[HN Gopher] Things I wish I knew before founding my mental healt...
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Things I wish I knew before founding my mental health startup
Author : ivankuznetsov11
Score : 35 points
Date : 2023-01-08 19:57 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (medium.ikuznetsov.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (medium.ikuznetsov.com)
| 331c8c71 wrote:
| > If you are a good seller, your product will always be worse
| than your narratives. Everyone you sell your product to will be
| disappointed when they start using it...
|
| > The market lives in an atmosphere of inflated promises...
| Anyone who can only tell the truth about their projects will not
| look ambitious and convincing enough. Nobody will invest in those
| projects.
|
| Agree? Disagree? I personally have limited experience but tend to
| dislike startups that oversell and promise lalaland with nothing
| to back that up. Not every startup is like that imo.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| That second to last sentence dives off the deep end where I
| can't endorse it, but there's a large kernel of truth to the
| idea. As a new startup, your greatest competitive advantage is
| your ability to move fast. Marketing speak, on the other hand,
| is typically understood in terms of medium to large corporate
| timelines, where fast delivery simply isn't a thing:
|
| * "we're actively developing this feature" means it'll be
| available in a few months
|
| * "we're designing this feature" means it'll be available in 6
| months to 2 years
|
| * "this feature is part of our vision" means it may never be
| available
|
| So if you have a feature that you're planning to release in a
| week or two, you can't just call it "under development" and
| expect customers to understand. You have to emphasize that it's
| practically right there, it'll be ready long before you need to
| do anything with it, and by the way here's a slideshow of what
| we'll have available next month when you want to go live.
| bumby wrote:
| > _your greatest competitive advantage is your ability to
| move fast._
|
| I don't want to come across as overly cynical, but I feel
| like there is a natural friction between this competitive
| advantage and certain domains in the health and/or critical
| infrastructure space, especially when "moving fast" can be at
| odds with quality. Safety-critical and regulated health
| domains don't seem like areas where moving fast is always
| viewed as an inherent good.
| mdorazio wrote:
| Cynical better title: Things I wish I knew before paying other
| people to build my startup for me.
|
| If you don't have the skills or co-founder(s) to get a prototype
| off the ground with ramen money, that should be your #1 goal. Or,
| if you really hate that idea and want to pay other people to
| develop things for you, at a minimum look at paying developers in
| cheaper places to do it so you can at least vet your idea for a
| low price before going all-in on expenses.
| [deleted]
| nathias wrote:
| Man goes to doctor. Says he's depressed. Says life seems harsh
| and cruel. Says he feels all alone in a threatening world where
| what lies ahead is vague and uncertain. Doctor says, 'Treatment
| is simple. Great new app InnerSense is just scheduled to release
| tonight. Go and download it. That should pick you up.' Man bursts
| into tears. Says, 'But doctor... I am InnerSense founder.'
| ongkoi wrote:
| Theres unfortunately nothing here related to building in the
| space of mental health. Would love an article that actually dives
| in to that instead of fundraising.
| onion2k wrote:
| Points 1 through 3 are off. Point 4 is bang on though.
|
| You don't need 250k to 300k, and if you had it you'd wish you had
| 500k or 750k anyway. A longer runway puts off the scary point
| where you have to launch something. You can bootstrap a startup
| with very little capital if you have the skills to do the work
| yourself, or you have co-founders with those skills, or _most
| importantly_ you 're happy for things to take longer. You don't
| need PR or bizdev either if you have a wide network or good
| creative skills for generating marketing chatter. The idea that
| you have to buy that is nonsense. Very few early stage startups
| hire in PR in my experience.
|
| Point 4 is right though. Raising is a full time thing that
| requires focus. You pretty much have to stop working on your
| business to raise a round. That's a big part of the risk of doing
| it, and one reason why it's far better to have more than one
| founder.
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| > The idea that you have to buy that is nonsense.
|
| Time === money.
|
| If you're doing it, or someone else is doing it. You're paying.
| paulcole wrote:
| I think you have to realize that time doesn't equal money.
|
| You can sometimes choose to sell time for money or use money
| to buy time, but not always. If nobody's willing to exchange
| their money for your time then your time doesn't equal money.
| JimtheCoder wrote:
| "You don't need 250k to 300k, and if you had it you'd wish you
| had 500k or 750k anyway."
|
| Spending a quarter mill on a prototype seems like a horrible
| decision, TBH...
| pxue wrote:
| Do things that don't scale is really an absolute truth.
|
| If you can use Excel spreadsheet or Google form to build your
| product. Do it for your first 100 users.
|
| Obviously if you're in deep tech then this doesn't apply. But
| with deep tech and moonshots the value isn't the product,
| it's your arbitrage opportunity and expert patentable
| knowledge.
| canadianfella wrote:
| [dead]
| onion2k wrote:
| For a mental health app, it does seem a bit on the pricy
| side, although if you're sourcing content from accredited
| professionals things do get expensive fast. You have to make
| good decisions about what's critical and what can wait until
| v2.
| folli wrote:
| I guess it depends on the business, in IT and Tech a quarter
| mill is a lot, in Biotech am its pocket change.
| gizmo wrote:
| In every other industry you have to invest money upfront so
| you actually have a product to sell, and as the software
| industry matures the table stakes will continue to rise.
| People are only willing to use half-baked prototypes when
| they have no choice, but in more and more domains customers
| will have choice and expectations go up as a result
| smcin wrote:
| But what is and isn't "half-baked prototype"?
| People/users/media/investors confuse GUI with functionality
| with "addresses actual use case(s) for users who might
| pay/subscribe".
|
| I'd rather have something with a brutal/nonexistent GUI but
| provides useful functionality and gives me a warm fuzzy
| that the developers have some use cases in mind, or a
| suggested workflow.
|
| Yes there is a first-mover advantage to getting into a
| domain early.
| ex_mozillian wrote:
| Fifth thing you should have known:
|
| Trying to improve mental health using an app is like trying to
| cure alcoholism with vodka. Societal addiction to devices is the
| reason why we've had an explosion in mental illness.
| TillE wrote:
| I'm sympathetic to the idea that social media apps are designed
| to be malware for your brain, but it's a long long stretch from
| that to the argument that having a pocket computer is
| inherently bad.
| rosebay wrote:
| [dead]
| ugh123 wrote:
| Connect with people where they're at. Don't ask them to go
| somewhere else. Maybe the best place for an alcohol
| intervention is... a bar -\\_(tsu)_/-
| onion2k wrote:
| We haven't had an explosion in mental illness. We've had an
| explosion in the number of people being able to recognize they
| have an issue, understand that help is available, and being
| willing to speak about it publicly. The problems have always
| been there.
| bumby wrote:
| "Rates of teenage depression began to rise around 2012, when
| adolescent use of social media became common"*[1]
|
| It's not clear to me that there's a mechanism to link this to
| the higher rate of diagnosis hypothesis. The authors instead
| link it to social media.
|
| [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00296-x
| zweiasakura wrote:
| The truth includes both the other comments to this reply:
| modern science has given us more insight into our long
| standing problems (and some solutions too), but also
| technology that can be detrimental to our mental health. Yes
| it's true that both a poison and its antidote can be drunk
| from a cup. But people might be aversive to the cup they
| drank the poison from, even if it now contains the antidote.
| And to think the cup is the only way to administer the
| antidote may exclude a lot of people who might other benefit
| from the service
| poniko wrote:
| I don't believe that to be true, mental health amongst teens
| has had a rapid decline in the past 10ish years, social media
| and always connected seems to be a major part of that.
| romeros wrote:
| exactly.. in the luddite era dyslexia wasn't recognized and
| people assumed you were dumb. Likewise in the 70s and 80s
| ADHD/Depression/Anxiety etc were thought to be harmless and
| associated with "laziness/bad parenting" etc.
|
| Now, we are more intelligent and the average person knows
| better than to downplay mental health challenges.
| Paddywack wrote:
| Not 100% sure I agree...
|
| https://www.ourherd.io/ has had really strong feedback that it
| has had a positive impact by actually being a social app
| tailored for mental health...
| unusualmonkey wrote:
| I'm not sure this article has much insight, rather appears to be
| content for the sake of content.
|
| "Right now, $300,000 is not enough to create a prototype and show
| traction on the global market. It's a simple math. Let's say you
| need three developers."
|
| That's not simple math - that's faulty assumptions.
|
| While there are always exceptions, you don't typically need to
| hire 3 developers to build a prototype!
|
| The biggest thing missing from this article is customers - who
| are they, what do they want, and how much will they pay?
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| Especially as the app is failry simple looking. Probably
| buildable in React Native in a month. Pay a good developer and
| you can probably get a prototype out for $10-$20k?
| darth_avocado wrote:
| $300000 is not enough. It depends. If you're a dev and planning
| to build something with another dev, then that's plenty. If
| you're just a guy with no idea how software works, then it may
| be less. If you're a dev and your startup has nothing to do
| with software then also, that money is less. If you're hiring
| exclusively from Bay Area devs it is less, if you're open to
| contracting people from elsewhere, it is sufficient. If you're
| open to hiring students from Bay Area for internships, it is
| sufficient. If you immediately jump on the cloud, that may not
| be enough. If you know how to provision a server in your
| garage, it may be enough. There's a lot that goes into how much
| money you need, and it really depends on you to manage it.
| ZephyrBlu wrote:
| Bro wants to have a 20-person team on pre-seed funding.
|
| I feel like pre-seed funding should support or be for 4ish people
| tops. Around the max number of co-founders.
|
| If you're pre-seed you basically have no product yet. Should you
| really be hiring biz dev, PR, 3 programmers and other team
| members at this point?
| dougSF70 wrote:
| Building something from nothing is very hard. The only thing that
| prepares you for it is building something from nothing. Being an
| employee at another start up doesnt really give you the right
| experience. I am on my 4th try and have learned many lessons.
| Each time applying those lessons to the next venture. Finally we
| might be close to success. The number 1 lesson is to do as much
| as possible yourself before raising money and hiring people.
| listenallyall wrote:
| > I've been a product manager/CEO in fintech
|
| You talk about hiring developers, all kinds of marketing
| strategy... do you know anything about mental health? What makes
| you qualified to run a mental health company? Where do you
| discuss bringing in doctors, or mental health specialists,
| instead of FAANG devs? Is the "health" part just an afterthought?
|
| > investors may not be impressed by the quality of your product
|
| yea, when the founder doesn't seem to think that mental health
| expertise is important for a mental health startup, investors
| might be unimpressed.
|
| > It's ok to mention in your presentation that you have people
| with FAANG experience in your team
|
| Maybe mention people with, you know, mental health experience?
|
| Even your web site only refers to questionnaires and approaches
| "approved by" mental health professionals... No claims you have
| even a single one on staff.
|
| Some fintech washout thinking he can immediately pivot to health
| of any kind, I hope people can see you for being the total fraud
| you are.
| Paddywack wrote:
| Yep - I am curious as to where the mental health subject matter
| expertise and validation of outcomes fits into your budget
| (unless it is more a directory or something more "benign" not
| requiring that).
| [deleted]
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