[rglovejoy]

The problem here is that the real customers are the health insurance companies, Medicare, and the VA. They don't care about being delighted, they want inexpensive and rugged devices.

That's the problem Dean Kamen had with his iBOT wheelchair. They were very cool and their users loved them, but they went for something like $25,000 each and likely needed frequent maintenance.

[refurb]

Yup, if you’ve every watched network TV and seen the “Did you know Medicare will pay for X?” and wondered why, it’s exactly this.

If you want Medicare to pay for a product, you need a positive Coverage Determination. And if you get it, you just opened up a 50M person market (obviously a subset, since not everyone will need it) and all you need is the patient to say to their doctor “I want that” and it’s paid for.

It’s a heavily front loaded business, but if can get reimbursement, it’s basically paid for, you just need customers to ask for it (I’m obviously simplifying, since it varies by product type, but medical equipment is a great example).

[wtracy]

Which is why a lot of the real money is in products that have wide appeal for non-disabled users.

This is where most of the bizarre "as seen on TV" products come from: The inventor made a tool for people with disabilities, found that the target market wasn't large enough to sustain a business, and frantically tried to pivot. Pivoting is hard when you already have a large inventory of hard products.

If you can build something that able-bodied people are not only willing to use but willing to pay extra for, then you're good to go.

[afarrell]

yep, this is my argument