The graveyard of good ideas
Solutions that were tried, and what stopped them.
Patents that were rejected or abandoned, products that shut down, projects that went quiet. Borrow the idea, avoid the dead end.
1,095 solutions
- startupShut down2021
Launch HN: Litnerd (YC S21) – Teaching kids to read with the help of live actors
Hi HN, my name is Anisa and I am the founder of Litnerd ( https://litnerd.com/ ), an online reading program designed to teach elementary school students in America how to read. There are 37M elementary school students in America. Schools spend $20B on reading and supplemental education programs. Yet 42% of 4th grade students are reading at a 1st or 2nd grade proficiency level! The #1 reason students aren’t reading? They say it’s boring. We change that by bringing books to life. Think your favorite book turned into a tv-show style episode-by-episode reenactment, coupled with a complete curriculum and lesson plans. 1 in 8 Americans is functionally illiterate. Like any skill, reading is a habit. If you grew up in a household where you did not see your parents reading, you likely do not develop the habit. This correlates to the socio-economic divide. Two thirds of American stu
Why it failed: Hi HN, my name is Anisa and I am the founder of Litnerd ( https://litnerd.com/ ), an online reading program designed to teach elementary school students in America how to read. There are 37M elementary school students in America. Schools spend $20B on reading and s
Anisa_Mirza
- startupShut down2021
Launch HN: Feroot (YC W21) – security scanner for front-end JavaScript code
Hi HN! I'm Ivan, the co-founder of Feroot Security (YC W21) ( https://www.feroot.com/ ). Feroot Inspector is a security scanner for the client-side javascript code of web apps made for app sec teams. If you're not testing the security of the client-side code of your web app, there’s a good chance you could be exposed to Magecart skimmers, malware and spyware loaded with third-party scripts - css, pixels, tags, trackers, and more. We use synthetic users (i.e. bots—good ones!) to detect keyloggers, spyware, security misconfigurations, vulnerabilities, anomalies in the client-side code of web applications. Simulating activities that real users do, our scanner triggers all code activities first. And then it performs security testing and assessments of actual JavaScript code and everything else that is loaded into the browser when your users are using your web app. Pr
Why it failed: Hi HN! I'm Ivan, the co-founder of Feroot Security (YC W21) ( https://www.feroot.com/ ). Feroot Inspector is a security scanner for the client-side javascript code of web apps made for app sec teams. If you're not testing the security of the client-side c
ivan_tsarynny
- startupShut down2021
Launch HN: Navattic (YC W21) – Shareable demos for selling your SaaS product
Hi HN! Neil, Chris, and Randy here, co-founders of Navattic ( https://navattic.com/ ). We help you create better product demos to sell your SaaS application. With our software, you can create a shareable copy of your application, add guided tours, and send it out via a distinct link. Regardless of how you feel about Oracle, they're masters of the enterprise sales process, yet we were sales engineers there and even we were struggling to demo SaaS products to customers effectively. Day in and out we delivered product demos to prospects, but we didn’t have a great response when the prospect wanted to get hands on with the product. We then hit the phones and spoke to 200+ SaaS companies and learned that this is a widespread problem. Typically, SaaS companies are limited to the following options: share an unguided sandbox that requires setup and training, provide a trial (
Why it failed: Hi HN! Neil, Chris, and Randy here, co-founders of Navattic ( https://navattic.com/ ). We help you create better product demos to sell your SaaS application. With our software, you can create a shareable copy of your application, add guided tours, and send it out v
nrmclean
- startupShut down2021
Ask HN: Fraudulent Google DMCA takedowns – What to do?
Hi HN, We’re a startup and have recently been victim of a series of repeated fraudulent DMCA takedown requests filed with Google against our website, a popular regional/niche (Persian) media platform called arzdigital.com which is very dear to us. https://transparencyreport.google.com/copyright/domains/arzd... Each time this happens, lots of our website links are delisted (currently 45 Urls) from Google and hobbles our business. Despite DMCA notifications being sworn statements filed under penalty of perjury, the reporter is making an entirely baseless/false claim using a (presumable) fake name, disposable email, and VPN, so while submitting them is a crime, our website is still delisted. (They’re claiming copyright over our logo, which is completely bogus.) This amounts to a legally-specified denial-of-service, as I understand Google has limited discre
Why it failed: Hi HN, We’re a startup and have recently been victim of a series of repeated fraudulent DMCA takedown requests filed with Google against our website, a popular regional/niche (Persian) media platform called arzdigital.com which is very dear to us. https://transpare
arzdigital
- startupShut down2021
Ask HN: Advice for finding an entry-level remote job?
Hi HN, I realize this isn't super on topic but I also feel like this is the best place I know of to ask for this advice, so here goes. I need some entry-level, remote-based work. What should I do? Help desk work seems the most promising / practical, but I haven't been able to find anything yet. The remote jobs I see posted are nearly all for higher-end positions. I live in the poorest region of the United States, but I do the best with what I have. I’ve worked on my family’s farm and done a couple stints at retail beauty supply shops that friends own. I helped open two of those shops. That’s the extent of my non-existent resume. Given a chance to interview, I believe I would do ok. Maybe even exceed expectations for the sort of job I'm looking for. I need to work remotely for family reasons. I have a special-needs sister and I look after my youngest brother. They are
Why it failed: Hi HN, I realize this isn't super on topic but I also feel like this is the best place I know of to ask for this advice, so here goes. I need some entry-level, remote-based work. What should I do? Help desk work seems the most promising / practical, but I haven't b
AskHNremote2021
- startupShut down2021
Launch HN: Turion Space (YC S21) – Space debris removal and satellite servicing
Hi HN, we're Ryan, Tyler, and Patryk, the founders of Turion Space ( https://www.turionspace.com/ ). We're building spacecraft to remove orbital debris and provide services to existing satellites. Orbital debris poses a significant risk to mankind's future in space. There are currently over 250k objects in space that would destroy a satellite if a collision were to occur. Large uncontrolled objects like depleted rocket upper stages and dead satellites pose the greatest risk because of the potential to break upon impact with small debris into thousands of smaller pieces. There is currently no system in operation that can deorbit large amounts of space debris. If this problem is not addressed in the next 5-10 years, it could render entire orbits unusable for generations. Our spacecraft (which we’ve decided to call the “Droid”, shoutout to Star Wars!) aims to r
Why it failed: Hi HN, we're Ryan, Tyler, and Patryk, the founders of Turion Space ( https://www.turionspace.com/ ). We're building spacecraft to remove orbital debris and provide services to existing satellites. Orbital debris poses a significant risk to mankind's
rwesterdahl
- startupShut down2021
Show HN: Spacelift – first all-in-one CI/CD for Infrastructure as Code
Hi HN! We are the team behind Spacelift (https://spacelift.io/). Spacelift is the CI/CD for infrastructure-as-code, be it Terraform, Pulumi, CloudFormation or Ansible (coming soon), and policy as code. It enables collaboration, automates manual work and compliance, and lets teams customize and automate their workflows. Here’s what you can do with Spacelift - Build sophisticated Git-based workflows - Use Open Policy Agent to declare rules around your infrastructure, access control, state changes, and more - Author and maintain reusable modules for your organization; we even have a full CI solution for modules to make sure they’re healthy - Declare who can log in (and under what circumstances) and what their level of access to each of the managed projects should be (SAML 2.0 SSO out of the box!) using login and access policies respectively - Use Spacelift’s trigger poli
Why it failed: Hi HN! We are the team behind Spacelift (https://spacelift.io/). Spacelift is the CI/CD for infrastructure-as-code, be it Terraform, Pulumi, CloudFormation or Ansible (coming soon), and policy as code. It enables collaboration, automates manual work and compli
cube2222
- startupShut down2021
Launch HN: PingPong (YC W21) – Video messaging for remote teams
Hi HN, I'm Jeff, co-founder and CEO of PingPong ( https://getpingpong.com ), where we help remote teams collaborate and stay connected by exchanging video, voice, and screen recordings asynchronously. Think of it as Marco Polo or Snapchat (sans ephemerality) for globally-distributed product teams. We got the idea from our own experience on a different startup. Murphy, the co-founder and CTO, lives in Nigeria, and I live in the US (Utah). We had five other team members spread across three countries and four time zones. The problem for me as a team leader was how to share my ideas, feelings, and updates in a way that felt authentic and conveyed energy. I felt like I was spending my entire life either typing in Slack or scheduling Zoom calls at terrible hours. I had been kicking around the idea for our product in my head for months. At some point, I began thinking more about
Why it failed: Hi HN, I'm Jeff, co-founder and CEO of PingPong ( https://getpingpong.com ), where we help remote teams collaborate and stay connected by exchanging video, voice, and screen recordings asynchronously. Think of it as Marco Polo or Snapchat (sans ephemerality) for gl
jeffwhitlock
- startupShut down2021
Launch HN: Slip (YC S21) – Build and sell interactive programming courses
Hi HN, I'm Kenneth and I'm the founder of Slip ( https://www.slip.so ), a marketplace for programmers to build and sell courses, including interactive elements like in-browser code execution, popular programming embeds (CodeSandbox, StackBlitz, Replit repls (Coming soon)), and videos. Instead of spending 3 or more months building their own course platform, developers can use Slip to create engaging interactive courses and make more money faster from their knowledge In January, I built vim.so in 3 days, and made $11k in my first month. I even did a Show HN for it ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25846347 ). I was able to do it in 3 days because I had previously spent 3 months building an interactive course for Python fundamentals. That previous experience reduced the time it took me to build a new course, which was the only reason it made sense to
Why it failed: Hi HN, I'm Kenneth and I'm the founder of Slip ( https://www.slip.so ), a marketplace for programmers to build and sell courses, including interactive elements like in-browser code execution, popular programming embeds (CodeSandbox, StackBlitz, Replit repls (C
CoffeePython
- startupShut down2021
Launch HN: BlackOakTV (YC S21) – Netflix for black people
Hi HN! We are Uzo and Iyanu, the founders of BlackOakTV ( https://beta.blackoak.tv ). BlackOakTV is a subscription video platform serving black audiences by making it easy for them to watch TV shows and movies that feature black stories and characters. Nearly three-quarters of Black people want to watch more content that portrays their lives and experiences (Target Market News, 2018), but they can't find enough of it, and when they do find it, it usually hasn't gotten the budget or development resources that more mainstream content does. When I grew up in the 90s, it seemed like black people had a relatively high number of TV shows to choose from like "Martin", "Living Single," and "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air". It felt good. I felt represented. Unfortunately, it turns out the 90s were an aberration, and over the next 2 decades, black con
Why it failed: Hi HN! We are Uzo and Iyanu, the founders of BlackOakTV ( https://beta.blackoak.tv ). BlackOakTV is a subscription video platform serving black audiences by making it easy for them to watch TV shows and movies that feature black stories and characters. Nearly three-quar
Uzo0312
- startupShut down2021
Ask HN: 27, accidentally became wealthy, lost drive. What should I do?
Hi everyone. I'm a random guy based in Munich who got accidentally wealthy and thus lost my drive for pretty much everything. After my Bachelor in CS I launched three startup, which all failed. So a year ago I decided to enroll in a Masters program at LMU at the age of 26. Back then I was living quite on the edge and thus was very motivated to ace my studies to get into a FAANG company. Around the same time I also invested all of the ETH I had at the time into an ICO, which turned out quite well for me. In early November I sold everything and after taxes I now own 7.5 million euros. A sum I would have never imagined. I have no idea what to do with the money. And I also have no idea what to do with my life now. I have not talked to anyone about it but I start to feel fatigued, even though I am not doing much. My motivation for my study is gone, I stopped working out, stopped reading
Why it failed: Hi everyone. I'm a random guy based in Munich who got accidentally wealthy and thus lost my drive for pretty much everything. After my Bachelor in CS I launched three startup, which all failed. So a year ago I decided to enroll in a Masters program at LMU at the age of 26. B
prelifecrisis
- startupShut down2021
Launch HN: Mezli (YC W21) – Robotic restaurants that serve healthy fast food
Hi folks, Alex here – I’m the CEO and one of the cofounders at Mezli ( https://www.mezli.com/ ). (I’ve also been a Hacker News lurker since high school and always hoped I’d be posting a Launch HN one day!) We make “auto-kitchens”, fully autonomous restaurants in a shipping container form factor. They serve our menu of Mediterranean grain bowls for pickup and delivery, at a low price point enabled by our approach’s low costs. The three of us met as grad students at Stanford where we were all working on different things – I was doing AI research before dropping out of my PhD, Alex G was in a robotics lab (and just finished his PhD!), and Max was in aero/astro. We worked on a variety of classes, research, and side projects together, but we wanted to start a company and none of our ideas were looking particularly commercially viable. Then, as I was winding down a project
Why it failed: Hi folks, Alex here – I’m the CEO and one of the cofounders at Mezli ( https://www.mezli.com/ ). (I’ve also been a Hacker News lurker since high school and always hoped I’d be posting a Launch HN one day!) We make “auto-kitchens”, fully autonomous restaurants in a
kolchinski
- startupShut down2021
Launch HN: Athens Research (YC W21) – Open-Source Roam Research
Hi Hacker News! My name is Jeff Tang and I'm the founder of Athens Research. Athens is an open-source and local-first alternative to Roam Research. Roam Research is a notetaking application, and what they really got right was the "bidirectional link." The problem with notetaking is that we don’t look back at 99% of our notes. Organization systems like PARA, BASB, and GTD can extend the shelf-life of information, but they’re mechanical and tedious to maintain. On the other hand, without a system, we just hope that search will one day have the answers. What comes after search, tags, and folders? With bidirectional links, you never have to worry about where you write a note. Bidirectional links allow you to connect any two notes together, creating a knowledge graph. Structure emerges organically, bottom-up. This way of joining any arbitrary entities together is a paradigm shi
Why it failed: Hi Hacker News! My name is Jeff Tang and I'm the founder of Athens Research. Athens is an open-source and local-first alternative to Roam Research. Roam Research is a notetaking application, and what they really got right was the "bidirectional link." The problem w
tangjeff0
- startupShut down2021
Launch HN: Bristle (YC W21) – At-home microbiome test to improve oral health
Hi Hacker News! We’re Danny, Shivam, David, and Brian from Bristle https://www.bristlehealth.com/ . We’re developing an at-home saliva test to detect the earliest signs of cavities and gum disease - then provide evidence-based recommendations and treatments to help prevent them. Cavities and gum disease are driven by infectious microbes, but today’s dental care only detects the damage they already caused. X-rays and observational screenings detect tooth decay and bleeding gums, which are symptoms, not causes. By the time they are detected, they’ve often become serious issues that require the invasive procedures we all dread - fillings and root canals. We end up spending billions of dollars reactively treating diseases that can largely be prevented with good oral health management. About us: Our backgrounds are on the research and commercial side of genomics. We have witnes
Why it failed: Hi Hacker News! We’re Danny, Shivam, David, and Brian from Bristle https://www.bristlehealth.com/ . We’re developing an at-home saliva test to detect the earliest signs of cavities and gum disease - then provide evidence-based recommendations and treatments to help
dannygrannick
- startupShut down2021
Ask HN: Google is confusing me with others in a harmful way – what can I do?
Hi Hacker News, I’m Andrea and I have a strange problem with Google that I’m wondering if any of you here can advise about. It’s affecting several people with the same name as me, whose lives are being impacted. In January 2021, I published a non-fiction book about a difficult, traumatic topic: my victimization and sex crimes that I witnessed toward other women. Because I am a victim, I chose not to put a photo of myself online. In fact, I have never ever taken a selfie nor had a photo of myself online. Four months after I published my book, Google created a knowledge panel for me and, because I didn’t have a photo online, they just grabbed a photo of another Andrea Vassell who lives in Canada and displayed it alongside my book and claimed this woman was the author. After spending weeks sending feedback and trying to get help from Google support, they finally deleted the woman’s photo, b
Why it failed: Hi Hacker News, I’m Andrea and I have a strange problem with Google that I’m wondering if any of you here can advise about. It’s affecting several people with the same name as me, whose lives are being impacted. In January 2021, I published a non-fiction book about a difficult, t
AndreaVass
- startupShut down2021
Launch HN: Govly (YC S21) – Making it easier to sell to the U.S. government
Hi, we're Mike, Jon and Nick, founders of Govly ( https://www.govly.com ). We’re building a place for companies, resellers, and distributors to work together to bid on government contracts. The U.S. government buys lots of things. In 2021, over $218B will be spent purchasing technology products alone. The problem is, it's super confusing to participate in the market. You have to understand the rules, have the right connections to government contractors, have a record of strong performance selling to the government, and usually a sales force focused specifically on government sales. This friction leads to fewer companies (especially smaller companies) participating, less competition, and ultimately the government buying the loudest or most insider-connected products instead of the best or most innovative. Jon and I have been experiencing this problem for the last 15 ye
Why it failed: Hi, we're Mike, Jon and Nick, founders of Govly ( https://www.govly.com ). We’re building a place for companies, resellers, and distributors to work together to bid on government contracts. The U.S. government buys lots of things. In 2021, over $218B will be spent
mikeweiland
- startupShut down2021
Launch HN: FirstIgnite (YC S21) – Matching scientists with relevant businesses
Hi, HN! I’m Cody Pawlowski and my co-founder is Chase Bonhag and we’re FirstIgnite ( https://firstignite.com/ ). We help researchers at universities connect with companies interested in funding or licensing their research. Currently, a vast majority of all research goes uncommercialized. This includes everything from new cancer therapies to energy storage improvements and other solutions to universal problems. By connecting research to relevant companies, we increase the probability that research will be commercialized. We met while I was running a natural language processing startup at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Chase was working at Illinois Ventures, the venture capital arm of the university. U of I conducted over $900M a year worth of research, much of which was going uncommercialized. Because university research portfolios are massive, diverse, and
Why it failed: Hi, HN! I’m Cody Pawlowski and my co-founder is Chase Bonhag and we’re FirstIgnite ( https://firstignite.com/ ). We help researchers at universities connect with companies interested in funding or licensing their research. Currently, a vast majority of all research
codypilot
- startupShut down2021
Ask HN: Is it unprofessional to leave a new job where everything is a mess?
Hi, after a long job hunting period I joined a small remote first company 5 months ago. Problems showed up immediately in the form of chaos and dysfunctions in the microservices cloud project I was hired in. Let's put it this way: say you get the seminal book on microservices and the seminal book on CICD. Now imagine reading along and doing almost everything from code up to project management the wrong way (essentially keeping on-prem 2000's philosophy and revamp it as microservices). On top of that add vendeta-developers in Asia (I'm in a small offshoot team in Europe) handing down half-baked frameworks (not-invented-here and reinventing the wheel are strong) with minimal documentation and a culture based on meetings instead of documenting things. Developer sandboxes that just don't work and unrealistic deadlines. In short a huge draining mess where I felt burnt out
Why it failed: Hi, after a long job hunting period I joined a small remote first company 5 months ago. Problems showed up immediately in the form of chaos and dysfunctions in the microservices cloud project I was hired in. Let's put it this way: say you get the seminal book on microservice
itistricky
- startupShut down2021
Launch HN: Infracost (YC W21) – open-source cloud cost estimator
Hi, we’re Ali, Hassan and Alistair and we co-founded Infracost ( https://www.infracost.io ). Infracost is an open-source cloud cost estimator for your pull requests. When you change your infrastructure code (Terraform), Infracost posts a comment in the pull request, which tells you the impact of this change to your cloud bill, e.g. “this will increase your bill by 25% next month”. Existing cloud cost management products focus on post-bill analysis and target finance and management teams via charting dashboards. We built one of these back in 2013. They are all missing an important piece - the people who are responsible for purchasing cloud resources are not shown costs upfront, so they don’t know how much the resources will cost before launching them. We want to make cloud costs simpler to understand for developers and DevOps so they can make better decisions, which we believe w
Why it failed: Hi, we’re Ali, Hassan and Alistair and we co-founded Infracost ( https://www.infracost.io ). Infracost is an open-source cloud cost estimator for your pull requests. When you change your infrastructure code (Terraform), Infracost posts a comment in the pull request, whi
aliscott
- startupShut down2021
Launch HN: Hotswap (YC S21) – Easily migrate customers away from competitors
Hi! We're Jay and Len (kevlened) from Hotswap ( https://www.hotswap.app ). We automate the process of changing software vendors by helping you migrate user data during your onboarding process. In other words, we make it easy to steal customers from your competitors! We've built a lot of enterprise software and done a lot of painful migrations over the years. I (Jay) have managed engineering teams at Frame.io, Squarespace, and Rent the Runway. Len was an early employee at Okta. At every single company we've worked at, we've spent a lot of time doing painful migrations. At Rent the Runway, we migrated our warehouse from UPS to FedEx. We changed credit card processors. We migrated ERP systems. It always took a ton of time, was not career-building work, and consultants charged $250/hr or more. We also were often stuck using platforms that weren't optim
Why it failed: Hi! We're Jay and Len (kevlened) from Hotswap ( https://www.hotswap.app ). We automate the process of changing software vendors by helping you migrate user data during your onboarding process. In other words, we make it easy to steal customers from your competitors
memset
- startupShut down2021
Ask HN: List of failed Smart Fridge startups?
I am trying to compile a list of all the startup that have tried to invent a "smart" fridge of some kind. Ex: the fridge which is supposed to auto-reorder milk when it runs out. Over the last 2 decades, I have seen many (many) of those projects. Although I didn't keep track, I strongly suspect that all of them failed. I would be very glad if the HN crowd could help me building this list, akin to a startup antipattern. Don't hesitate to share links. Thanks!
Why it failed: I am trying to compile a list of all the startup that have tried to invent a "smart" fridge of some kind. Ex: the fridge which is supposed to auto-reorder milk when it runs out. Over the last 2 decades, I have seen many (many) of those projects. Although I didn't k
vermorel
- startupShut down2021
Show HN: Save 6 months to deploy your apps on AWS in 30 minutes
I am Romaric, CEO of Qovery (https://www.qovery.com) (Techstars Paris 2019). As an early-stage startup, I know how it can be painful to stay focus on our business. Especially when it comes to putting our apps online, that's precisely why, with my team of 7, we have created Qovery to help any company to deploy their apps on AWS in 30 minutes instead of months (no joke). We're still early stage, but: 1. More than 1200 developers and 10 companies are using Qovery . 2. We are financially backed by the co-founders of Datadog, Docker, PeopleDoc, and Contentsquare . Take a look at this article to see how you can get started ( https://docs.qovery.com/guides/tutorial/how-to-deploy-your-application-on-aws-in-30-minutes/ ). Today, we support AWS and Digital Ocean, we expect to support GCP and Azure in the coming weeks. About the co-founders: Pierre
Why it failed: I am Romaric, CEO of Qovery (https://www.qovery.com) (Techstars Paris 2019). As an early-stage startup, I know how it can be painful to stay focus on our business. Especially when it comes to putting our apps online, that's precisely why, with my team of 7, we have
ev0xmusic
- startupShut down2021
Ask HN: How did you move on from past experiences?
I recently put an end to a drawn-out and stressful chapter of my life. It lasted many years and I'd like to get a sense of closure. Yet I can't seem to fully rekindle the same energy of my younger self. I've bought a couple of books to celebrate, but I haven't opened them yet because I don't want to taint them with past memories, if it makes sense. How did you close the previous chapters of your life? It may sound strange but I almost feel I have to ask for permission to move on. Like it's not real unless I share it with someone else.
Why it failed: I recently put an end to a drawn-out and stressful chapter of my life. It lasted many years and I'd like to get a sense of closure. Yet I can't seem to fully rekindle the same energy of my younger self. I've bought a couple of books to celebrate, but I haven't
Red_Tarsius
- startupShut down2021
Ask HN: How to Stay Motivated in the Mornings?
I have been struggling this problem since early 2020 (ever since WFH was enforced). I work as a software developer and I find it immensely difficult to get much work done in the mornings. I usually wake up around 8 and after coffee, moderate exercise, shower and breakfast I start my work around 10:00. Apart from the daily stand-up (which happens around 11:00) I find it extremely difficult to be energetic and focus on my work during the morning session. As day passes by and after a short nap around 12:30, I become energized and am able to focus and work in a productive manner. Till that time I find it harder to be energetic and do anything meaningful. I do sleep well (7-7.5 hours) and I wake-up without an alarm. The place I work from is well ventilated, gets abundant sunlight, and is quite silent. I tried different things to keep myself engaged in the mornings like: skipping breakfast, ta
Why it failed: I have been struggling this problem since early 2020 (ever since WFH was enforced). I work as a software developer and I find it immensely difficult to get much work done in the mornings. I usually wake up around 8 and after coffee, moderate exercise, shower and breakfast I start
vazirthrowaway