

Physician transitioning to Start up. Completely lost. Advice needed.  - DrPills

Hi HN, 
I am a long time lurker, and I have learned immensely over the last few years. With all the knowledge and advice found on HN, I thought I could solve a problem I encountered in medicine by using the internet and technology.<p>I did all the research in this particular segment of the market and started on my journey to create my first MVP. I realized I didn't know how to program, so I sat down and learned how to use Drupal. Drupal became too restrictive for my needs. I started learning Ruby and Rails. Learning how to program from scratch was not getting anywhere.<p>This is where I need your advice. I really want to get this product completed. Even if it doesn't make me any money, I think it fills a need and I think it would be great for society in general. I don't have the programming skills at the time to do it myself.<p>This brings up a few questions: (Please bear with me, I am new to this field)<p>1) I really believe in this idea and will invest to get a developer/programmer to do this for me. I looked at elance but there are wide ranges in prices. What resources do you guys use to get developers, or does everyone make their product by themselves?<p>2) I honestly believe in my product and I have the expertise for the medical part of it, however I would love to work with someone who has the other skills necessary for a start up. How do you guys find a cofounder?<p>3) I am willing to leave my high salaried physician job for this endeavor but how do you guys get mentors/investors/cofounders. I looked into RockHealth, etc, but they all seem to cater to 20 something out of college students with multiple founders.<p>Thanks in advance. Any advice would be appreciated.<p>Thanks again.<p>If anyone is interested in chatting, email me at admin@pillbox.me
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orangethirty
As a consultant that builds such systems under similar circumstances:

\- The cheapest option is not the best option.

\- Chemistry is more important than price.

\- A very busy consultant will not be very fun to work with. Will miss
deadlines.

\- Find someone who is good, but does not take a lot of work at a time.

\- Don't stick to one languge/framework. Let the consultant help you pick.

\- Pay for a sit down. This is when you talk to the consultant in order to
weed out any details about your goals. Well worth the money.

\- Don't focus on hourly costs. A weekly or monthly charge ends up being
easier for both sides.

Now, in #3 you let me know that this is a busines syou believe will get
traction. How good are your business skills? If you are like most physicians
out there, then you don't have a good clue as to how to market a product. This
is the most important part of the business. If you havent thought about
marketing then do so _now_. Don't invest a penny until you have proven _beyond
reasonable doubt_ that this will actually sell.

If you'd like, we can chat more about it privately. My email is in my profile.

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davismwfl
I would say notahacker gave you some good advice. My other comments are based
on knowing nothing of what you are trying to put together, just some personal
experience and some knowledge.

Having spent 7 years doing development and consulting in healthcare, you can't
underestimate the cost to building and deploying products in that space.
Unless it is consumer oriented, the adoption rates are slow in the enterprise
space but pricing is better. It is better now than it has ever been from my
knowledge, but 6 months to a year is still not out of the question on an
enterprise product sales cycle. Individual physicians are also feeling
squeezed so they are anxious to get new tools, but at the same time many of
them are very price focused from what I have seen. I know a couple of people
doing startups in healthcare and it took the better part of 6-8 months for
them to get a few paying clients, so having funds saved was critical for them
(as was consulting).

Also, don't underestimate how much HIPAA and FDA rules play into what you do
in the health care software space. Nothing is insurmountable and honestly good
common sense gets you past 80% of the rules/laws. Unless you are doing
something with medical device + software, in which case the FDA clearance gets
to be a pain if you have never done it. This is probably stuff you know about.
Just mentioning it, as I have been through it.

My email is in my profile if you want to chat. I love the healthcare space, it
is just a tough place to be without the proper team and reasonable funding or
smart bootstrapping (my personal choice).

Either way, I say notahacker gave you the best advice so far, keep your day
job while you get that MVP built.

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notahacker
\- In the long term you should be more interested in developers you can work
with than their ability as programmers.

\- You're a skilled professional attacking a specific problem relevant to your
profession, and you've bothered to try to learn to code even though it's
probably not your strength. You're not as much of a timewaster as the other
"idea guys" developers run into, which means that people who are genuinely
good at what they do and ambitious will sit down and talk with you.

\- In the short term, you should build something and test something before you
leave that highly salaried physician job. Luckily, with your high salary you
can pay someone before you go about forming a company.

\- Pay someone you'd think about forming a company with - the sort of person
that's not afraid to suggest ways of changing your idea to make it better.
Even if they cost a lot more than an Indian outsourcing firm on elance. Get
round to forming the company and giving them equity once they've earned their
money and proved you want to work with them.

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drelihan
Congrats on digging in and trying to learn coding for your MVP. That will go a
long way to helping your recruit a co-founder.

+1 on orangethirty's "A weekly or monthly charge ends up being easier for both
sides." Hourly wage isn't a great way to hire. For an MVP, focus development
items in terms of days and ( at most ) weeks. Go to a developer and tell them
what you are looking to do. Then, ask them what part of it can they implement
in one day or one week. If you like what you hear, hire them for that time
frame and see how they do. If they're terrible, you'll know quickly and won't
be out a terrible amount of cash.

I'd be interested in chatting. I'll shoot you an email

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frendiversity
As a developer, I don't dislike this guy. He is investing his own experience-
based career skills into the bargain, which is a whole lot better than guy-
with-idea-wants-half.

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zekenie
You could consider going to a hackathon... Its a good way to meet people, kick
your idea around. There are sometimes health based hackathons. I don't know
where you are based, but every fall there is a Hacking Medicine event at MIT.

~~~
DrPills
Awesome idea. I am actually moving to boston this July. I will definitely
check that out. I always thought hackathons were programmers hacking out a MVP
in 24/48 hrs etc and I wouldn't have anything to contribute.

Thanks.

~~~
zekenie
Each hackathon is different. Often there are industry experts, etc. Its
probably better if you have a partner who can code going into it, but at the
Hacking Medicine event there was a pitch time where people could share ideas
and try to get a team together.

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codyguy
You may want to check out <http://www.theprotoshop.com> for creation of
MVP/prototype.

