Reposted by Paul Chang
I wrote something about building systems people actually want as an academic in ML. It's pretty much an open letter to 6-months-ago me.
magnusross.github.io/posts/moms-m...
magnusross.github.io
Moms, Models and Medicine | Magnus Ross
A good friend of mine is deep in the world of startups and spends a lot of his time doing idea validation—that is, trying to understand if there is a market for a given idea or product. Despite the fact that in the startup world success is eventually judged by sales or profits, whereas in ML4H it is more likely to be adoption by clinicians and, hopefully, an associated improvement in clinical outcomes, both rely on designing something that people actually want and will use. Therefore, I think many of the tools that help entrepreneurs validate ideas can be repurposed to help researchers undertake projects with real impact.
