In nine months, after spending $ 40,000, he ended his own business.
Alfa said: After having a good idea, entrepreneur Tom Cleveland quickly started his own business, but after 9 months, he ran out of funds and was forced to shut down the company. . In this regard, he made in-depth reflection, and the results of the reflection are also worthy of reference for other first-time entrepreneurs.
When you have a severe headache, you are standing in front of your own cabinet, rubbing your temples, and scanning all kinds of standing medicines with your eyes, expecting the pain to stop quickly. What are you looking for at this time? Tylenol, Avil, or Aliev (all painkillers)?
Most people choose their most commonly used and cheapest medicine. Others go to Google to search for the best choice that meets their needs, but the results are the ones that are often used.
For the average consumer, it seems to be quite good to get such results, but it can actually be better because researchers conduct a large number of clinical trials every year, and hundreds of them are verifying pain Effectiveness of the drug, why can’t I (including the average patient) know these results in a simple way?
So in 2017, I had a great entrepreneurial idea: use a structured database of clinical trials to provide simple, effective answers to common medical questions for ordinary users.
As a proof of concept, I made an attempt: I collected as much clinical trial data as possible for OTC analgesics, and did a network meta-analysis (NMA) based on evidence-based medicine. A concise and convincing chart.
Instructions for this verification:
My idea is very meaningful.
It can help others.
I know how to find a solution.
After thinking for a while, I decided to start a business and named my project: GlacierMD.
In the next 9 months, I quit my business and wrote more than 200,000 linesCode, hired five contractors, and founded the company, designed the product, purchased clinical trial data at its own cost of $ 40,000, and established its own GlacierMD database.
In July 2018, GlacierMD conducted data analysis of the world’s largest depression network using data from 846 trials, exceeding the previous analysis of 522 trials conducted by Cipriani.
Originally, this should be a good milestone. I seem to have seen the path to Silicon Valley, and it seems that the vision of technology to make the world a better place can also be realized.
But, two weeks later, GlacierMD died. Why at this juncture I want to make such a decision, please see my entrepreneurial story.
When deciding to resign and start a business, my former boss told me that it looks like your business idea is very good and can bring huge benefits to people. I am grateful for the recognition of the former boss and feel that there is an important responsibility on my shoulders.
After I resigned, I drew various complicated diagrams on the whiteboard, clarified the design and ideas of the product, wrote the code at an amazing speed, and hired a group of contractors to help me enter the data of clinical trials into my database. . Of course, I also designed the trademark, registered the domain name, and everything went on track.
When I completed my first MVP product, I showed it to the product owner of the previous company and listened to it. I expected to see his satisfied or approving eyes, but he only shrugged after reading.
He said: “Many people will ask medical questions on the Internet, and many people answer. Then why should I believe that your product and the answer you give are the best?”
I explained the database I built and showed how scientific the method I used was.
But his response is: “The statistical method you use is good, but no user understands this bunch of complicated technical terms and the principles behind it. You need a doctor (endorsement).”
He is right. In order to build trust, I need to be recognized by people who everyone trusts.
I use my network as much as possible, trying to find some reliable doctors to be my company’s consultants and become endorsements. What I can offer them is their own company’s shares (1%) and the PR exposure on their website.
In the end, I got the support of four doctors, and this level of trust was preliminarysolve. And in the process, my family and friends expressed their approval for what I was doing, and even I have started to get some favorable comments on the Internet. Many netizens like the service I provide.
But I didn’t expect there was another difficulty waiting for me.
Although my service has been well received and there are some initial users, the users have no intention to pay. I want to make more money through advertising after getting more users, because WebMD, the world’s largest health website, uses this model, and it can earn $ 0.5 per user per year.
But the reality obviously does not allow me to do this. The existing funds may not be enough to guide GlacierMD in that direction; my rent, the fee paid to the contractor, and the fee paid to AWS all make the cash burn quickly. It forced me to get more income earlier.
Especially those contractors, who think they are getting better and better, have asked me for a raise, and threatened to stop working if I do n’t. In order to keep the project running, I took a look at the balance in my account and gritted my teeth to promise a raise, but at this rate of spending money, my account balance will return to zero within a few weeks.
In order for the company to survive, I was forced to learn quickly as a programmer and transfer myself to a sales expert. I have to find someone who pays for my products and services. I first thought of doctors, who are richer and might pay for a custom web meta-analysis.
I first found a psychologist named Susan and showed her an online meta-analysis of medications for depression. She showed great interest in this, and then I asked the key phrase: How much will you pay for this service?
Her response was disappointing: “I’m not sure if I have the budget, especially if the cost is reasonable, because no matter what medicine I prescribe, my patients won’t To pay more, I have to bear the extra costs myself. “
This is far from my expectation. The assumption I originally thought was: If my service can improve the health of patients, then whether it is a doctor or a hospital, it is possible to pay. But the reality is that I have taken into account the interests of patients, but have not taken into account the interests of doctors and hospitals. They have paid more for their costs, but they may not have earned more.
After Dr. Susan, I made more than 10 attempts, hoping to get different feedback and get some income. Unfortunately, almost everyone gave a similar answer to Susan: My service is really good, but they will not allocate a budget for this.
So, in July 2018, after starting the GlacierMD project for 9 months and spending $ 40,000, I had to close it. I fired the contractor, archived the database, shut down the server, and officially started the business.bundle.
“Do something that people want”, this is a golden sentence in the field of entrepreneurship. It means that if you make something amazing, you will find a way to make money from it.
Now I make what people want, consumers need it, and doctors want it. But I ca n’t make money. What am I doing wrong?
I later learned the full meaning of this sentence: For a startup to be successful, the product must create value for all stakeholders involved in the transaction (target customers, the company and its partners). Being all stakeholders, you can’t just create value for users. This is a charity. Nor can you create value for your company. This is a scam. Your goal is to build a mechanism and model that creates value for customers, users, and yourself.
After realizing this, I found that I wasted a lot of time. If I was able to figure out not only the way GlacierMD provides value to users but also the way to provide value to the company and customers, I may find customers like doctors, hospitals, or insurance companies faster, and the company may not die so quickly.
A few months after I started my business, a friend of mine came to me to talk about his business idea. The content was to let users upload selfies to the database, and then use AI to quickly retrieve them in the database.
I told him it was fun. But my actual thought is: This product or service only creates value for users, but does not create value for the company. It has no established business model, so it is not optimistic about it.
This article is compiled from Medium by Alpha Commune, and the original author is entrepreneur C Tom Cleveland.