down the author for making mistakes and then try to make it look like you're retracting this by putting a positive spin on it towards the end. Not because you especially care, but because you don't want people to downvote you to shit for this obvious trash talking. "try to use other peoples' money next time (smiley face)" A++++ douchery. Nicely done.

SquishyPanda23 7y ago

He also seems to have misread Susan. In the story she describes the project as "fun" before he asks what she'd pay. At that point he probably should have picked up that she was being kind and was not in fact seeing a product she was interested in buying. He probably could have figured that out by asking doctors before he built the thing.

jimbokun 7y ago
> He probably could have figured that out by asking doctors before he built the thing. Which is the entire point of the article, made very explicitly.

riku_iki 7y ago

> WebMD I think he should target not WebMD audience, WebMD doesn't provide searchable and visualizable database of trials and outcomes, but more professional crowd: research institutions and universities, government, pharma corps, pharmacists, hospitals, and charge some subscription fee (e.g. $200/m), and it would be totally different story.