

5 days before our YC interview we've changed our idea. Help us prove the market. - misstatiana
http://dintu.com

======
misstatiana
Keeping a medical diary sucks. We're building something better: An app that
periodically asks you questions about your lifestyle and symptoms, and learns
to cater its questions and suggestions just for you.

We're aiming to tackle all kinds of chronic medical conditions, starting with
migraines. Please register here if you are interested: <http://dintu.com>

~~~
tseabrooks
I think you need a bit more here then just headaches to start with. Seems like
you could broaden your initial offering to include other medical maladies that
require logging.

My dad needed to start tracking his blood pressure / heart rate / glucose
levels at multiple times of day and having a text that acted as a reminder and
a reply that acted as a log with the data would've been perfect for him.

Is the number of people that need to log this other information > or < than
the number of people that want to track headache triggers. I've honestly never
met someone that wanted to track headache triggers but know a lot of people
that need to track other medical issues.

Maybe people with those other medical issues tend to be older than the target
audience for an iPhone app?

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choffstein
Not personally interested because I don't get migraines, but I like the "don't
keep a diary, we'll just ping you occasionally" method. Very unique, and very
interesting. I hate keeping logs, but I respond to texts all the time. If I
got a ping a couple times a day with questions that tailored themselves to my
habits over time, I could definitely see myself responding. It takes a HUGE
hurdle out of the equation.

Knowing people who have had to do this because they get migraines, your
process seems like a great idea!

Best of luck. I really like the model.

~~~
robflynn
That's a great idea.

A few months ago, my girlfriend was having an allergic reaction to
_SOMETHING_. Itching, swelling, hives, the works. We went through a huge list
of trial and error: Seafood? Nope. The grass outside? Nope. Soap? Nope.
Shampoo? On and on through foods, chemicals, common allergens, etc.

It became pretty cumbersome and we'd forgotten what we had tried and not
tried, etc.

We eventually figured it out but something like what you suggested would have
been a great tool to have at our disposal.

------
staunch
<http://www.paulgraham.com/startupmistakes.html> #3

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
Absolutely not a marginal niche. If you could predict with reasonable accuracy
when someone would get a migraine, all the migraine sufferers I've known would
HAPPILY pay for that knowledge. When you're dealing with side effects like
loss of memory, loss of vision, vomiting, etc., people would like to know
when's a good time to stay home!

~~~
ares2012
Just because it's useful to some people doesn't mean it's not a marginal
niche. Consider what percentage of the people you know are migraine sufferers,
how many of them seek treatment and then of those how many would regularly use
a service to monitor their triggers?

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ktsmith
I suffer from migraines and it's very unlikely I'd use any type of digital
medical journal. I say that from the experience of setting one up for myself.
Due to light sensitivity trying to look at a monitor just makes things much
worse for me. Trying to look at a cell phone is torture. Between the
brightness of the screen and the small focal area it's just not worth it.
Migraine sufferers often report sensitivity to light so I doubt it would be
just me finding it impractical.

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wittjeff
I don't know how you intend to do your data analysis, but...

I have had an idea for a smartphone app on my Big List for years. This app
would implement lag-sequential analysis (see for example
<http://www2.gsu.edu/~psyrab/references.pdf>). I haven't actually used it
(which is part of why I have procrastinated this one), but my understanding is
that LSA is basically a chi-squared analysis with a time function. Chi-squared
compares expected vs. actual incidence of something. So LSA would look at
expected vs. actual incidence of X happening following Y. The prototypical
test would be to prove/disprove that chocolate milk makes kindergarten kids
more violent. But you could (as I envisioned it) generalize it to sniff out
all kinds of factors that might systematically precede migraines or whatever.

You'll also need to explain to people that a negative result might not be a
reliable one unless you get a lot of data and record all variables reliably.

I'm not sure how much my app idea overlaps with yours, but I will cheer you on
in any case.

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nhangen
A migraine is the only thing in my life that brought me to the point of
wanting to end it. Oddly, I don't get them anymore now that I work from home,
but for 20 years they plagued me like a demon.

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famousactress
As a lifelong sufferer of migraines (I literally fear them on a daily basis
and they impact my travel, and work plans regularly).. I'd certainly love to
see something like this work.

I'm a bit of a rare case in that I've never been able to identify my triggers
and none of the migraine medications work for me.

~~~
ktsmith
I'm also a lifelong sufferer who has found no trigger or treatment that works.
I've seen more doctors than I can keep track of and none had indicated that it
was uncommon, of course that could be because I'm primarily seeing
specialists.

~~~
famousactress
Uncommon? Yes.. The newish beta-blocker meds are reported to work for a pretty
large percentage of sufferers (85% or so, I think). If you look at the
percentages across the different types of meds, I think you and I are in a
relatively significant minority of people that can't find relief without
narcotics.

~~~
ktsmith
I hadn't heard of the beta blockers having such a large success rate. I'll
have to look more into that. I tried Propranolol with no luck.

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ares2012
I think it's a great idea but it's not a big business and likely uninteresting
to YC or other investors. Wikipedia tells me that 10% of the world's
population has had a migrane (<https://www.thieme-
connect.de/DOI/DOI?10.1055/s-0030-1249220>) but how many of those have them
regularly? How many seek help? How many would use a tool to manage their
triggers?

I think you would be better off canceling the interview, explaining why you
are abandoning you last idea and trying again next cycle.

------
jrubinovitz
I think this would be viable if you interviewed doctors and asked what
questions they would ask patients if they had access to them 24/7, and then
showed a significant increase in success in treating these patients. Also, I
think there's a big connection between what you eat and your health
(especially chronic illness), and a lot of people keep food diaries. Mixing a
food diary with a symptom log could be excellent.

------
pauldisneyiv
I've gotten migraine headaches for the last 8-10 years, and I still do not
keep a diary.

My initial reaction is that different migraine sufferers would need to be
asked different questions at different intervals. I would recommend:

\- Have the user access the app/site when they notice they are having a
migraine. At that point ask a battery of questions to see if the "triggers"
can be narrowed down. I personally have three triggers.

\- Once the user has confirmed a migraine, THEN you should ping the user to
see how bad it is, what the current symptoms are, and if is ongoing. I
generally have migraines lasting for 3-5 hours with varying symptoms depending
on what "stage" I'm in. I have 4 distinct "symptom stages".

==

I'm beginning to understand what PG means now when he says YC looks for teams
more than ideas. Please do not take that as a knock against this idea - I do
not mean in that way. I would be confident in my team and be honest about it's
limitations and potential. As someone in the Healthcare IT line of work, there
is a TON of space open to an intelligent young team.

Best of luck.

~~~
ktsmith
My phone beeping and buzzing at me mid migraine would result in the phone
being launched into the nearest wall. These guy's might have more luck with
something other than headaches since many migraine sufferers find the pain can
be debilitating. If they stick with migraines I hope they take that into
account.

When I kept a medical diary for mine the only thing that really worked was
pencil and paper because I could actually tolerate writing on a yellow legal
pad.

------
robflynn
I have no idea if changing your business plan five days before your interview
is a good idea or not.

I can say, however, that I know someone who would find something like this
very interesting. I've passed your link along. He's a life long migraine
sufferer so maybe this will help him track things down.

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pero
What kind of 'subject matter expertise' do you have on-board?

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mikecomstock
I will definitely use this if you can generalize it. I don't normally get
migraines, but it would be great to correlate things like sore throats,
stomach aches, fingernail ridges, skin breakouts, etc. to external factors
like food, weather, and pollution.

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evanw
Out of curiosity: What was your original idea?

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randall
I have migraines on occasion, but I hate doing diaries. I think if it had some
FitFu like appeal and made me want to use it, I might be down.

Bill / Tatiana... good luck!

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Phantom
I am hoping at least one of you is a "domain expert" on migranes ... else this
app is just gonna be using "trending" logic which might not really work.

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revorad
I don't have a migraine problem, but I tweeted and shared on FB. Have you
analysed any twitter data to predict past headaches for people?

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melissamiranda
Take a look at Mappiness: <http://www.mappiness.org.uk/> It's a UK university
research project to measure happiness across different settings. It would ping
you with some quick questions a few times a day.

Functionality is similar; it it may offer learnings.

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cemerick
Forwarded to my wife, who gets far too many headaches. Interesting concept,
good luck.

~~~
jlank
ditto - sent to my girlfriend.

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rokhayakebe
Keep track of what I eat and drink then when I get certain symptoms you can
tell me what recently changed in my diet that may be the cause.

------
wittjeff
Seen patientslikeme.com?

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edw
1a. Come up with strawman idea. 1b. Come up with real idea. 2. Publicly
"pivot"* on HN. 3. Funding?

A least there's a step two...

* Could we please declare "pivot" an exhausted concept and move on to the next start-up buzzword?

~~~
zachallaun
That a term is overused does not mean the underlying concept is exhausted.

~~~
edw
Maybe I'm too Buddhist or something but "pivot" has come to mean, "observing
and adapting to what the universe is saying," which is another word for not
being obstinate. It's a linguistic gang sign the insecure flash to show their
starters group membership.

It irritates me because listening to MBAs speak is an exercise in suicide
preparation, and starters are accumulating their own distinct but equivalent
lexicon of fancy words that refer to simple, everyday concepts.

