I realize this is a US-centric view, but since so many startups are US based, i'll present it anyway...
Health and medicine startups are really difficult. Not impossible, but the forces are all stacked against you. I hope and pray some startups can succeed, but the system in the US is set up to perpetuate the broken healthcare system. Sometimes, I feel efficiency and health are almost not a goal.
I realize this is vague, but I've learned this lesson the hard way. I'm on year-3 of a health startup full-time. We actually moved overseas to trail the product in a single-payer nation. The single-payer system offers incentives generally aligned across all parties. In the US, many incentives are antagonistic, making it difficult to sell products. Please the insurer and you piss off the hospital. Please the hospital and you piss off the doctor. Lower costs and you piss off the hospital and doctor. Ect, etc.
It is easy to make products, but difficult to find buyers even when there is obvious value. Perhaps this will change with ACOs. Most successful startups in healthcare I've seen operate on the periphery or actually mold to ease the broken system itself (e.g., Castlight Health)
We moved [temporarily] to Qatar. We tried to sell our solutions in the US for a year w/o any success. We have spent the past two years in Qatar and have achieved far more traction and government-level engagement. The market here is small, but large enough to prove out concepts.
The obvious angle would be to prove efficacy and then try again to sell in the US (both my co-founder and I were both and raised in the US so we'd love to move back.) Another angle might be to try and sell in the UK or other single payer systems that are closer to home.
Health and medicine startups are really difficult. Not impossible, but the forces are all stacked against you. I hope and pray some startups can succeed, but the system in the US is set up to perpetuate the broken healthcare system. Sometimes, I feel efficiency and health are almost not a goal.
I realize this is vague, but I've learned this lesson the hard way. I'm on year-3 of a health startup full-time. We actually moved overseas to trail the product in a single-payer nation. The single-payer system offers incentives generally aligned across all parties. In the US, many incentives are antagonistic, making it difficult to sell products. Please the insurer and you piss off the hospital. Please the hospital and you piss off the doctor. Lower costs and you piss off the hospital and doctor. Ect, etc.
It is easy to make products, but difficult to find buyers even when there is obvious value. Perhaps this will change with ACOs. Most successful startups in healthcare I've seen operate on the periphery or actually mold to ease the broken system itself (e.g., Castlight Health)