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Comment by ryporter | Hacker News Reader

I agree that there a huge opportunity for improvement in mental health treatment. However, I'll be blunt: you seem woefully underprepared for this undertaking. Your care for your girlfriend is admirable, but it was one single case. Without scientist co-founders with deep knowledge of this field, along with much more anecdotal evidence suggesting that your new approach will work, I don't think that your startup is remotely investable. Again, this isn't a personal attack; it's just my prediction of the response that you'll encounter if you go out and seek funding.

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Thanks for your comments. One of my goals is to "falsify" the current approach to mental health. It shouldn't take much to embarrass the medical system into fixing itself.

Before this case, I had another who was a hopeless alcoholic. 15-16 years ago she took herself off methamphetamine, then the anxiety started. Her doctor gave a prescription for Xanax, then some other parents at her son's hockey game shared their Vodka/grape juice. Her thinking then was, "What do I need Xanax for, when I have Schmirnoff?" I met her about 3 years ago. She'd tried to stay sober after 2 years in prison for her 3rd DUI. But then life happened, she couldn't handle it, and started drinking again. She is doing quite well now.

I do have other things going that I haven't mentioned here. I manufacture a few niche-market items. One weekend I had a flood of orders - a radio show host had told his audience to search for a specific term that my site is on the 1st page of results for. The HN audience is not my target market, so I don't want to link there now. ("A startup should give its competitors as little information as possible." - http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html )

Years ago I tried manufacturing the supplement that's been helpful for my girlfriend, but I didn't know how to market it, and what I'd manufactured wasn't quite as good as the original version sold by someone else. I gave a bottle away to a woman who needed it. When I called a few days later, she said "THAT STUFF REALLY WORKS!" When I called back months later, her sister said that she was in the state's psychiatric hospital. Supplements don't fix everything, especially when poverty is a factor.

I want to file an New Drug Application (NDA) with the FDA, so I could manufacture that supplement as a gel-cap, and then get FDA approval for a little claim, such as "improves memory", or another claim that is very valuable to a certain target market. Then I'd branch out into other uses.

The $20,000 for this HN fellowship is not a lot of money. I'd buy a camera, a wireless microphone, and probably spend most of the funds on travel expenses. Access to the ycombinator platform would be much more valuable, and is not available at any price.

I would also leverage the fellowship to solicit some people I know as investors. I'd want the corporation set up before I go around asking for money.

That inspires a bit more confidence, but it actually does take a lot to embarrass the medical system into fixing itself. Many, many people have written indictments of the medical system. Based on recent events surrounding drug prices, it takes a congressional hearing to effect change. :)

For your startup, I suggest that you first convince a couple people who are from the medical system to be (informal) advisers. There are just so many "miracle cures" out there, created by charlatans (or worse). As a potential investor, I wouldn't even initiate due diligence unless you had already convinced a couple doctors or researchers from respected hospitals or universities that your company could succeed.

> I wouldn't even initiate due diligence unless you had already convinced a couple doctors or researchers from respected hospitals or universities that your company could succeed.

There is much inertia in maintaining the status quo. What you say here about 'convincing doctors or researchers' is a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem. It's being worked on by a Psychologist (PhD) I know and his colleagues, but the progress is glacial.

Soon after my girlfriend got siphoned off into that world where the patients never get better (court-ordered treatment), I emailed the president of an organization of changework professionals whom I'd had a session with months before. His organization is on the fringe of acceptability to the broader sphere of conventionally-practicing psychologists and psychiatrists. I wanted to draw attention to the plight of people who get stuck in the care of people who think they're more competent than they really are. He wrote back to tell me that "the missionaries get eaten by the cannibals," which I thought was a good point.

Now we're at the point where I can join the hecklers, and also share my insights. It's been about 6 weeks since her last discharge. The injected Aripiprazole (brand name: "Abilify", which is sold as an "anti-psychotic") wore off 2 weeks ago. She is now unmedicated and hasn't slipped back into psychosis like the professionals were sure would happen if she didn't take their brain-shrinking drugs. Last week she was hired for a real job, and started training today. It's a low-skill position, but it's just right for her at this time.

There is a regular stream of submissions on HN about mental health, so I know there's interest. I have an idea...

Thanks again!

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