I, as a consumer, find it worthless and they shouldn't have even started it, but now that you're here, might as well give it a bit more of shot than that. To completely bail on what you have after 10 no's is also the wrong move.
Doesn't seem like he asked the question, "well, what would you pay for?"
Plus when did the 'we don't have any budget' excuse stop a SaaS company? That's what you raise VC for - build the product, hand it to the customer for 'free' and charge them what it was really worth based on their usage when you threaten to take it away
Edit: Or even Medicaire?
Have that doctor introduce you to her pharma reps.
Find other data that is specialty specific and sell to pharma in that specialty.
I’m a healthcare CFO and this could work. You’re talking to people that’s a great step.
Keep talking. You built the thing, put it on a $30/month server. I suspect you don’t need the cloud stuff. Just make it your proprietary graphics & viz data. It doesn’t have to be freely available.
Raise money for this. You’re in the Bay Area for a reason.
Get commitments from pharma first. Keep more of your company from PE.
Good luck.
I think it was a great article. Like it said: To succeed, an offering must create value for all entities involved in the exchange—target customers, the company, and its collaborators. And value is literally measured in dollars, so you're either saving or making money for someone, otherwise it's just a fun project.
A tool like this could easily be marketed as a USP for a pharmacy:
"Only CVS has MedFinder: a proprietary system to find you the medication that's most likely to help cure YOUR SPECIFIC SYMPTOMS. No more standing in front of the racks of too-similar sounding medications. Enter your symptoms, get a recommendation backed with data!"
The product here is a kiosk backed with some real data that you can build a marketing effort around as yet another way to try to differentiate yourself in a heavily commoditized business. Pharmacies fight tooth and nail to get people in their door, and especially, to transfer prescriptions to them. One more small detail that you can convince people might help them, that actually gets them through the door? You could build an entire campaign around it.
(Think Dr. Scholls placing those foot-pressure-sensor systems in pharmacies. They drive, pun intended, foot traffic.)
It takes years to figure out how to properly sell your product. He didn't find out that his product wouldn't work in the marketplace he just found out he didn't know how to sell it.
are you not supposed to laugh at the jokes of someone you disagree with politically? is it possible someone could be "self-aware" and still disagree with you?
He then goes on to describe the evidence specifically why doctor's DIDN'T want it. All the author was trying to do with that quote was explain what he was thinking at the time.
“Call me when you have a business plan,” I said, lacing up my Allbirds before and riding my Lime scooter into the sunset.
"So I built something people wanted. Consumers wanted it, doctors wanted it, I wanted it. Where did I go wrong?"
As far as I can tell, nobody wanted it except the author. The one doctor he talked to didn't, and no consumer ever saw it. I feel like the author learned a lesson, but not the full lesson.
Reading this was like watching someone you don't politically agree with doing comedy. You know they're trying to be funny, but you also know they're missing the whole point and aren't self-aware.