What the Healthcare Industry Can Learn From Technology Start-Ups

This is an interesting post on The Health Care Blog, by David Shaywitz: What the Healthcare Industry can learn from Technology Start-ups:

I’ve been struck by some of the profound differences between a tech start-up (even one ostensibly in the healthcare space) and a biopharma start-up. In the standard biopharma model, you spend years developing a product, without having any real idea of (a) whether it will work, (b) whether it will be safe and well-tolerated, and (c) whether by the time you’ve demonstrated (a) and (b), anyone will care, or pay you for your efforts.

In contrast, [tech startup] MassiveHealth has managed to get a product in customer hands after a few months of work. True, they’ve probably not made any money thus far, and (not insignificantly) it’s entirely unclear whether they have, or will ever impact anyone’s health, massively or otherwise. Nevertheless, they have an extraordinarily powerful opportunity, at this very early stage, and after spending (I suspect) very little money, to learn, gather feedback, iterate, and explore.

The ability to launch early with a minimum viable product and immediately get feedback and iterate is so valuable.  This is one of the things that has allowed online services to flourish, they can change must faster than desktop software.  A key trend and most interesting to watch.