I wasted $40k on a fantastic startup idea

A few points come to mind:

1. Good thing he wasted $40k that he actually had rather than $400k he might have borrowed. Of course you could argue that "no risk no reward", but still.

2. The idea itself seems to stem from a weird US-consumer-centric bubble. More specifically

  * "Pain killers"? Those medications have different active ingredients with different effects, only part of which is some kind of pain (and not a single kind). Some are anti-inflammatory, some are analegsic etc. Those are really different things.
  
  * Different people have different reactions to medication, even within the same group of active ingredients. One is better served by choosing medication based on past experience is similar situations.

  * If it's not clear what you should be taking, you probably want to have a doctor examine the entirety of your symptoms and make recommendations.

  * If some kind of medication is consistently superior to another for almost all people and scenarios, the superior one will likely drown out the inferior one in terms of availability and public awareness. The popularity of multiple kinds of medication usually (?) indicates they are preferable in different scenarios.

3. When I first saw what the novelty was supposed to be, I was unimpressed. I mean, ok, it's not trivial to do statistical analysis in R - but it seems like anyone with some R and statistics experience can do it. It doesn't seem like there's a lot of secret sauce. There might still be commercial viability here, but it's at best risky.

4. What was the initial business plan? Revenue model? Who was supposed to pay for what? Specifically, suppose one person paid for a recommendation for pain medication. Ok, so they got it - but it's not going to be a secret. It's now public.