u/illogicalFit

I've taken my idea as far as I can. It does not have a lot of revenue, but it's a good idea that could potentially scale (100+ paying customers).

(For the sake of these questions, assume it's a good startup idea, please)

I know I would need to hire hardware engineering + commercial growth. How do I know the idea is good enough to actually bring on other people? I know I need commerical/hardware people, but how exactly do I communicate my vision to them + what I want them to do? Or is it more of a team effort? Can anyone here share their experience actually working on a startup team?

I've taken my idea as far as a I can. It does not have a lot of revenue, but it's a good idea that could potentially scale (10+ paying customers)

I know I would need hardware engineering + commercial growth. How do I know the idea is good enough to actually bring on other people? I know I need commerical/hardware people, but how exactly do I communicate my vision to them + what I want them to do? Or is it more of a team effort? Can anyone here share their experience actually working on a startup team?

Does anyone else feel a sense of despair about marketing products on social media? Feels like everything is an ad nowadays. Even with tactics like "influencer marketing" that aim to build trust, it's clearly an ad. Or, like if you post a video vlog about "building in public" - isn't it obvious you're trying to sell something?

I could just be bad at marketing - but please, I'm looking for what TO do. Certainly it's possible to sell things and stand out? Feels like every piece of content has been created already...

Does anyone else feel a sense of despair about marketing products on social media? Feels like everything is an ad nowadays. Even with tactics like "influencer marketing" that aim to build trust, it's clearly an ad. Or, like if you post a video vlog about "building in public" - isn't it obvious you're trying to sell something?

I could just be bad at marketing - but please, I'm looking for what TO do. Certainly it's possible to sell things?

Hi All - how realistic can I pivot from my current role in professorship? What would it take?

I have 7+ years of industry experience working at a start-up in the medical technology field and an undergraduate degree in biomedical engineering. I am drawn to academia because I like working on projects and I'm very self-directed. I also led product training here, and I can really see myself teaching students in advanced coursework such as physics or chemistry. I did some nanoscience research during my undergraduate, but stopped when I joined an underfunded lab.

Is it realistic for me to get a job at a large school where I can do research and teach and continue to build technologies in the bioengineering field? What's the pay like? Can it be good? Where do I even start?

Alternatively, I could maybe get another job in industry - I am just finding the industry jobs available with my background incredibly niche and hard to come by. I do love science too.

I'm tired of working in isolation at a little start-up company, and the structure seems nice!

Hi All - how realistic can I pivot from my current role in professorship? What would it take?

I have 7+ years of industry experience working at a start-up in the medical technology field and an undergraduate degree in biomedical engineering. I am drawn to academia because I like working on projects and I'm very self-directed. I also led product training here, and I can really see myself teaching students in advanced coursework such as physics or chemistry. I did some nanoscience research during undergraduate, but stopped when I joined an underfunded lab.

Is it realistic for me to get a job a large school where I can do research and teach and continue to build technologies in the bioengineering field? What's the pay like? Can it be good? Where do I even start?

I'm tired of working in isolation at a little start-up company and the structure seems nice!

Hi All - I feel like I am a classic engineer who has created something they don't know how to sell .... 😂

I am very passionate about the product. It is a mental health tool for the management of challenging behaviors like skin picking, doom scrolling, and anxiety. It can be used by yourself or with a therapist for better data tracking.

What advice can you give me on marketing this product? I know people out there struggle with things; I just get very lost and overwhelmed when I try to "market" and just feel like I am pushing people away when I approach them with another "solution" - is this the problem of wellness marketing? Or what I'm doing wrong?

I was under the assumption that if there is a "solution" (my app) to a "problem" (nail biting) - then people will buy. This does not seem to be the case, but why?

Hi All - I feel like I am a classic engineer who has created something they don't know how to sell .... 😂

I am very passionate about the product. It is a mental health tool for the management of challenging behaviors like skin picking, doom scrolling, and anxiety. It can be used by yourself or with a therapist for better data tracking.

What advice can you give me on marketing this product? I know people out there struggle with things; I just get very lost and overwhelmed when I try to "market" and just feel like I am pushing people away when I approach them with another "solution" - is this the problem of wellness marketing? Or what I'm doing wrong?

I was under the assumption that if there is a "solution" (my app) to a "problem" (nail biting) - then people will buy. This does not seem to be the case, but why?

Hi All - I feel like I am a classic engineer who has created something they don't know how to sell .... 😂

I am very passionate about the product. It is a mental health tool for the management of challenging behaviors like skin picking, doom scrolling, and anxiety. It can be used by yourself or with a therapist for better data tracking.

What advice can you give me on marketing this product? I know people out there struggle with things; I just get very lost and overwhelmed when I try to "market" and just feel like I am pushing people away when I approach them with another "solution" - is this the problem of wellness marketing? Or what I'm doing wrong?

I was under the assumption that if there is a "solution" (my app) to a "problem" (nail biting) - then people will buy. This does not seem to be the case, but why?

Hi All - I've been working at a BME at a start-up in the Orthotics & Prosthetics Industry for the past 7+ years. I've learned a lot about entrepreneurship, products, and business to build on my BME skillset. It's been okay; I helped scale the company to 250+ clinics so it's been a good exercise in new ventures. But still, pay is low, and hours are not stable. Where do you think would be a good place to pivot? I do like the idea/vibe of the field, but looking for somewhere new to go, and I'd like to bring what I know into something else. Where is the money here?

Hi All - I've been working at a BME at a start-up in the Orthotics & Prosthetics Industry for the past 7+ years. I've learned a lot about entrepreneurship, products, and business to build on my BME skillset. It's been okay; I helped scale the company to 250+ clinics so it's been a good exercise in new ventures. But still, pay is low, and hours are not stable. Where do you think would be a good place to pivot? I do like the idea/vibe of the field, but looking for somewhere new to go, and I'd like to bring what I know into something else. Where is the money here?

Does anyone else feel an impending sense of doom when it comes to building Saas/Apps in the age of AI? Feels like we are 6-12 months away from literally anyone being able to build a personal website/app for themselves, automating exactly what the SaaS company founders set out to do.

They say to "focus on distribution", but won't AI/Claude wrappers make it so that the distribution of once-complex-to-build software is complete with a simple prompt?

Hi All - I am wondering about your thoughts on whether or not it is a personal issue to "build better food-eating habits while on/tapering off a GLP-1"

While I am not personally taking a GLP-1, my understanding is that food cravings resurface once the dose diminishes - is this the case (i.e. food noise)? If so, is this something you are concerned about managing?

I was originally pointed to this by my Uncle. He is worried about staying on the medication for life; therefore, he is trying to taper his dose and wants to practice how to manage food noise when it returns for him.

Hi All - I am wondering about your thoughts on whether or not it is a personal issue to "build better food-eating habits while tapering off Ozempic"

I am working on a project designed to help curb cravings through the practice of "urge surfing". While I am not personally taking Ozempic, my understanding is that food cravings resurface once the dose diminishes - is this the case (i.e. food noise)? If so, is this something you are concerned about managing?

I was originally pointed to this by my Uncle. He is worried about staying on the medication for life, therefore, he is trying to taper his dose and wants to practice how to manage food noise when it returns for him.

Hi All - I am wondering about your thoughts on whether or not it is a personal issue to "build better food-eating habits while tapering off Ozempic"

I am working on a project designed to help curb cravings through the practice of "urge surfing". While I am not personally taking Ozempic, my understanding is that food cravings resurface once the dose diminishes - is this the case (i.e. food noise)? If so, is this something you are concerned about managing?

I was originally pointed to this by my Uncle. He is worried about staying on the medication for life; therefore, he is trying to taper his dose and wants to practice how to manage food noise when it returns for him.

Hi All - I am wondering about your thoughts on whether or not it is a personal issue to "build better food-eating habits while tapering off Ozempic"

I am working on a project designed to help curb cravings through the practice of "urge surfing". While I am not personally taking Ozempic, my understanding is that food cravings resurface once the dose diminishes - is this the case (i.e. food noise)? If so, is this something you are concerned about managing?

I was originally pointed to this by my Uncle. He is worried about staying on the medication for life, therefore, he is trying to taper his dose and wants to practice how to manage food noise when it returns for him.

There is a lot of research about how wearable biosensors/video streams can predict aggressive behavior in autism spectrum disorder (citations attached).

I am wondering if it would be a good idea to leverage these principles to make a new system that automatically tracks behavior. In my head, you would tap "record" on a video camera, or use a wearable, that uses pattern recognition to detect maladaptive behaviors during the session for automatic recording. It would not work for all behaviors, but maybe a handful of some that are easier to detect like aggression, elopement, flopping, skin/nose picking, property destruction, etc.

Would this be better or more useful than current data collection apps? Seems like they would be similar at the end of the day, but this new proposed system would be automatic. Would that be helpful?

For HIPAA, all data would turn into anonymous counts/frequency/duration data following analysis of the patient. Then, it can be linked back to the patient's chart with a unique identifier later on.

I am a biomedical engineer; here are some sources of researchers exploring this topic:

• Kartha, Y., Anderson, C., Foster, J., Hamlin, T., Lantz, J., Lay, R., Hahn, J., Clifford, G. D., & Kwon, H. (2025). Prediction of challenging behaviors associated with profound autism in a classroom setting using wearable sensors. Proceedings of the ACM on Measurement and Analysis of Computing Systems, 37(4), Article 111. arXiv:2605.17618. https://arxiv.org/html/2605.17618
• Imbiriba, T., Demirkaya, A., Singh, A., Erdogmus, D., & Goodwin, M. S. (2023). Wearable biosensing to predict imminent aggressive behavior in psychiatric inpatient youths with autism. JAMA Network Open, 6(12), e2348898. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.48898
• Rad, A. B., Villavicencio, T., Kiarashi, Y., Anderson, C., Foster, J., Kwon, H., Hamlin, T., Lantz, J., & Clifford, G. D. (2025). From motion to emotion: Exploring challenging behaviors in autism spectrum disorder through analysis of wearable physiology and movement. Physiological Measurement, 46(1), 015004. https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6579/ada51b
• Vyas, K., Chawla, M., Jha, D., Shah, M., & Bhatia, S. (2019). Recognition of stereotypical motor movements in autism using video-based analysis. In Proceedings of the IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Workshops (CVPRW) (pp. 2165–2173). https://doi.org/10.1109/CVPRW.2019.00274