Hacker News Reader

Comment by tricky | Hacker News Reader

I'm serious. I get snubbed every time I mention a healthcare startup to a group of hackers. This is me saying, "hey, look, it _can_ be cool..."

View on HN

The health industry is one of the last great bits of arcane magic. Everything about it is hand-wavey. You've got all kinds of regulations and tons of data and all of the carriers have their own little fiefdoms and everything is done a thousand different ways... Don't even get me started on actuaries.

wow, i couldn't have paid you to illustrate my point any better.

Where there is fear, there are opportunities.

I worked on a highly unsuccessful multi-billion dollar health system that was intended to solve all of these problems on a national level. I can tell you now that a small guy working from the bottom up with individual institutions is much better placed to solve real problems than a top-down bureaucracy. The only hurdle is convincing them that they can trust your system with confidential and life-critical data.

I work at a highly successful company thats working to solve some of the problems the health care industry faces(mainly the elder care community). We grow by 20% annually and we have goals of 28% when we only grow by 26 as opposed to 28 we see it as bad.

And yes the rules, and crazy laws, and hand waving are very very apparent. Its insane but we make plenty of money.

20-30% annually? Nice.

I'm a one-man startup working to solve problems in the clinical trial and research space. The sheer number of problems can be somewhat distracting and the rules daunting, but there are a lot of doctors out there with money to throw at solutions. It is amazing.

Am I profitable? Not yet. Obviously, I'm missing some necessary traits (read: co-founder.)

Yes! There are often great revenue opportunities serving less sexy markets - you've still got to make something people want! (Or require by law ;))

good to see some other people in the same space. I'm at an established small/medium sized company in the health industry. The health stuff is fulfilling and concrete (ie you're really solving someone's problem). There's plenty of scope for "cool stuff".

Reply on news.ycombinator.com