What is the next minimal viable category?

In his book Zero to One. PayPay founder Peter Thiel, reviews the Dot.com boom and bust of September 1998-March 2000. He goes on to explain that as a result of the crash, N1 thinkers (more of the same but maybe better, smarter, faster or cheaper) believe:

1. Incremental innovation is better and safer than disruptive innovation
2. Stay lean and flexible
3. Improve on the competition
4. Focus on the product, not sales

On the other hand, he encourages N0 to 1 entrepreneurs (contrarians) to follow the opposite principles:

1. It is better to risk boldness than triviality i.e. go big or go home
2. A bad plan is better than no plan
3. Competitive markets drive commoditization and destroy profits
4. Sales matters just as much as profits.

We are in the midst of AI exuberance. Whether it is a bubble or not remains to be seen, but it seems that more and more me-too AI products are getting fewer and fewer clinical improvement results at scale. When was the last time your insurance premiums went down or you changed your behavior when it comes to bad health habits like diet, exercise, relaxation, prevention and compliance? What about that last experience you had trying to find a doctor on the weekend or a place to park?

According to the Beryl Institute, 70% of patients will share a positive experience with others. But your bigger risk is that 76% will share a negative one. And with a negative experience, 43% of patients won’t go back to that provider, with 37% finding a different doctor altogether. That is, if they can find one who will agree to see them.

It's time you start thinking about creating contrarian new sickcare product and service minimal viable categories instead of chasing the competition that results in a race to the bottom by creating minimal viable products.

But, do you really want to take on Facebook? Or Epic?

Bruce Cleveland has some tips on creating minimal viable categories and how to close the traction gap.

While there is a case for sickcare incremental improvement, the system is so sick it will take a generation of physician entrepreneur zero to one contrarians to fix it.

The Thiel-Tolsty version is that all happy companies are different: each one earns a monopoly by solving a unique problem. All failed companies are the same: they failed to escape the competition. We can't keep putting new wine in old bottles.

Arlen Meyers, MD, MBA is the President and CEO of the Society of Physician Entrepreneurs