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.
796 solutions
- startupShut down2026
Show HN: Demon – open-source real-time music diffusion engine, 25Hz local GPU
YO, I’m Ryan, lead author. I’ve been contributing open source generative audio stuff for a while now, audio reactive Comfy nodes, extended ACEstep support in Comfy, etc.. I just opened-sourced a new audio project that I've been working on for a few months and I want to tell y'all about it. WHAT IS IS DEMON: Diffusion Engine for Musical Orchestrated Noise This is StreamDiffusion but with audio instead of images, and ACEStep 1.5 instead of Stable Diffusion. It’s responsive enough that you can play it like an instrument, and remix in near real-time. I also distilled the ACEStep VAE: it’s faster at the expense of some quality. I also trained something like 200 lora/dora for ACEStep 1.5 and 1.5XL: I will release these in batches of 5 or 10 or something WHY IT IS Two reasons: 1) Making music is an inherently real-time activity 2) Why not bro SOME RUNTIME CAPABILITIES -Real-time
Why it failed: YO, I’m Ryan, lead author. I’ve been contributing open source generative audio stuff for a while now, audio reactive Comfy nodes, extended ACEstep support in Comfy, etc.. I just opened-sourced a new audio project that I've been working on for a few months and I want to tell
ryanontheinside
- startupShut down2026
Ask HN: How do people keep track of organizational knowledge?
With code coming in faster and faster, we've been losing track of context, what's out of date, the source of truth, etc. Also with individuals spending less and less time on any one problem, finding an expert to answer questions has become challenging. People don't have that single domain of expertise like we used to. There's too much surface area to cover. Are we the only ones dealing with this? How's everyone else handling it?
Why it failed: With code coming in faster and faster, we've been losing track of context, what's out of date, the source of truth, etc. Also with individuals spending less and less time on any one problem, finding an expert to answer questions has become challenging. People don't
kadhirvelm
- startupShut down2026
Show HN: A new benchmark for testing LLMs for deterministic outputs
When building workflows that rely on LLMs, we commonly use structured output for programmatic use cases like converting an invoice into rows or meeting transcripts into tickets or even complex PDFs into database entries. The model may return the schema you want, but with hallucinated values like `invoice_date` being off by 2 months or the transcript array ordered wrongly. The JSON is valid, but the values are not. Structured output today is a big part of using LLMs, especially when building deterministic workflows. Current structured output benchmarks (e.g., JSONSchemaBench) only validate the pass rate for JSON schema and types, and not the actual values within the produced JSON. So we designed the Structured Output Benchmark (SOB) that fixes this by measuring both the JSON schema pass rate, types, and the value accuracy across all three modalities, text, image, and audio. For our test s
Why it failed: When building workflows that rely on LLMs, we commonly use structured output for programmatic use cases like converting an invoice into rows or meeting transcripts into tickets or even complex PDFs into database entries. The model may return the schema you want, but with hallucin
khurdula
- startupShut down2025
Claude Code weekly rate limits
Hi there, Next month, we're introducing new weekly rate limits for Claude subscribers, affecting less than 5% of users based on current usage patterns. Claude Code, especially as part of our subscription bundle, has seen unprecedented growth. At the same time, we’ve identified policy violations like account sharing and reselling access—and advanced usage patterns like running Claude 24/7 in the background—that are impacting system capacity for all. Our new rate limits address these issues and provide a more equitable experience for all users. What’s changing: Starting August 28, we're introducing weekly usage limits alongside our existing 5-hour limits: Current: Usage limit that resets every 5 hours (no change) New: Overall weekly limit that resets every 7 days New: Claude Opus 4 weekly limit that resets every 7 days As we learn more about how developers use Claude Code, w
Why it failed: Hi there, Next month, we're introducing new weekly rate limits for Claude subscribers, affecting less than 5% of users based on current usage patterns. Claude Code, especially as part of our subscription bundle, has seen unprecedented growth. At the same time, we’ve identifi
thebestmoshe
- startupShut down2025
Claude Code new limits – Important updates to your Max account usage limits
Hi there, Next month, we're introducing new weekly rate limits for Claude subscribers, affecting less than 5% of users based on current usage patterns. Claude Code, especially as part of our subscription bundle, has seen unprecedented growth. At the same time, we’ve identified policy violations like account sharing and reselling access—and advanced usage patterns like running Claude 24/7 in the background—that are impacting system capacity for all. Our new rate limits address these issues and provide a more equitable experience for all users. What’s changing: Starting August 28, we're introducing weekly usage limits alongside our existing 5-hour limits: Current: Usage limit that resets every 5 hours (no change) New: Overall weekly limit that resets every 7 days New: Claude Opus 4 weekly limit that resets every 7 days As we learn more about how developers use Claude Code, w
Why it failed: Hi there, Next month, we're introducing new weekly rate limits for Claude subscribers, affecting less than 5% of users based on current usage patterns. Claude Code, especially as part of our subscription bundle, has seen unprecedented growth. At the same time, we’ve identifi
ivanvas
- startupShut down2025
Ask HN: If I am so smart, why I am not rich?
I grew up very modestly, borderline poverty. None of my extended family/friend went to college, I was the first one to graduate from college later in life. I was always a good student A- since it didn't come easy but I was eager and motivated to put the time and work to achieve. When I was 18 with a few buddies we started a "fun" business and it was mildly successful. When I tried to start another business everyone told me that I needed an education (college). Fast forward a couple of decades I have my BS and MBA,with a decent career in high tech (operations). Through the years I have started a few projects and they all failed (my bad), at the same time I have been working for entrepreneurs who are able to make a pretty good living with mediocre ideas and bad management. I am now at a point in my career where I have the time and some funds to start something, but I am
Why it failed: I grew up very modestly, borderline poverty. None of my extended family/friend went to college, I was the first one to graduate from college later in life. I was always a good student A- since it didn't come easy but I was eager and motivated to put the time and work to
LeoDTO
- startupShut down2025
Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill
https://web.archive.org/web/20251113164403/https://hightimes...
Why it failed: https://web.archive.org/web/20251113164403/https://hightimes...
bilsbie
- startupShut down2025
Ask HN: Where to Work After 40?
I turned 40 last month and spent the past decade working on my own startup that ultimately failed. I'm now trying to figure out the next step. Someone once said to me, Google is the place you go to retire after 40. I've done my time at various startups, and spent some time at Google. As an engineer the landscape of things is always changing and we've now moved from Cloud to AI pretty rapidly. I'm just curious to know what moves people made after 40 and what worked for them.
Why it failed: I turned 40 last month and spent the past decade working on my own startup that ultimately failed. I'm now trying to figure out the next step. Someone once said to me, Google is the place you go to retire after 40. I've done my time at various startups, and spent some t
asim
- startupShut down2025
Show HN: Kimu – Open-Source Video Editor
I wanted a proper non-linear video editor built for the web. It always annoyed me how there are practically zero functioning web video editors. And here we are :) Kimu can: - Work with Video, Audio & Text. - Supports Transitions. - Non-Linear Video Editing with z-axis overlays. - Split/trim - Export - A cute AI agent (coming soon!) I'm in uni and I started this project out of sheer annoyance that there are zero good web video editors. It is open-source here ( https://github.com/robinroy03/videoeditor ). What do y'all think?
Why it failed: I wanted a proper non-linear video editor built for the web. It always annoyed me how there are practically zero functioning web video editors. And here we are :) Kimu can: - Work with Video, Audio & Text. - Supports Transitions. - Non-Linear Video Editing with z-axis overlay
robinroy03
- startupShut down2025
Show HN: Core – open source memory graph for LLMs – shareable, user owned
I keep running in the same problem of each AI app “remembers” me in its own silo. ChatGPT knows my project details, Cursor forgets them, Claude starts from zero… so I end up re-explaining myself dozens of times a day across these apps. The deeper problem 1. Not portable – context is vendor-locked; nothing travels across tools. 2. Not relational – most memory systems store only the latest fact (“sticky notes”) with no history or provenance. 3. Not yours – your AI memory is sensitive first-party data, yet you have no control over where it lives or how it’s queried. Demo video: https://youtu.be/iANZ32dnK60 Repo: https://github.com/RedPlanetHQ/core What we built - CORE (Context Oriented Relational Engine): An open source, shareable knowledge graph (your memory vault) that lets any LLM (ChatGPT, Cursor, Claude, SOL, etc.) share and query the same persistent
Why it failed: I keep running in the same problem of each AI app “remembers” me in its own silo. ChatGPT knows my project details, Cursor forgets them, Claude starts from zero… so I end up re-explaining myself dozens of times a day across these apps. The deeper problem 1. Not portable – context
Manik_agg
- startupShut down2025
Ask HN: Decided I no longer want to be a SWE – what next?
I recently spent the past six months working on a startup. We had a fair bit of momentum coming out of a well known accelerator and an idea with traction, but unfortunately the money just didn't quite show up for the seed. At 30, doing this without pay (and expenses covered) seemed like an ok idea, at least for a few months. But at this point I'm kind of done. Co-founder didn't understand why I wasn't interested working without salary anymore... there were other signs the relationship had broken down etc. Planning on letting him know I'm out near the end of this week. I started interviewing when these feelings started to get to me and... the VC from the accelerator ratted to my co-founder that they'd "heard from recruiters". This was effectively the most unprofessional breach of privacy I've ever experienced and as a result I think I'm do
Why it failed: I recently spent the past six months working on a startup. We had a fair bit of momentum coming out of a well known accelerator and an idea with traction, but unfortunately the money just didn't quite show up for the seed. At 30, doing this without pay (and expenses covered)
leeroihe
- startupShut down2025
CTO / cofounder exit deal after 1.5y at 600k revenue without SHA
I co-founded a deeptech company in France 1.5 years ago with another founder. We both invested €30k initially. My co-founder, who has a business background and is CEO, owns 51% of the shares and has 2/3 of the voting rights, while I own 49% of the shares and hold 1/3 of the voting rights. I have a PhD in AI and serve as the CTO. We pay ourselves modest wages and currently employ three full-time staff, all of whom I recruited and manage. The company generated €600k in revenue over the first 18 months through tenders and research services. There’s also potential for a €1.3m grant to be awarded in Q2 this year. Even though the company is doing well, I’ve decided to exit the company end of March for personal reasons: A breakdown in cofounder relationship, I can’t commit to relocating to France (I’m commuting from abroad), and I’m not happy with the recent pivot to the defence secto
Why it failed: I co-founded a deeptech company in France 1.5 years ago with another founder. We both invested €30k initially. My co-founder, who has a business background and is CEO, owns 51% of the shares and has 2/3 of the voting rights, while I own 49% of the shares and hold 1/3 of
biphasic
- startupShut down2025
Ask HN: How will the OSA affect small Mastodon instances?
I am not currently a user of Mastodon, but I have some interest in the project. I was looking at some stuff that seemed to indicate to me that the OSA could make it difficult to self host Mastodon without providing age verification. I was then reading the provisions and realsised that it didn't really affect you unless you have at least 3 million monthly users, so in theory would not affect self hosters with only a few users. But then I thought that if you are federated with a very large instance then your users could potentially be able to interact with enough users to fall under the provisions. This could potentially be a grey area that could expose self hosters to considerable risk if they are not careful. I wonder if there any UK based Mastodon hosters out there who are considering this. Are you considering shutting down to prevent any liability? Could this be the "death&qu
Why it failed: I am not currently a user of Mastodon, but I have some interest in the project. I was looking at some stuff that seemed to indicate to me that the OSA could make it difficult to self host Mastodon without providing age verification. I was then reading the provisions and realsised
Digit-Al
- startupShut down2025
Ask HN: How to stop an AWS bot sending 2B requests/month?
I have been struggling with a bot– 'Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; crawler)' coming from AWS Singapore – and sending an absurd number of requests to a domain of mine, averaging over 700 requests/second for several months now. Thankfully, CloudFlare is able to handle the traffic with a simple WAF rule and 444 response to reduce the outbound traffic. I've submitted several complaints to AWS to get this traffic to stop, their typical followup is: We have engaged with our customer, and based on this engagement have determined that the reported activity does not require further action from AWS at this time. I've tried various 4XX responses to see if the bot will back off, I've tried 30X redirects (which it follows) to no avail. The traffic is hitting numbers that require me to re-negotiate my contract with CloudFlare and is otherwise a nuisance when reviewing anal
Why it failed: I have been struggling with a bot– 'Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; crawler)' coming from AWS Singapore – and sending an absurd number of requests to a domain of mine, averaging over 700 requests/second for several months now. Thankfully, CloudFlare is able to handle
lgats
- startupShut down2025
Ask HN: Not treated respectfully by colleague – advice?
I work with a competent jerk: https://www.pickardlaws.com/myleadership/myfiles/rtdocs/hbr/... Backstory -- I joined my current team a year ago. It was falling apart. The team members hated each other and were trying to get each other fired. The team lead who’d joined a quarter before had quit to join another team largely due to conflict with one difficult coworker. Then I joined as the lead. I helped to stabilize the team over the last year. It’s grown from four to ten engineers. Three engineers joined specifically to work with me. Yet the entire time I’ve been on that team, that one difficult coworker has been criticizing and fighting almost everything I’ve done. That coworker was relatively inexperienced, yet was told by a previous director that he was meant to be the lead of this platform. Hence the fighting with the other lead from a year ago. And w
Why it failed: I work with a competent jerk: https://www.pickardlaws.com/myleadership/myfiles/rtdocs/hbr/... Backstory -- I joined my current team a year ago. It was falling apart. The team members hated each other and were trying to get each other fired. The
golly_ned
- startupShut down2025
Show HN: Workout.cool – Open-source fitness coaching platform
I was the main contributor to workout.lol, an open-source fitness app to easily build a workout routine. The project had traction (1.4k GitHub stars, 95 forks, ~20K visits/month), but was eventually sold due to video licensing hurdles. The new owner stopped maintaining it, and the repo went abandoned. Over the next 9 months, I sent 15 emails to try to save it : no replies. Feature requests & issues were ignored. The community was left with a "broken" tool let's say. I couldn't just let it die So I built the new version from scratch with the same open-source spirit, but a better architecture long-term vision, more features and no license problems. It's called : Workout.cool ( https://workout.cool ). What it offers: 100% open-source, MIT-licensed - 1200+ exercises (with videos, attributes, translations) - Progress tracking - Multilingual-ready -
Why it failed: I was the main contributor to workout.lol, an open-source fitness app to easily build a workout routine. The project had traction (1.4k GitHub stars, 95 forks, ~20K visits/month), but was eventually sold due to video licensing hurdles. The new owner stopped maintaining it, a
surgomat
- startupShut down2025
Ask HN: Did anyone else notice that the OpenAI Labs website was completely gone?
I was sad to discover today that all of my Dall-E image generations are gone, along with the entire https://labs.openai.com/ site. Apparently, some users received emails earlier in the year when it was about to be taken down, but I didn't. There were quite a few images in my history that I would have liked to have saved. Maybe worse is how much this lowers my trust in OpenAI even further than it already had been. Dall-E was not a small platform; it was a cultural phenomenon accessed by hundreds of millions of users. It's bewildering that OpenAI would so silently "take it behind the shed." I'm searching, and it doesn't seem as if there was even an HN post about the shutdown. So, it didn't even hit this place's radar. How many of you are hearing this for the first time? I don't understand how a company like OpenAI could be so reck
Why it failed: I was sad to discover today that all of my Dall-E image generations are gone, along with the entire https://labs.openai.com/ site. Apparently, some users received emails earlier in the year when it was about to be taken down, but I didn't. There were quite a f
underlipton
- startupShut down2025
A change of address led to our Wise accounts being shut down
https://web.archive.org/web/20251030232647/https://shaun.nz/...
Why it failed: https://web.archive.org/web/20251030232647/https://shaun.nz/...
jemmyw
- startupShut down2025
I launched 17 side projects. Result? I'm rich in expired domains
I think I'm officially a side project collector. I've had it all: A SaaS for freelancers... that I never had time to finish because I'm a freelancer. A revolutionary AI tool that I abandoned as soon as GPT-4 came out. And the famous "anti-social media social network" (spoiler: it was just me). I buy a domain name → I code for 3 all-nighters → I lose interest → I start again. My Google Domains look like a graveyard of unfinished dreams. But honestly, I've never learned so much, nor enjoyed it so much. And one day, I might release one that takes off. Or not. But I'll be ready. Any other serial side-projectors here? Share your greatest fails/unlikely successes
Why it failed: I think I'm officially a side project collector. I've had it all: A SaaS for freelancers... that I never had time to finish because I'm a freelancer. A revolutionary AI tool that I abandoned as soon as GPT-4 came out. And the famous "anti-social media social n
cesargstn
- startupShut down2025
Tell HN: Wise makes all user phone email and name data discoverable by default
I recently received an email from Wise advising me that their privacy notice had changed. Of particular concern was this: > Account discoverability: Our account discoverability feature allows other Wise users to send you money by just entering your phone number, email address or Wisetag. This feature is described in section 4.9 of our updated Privacy Notice. Clicking through to the article linked in the email [0]: > If someone finds you as a result of a successful WiseTag, email or phone search we’ll show them your full name and profile picture. > For customers in the EEA or UK: You need to opt in to receive money via phone number or email, if you haven't done so already. You can check if you're discoverable and change this this in your Privacy settings. > For customers outside the EEA and UK: You’re discoverable via phone number or email by default, but you can opt
Why it failed: I recently received an email from Wise advising me that their privacy notice had changed. Of particular concern was this: > Account discoverability: Our account discoverability feature allows other Wise users to send you money by just entering your phone number, email address
wise-throwaway
- startupShut down2025
Ask HN: Why are we all pretending everything is normal?
I know we’re supposed to be tech focused but I see no posts regarding the situation at large. No tech, no innovation can really grow or come about if this keeps going. Those of us who have grown up with relative freedom and the room to innovate owe it to those coming up to do something? The system isn’t perfect, but what is happening will make it worse. What can be done? I won’t repost this if it gets removed.
Why it failed: I know we’re supposed to be tech focused but I see no posts regarding the situation at large. No tech, no innovation can really grow or come about if this keeps going. Those of us who have grown up with relative freedom and the room to innovate owe it to those coming up to do som
bigmattystyles
- startupShut down2025
Ask HN: To LinkedIn am I just collateral damage of a barely functioning system
I have been on linked in for almost as long as I have been in tech. My current account has been in use since at least 2017. On Sunday, shortly after creating a new ad campaign, using the free ads credit provided by LinkedIn, I was refreshing the browser to see how the ads was progressing. Suddenly, I was logged out of my account, to verify my identity. I have taken a live picture, as instructed by the app, and also uploaded a scanned copy of my original national ID card. I have used my ID card for every form of verification I have encountered and never had a single problem. My ID is valid and my picture is what's on my LinkedIn profile. Despite all this, the LinkedIn identity verification page kept telling me "Couldn't verify photos". I have contacted the LinkedIn support team. There has literally been 14 messages back and forth, and all I have gotten every single tim
Why it failed: I have been on linked in for almost as long as I have been in tech. My current account has been in use since at least 2017. On Sunday, shortly after creating a new ad campaign, using the free ads credit provided by LinkedIn, I was refreshing the browser to see how the ads was pro
qbqetell
- startupShut down2025
Ask HN: As a developer, am I wrong to think monitoring alerts are mostly noise?
I'm a solo developer working on a new tool, and I need a reality check from the ops and infrastructure experts here. My background is in software development, not SRE. From my perspective, the monitoring alerts that bubble up from our infrastructure have always felt like a massive distraction. I'll get a page for "High CPU" on a service, spend an hour digging through logs and dashboards, only to find out it was just a temporary traffic spike and not a real issue. It feels like a huge waste of developer time. My hypothesis is that the tools we use are too focused on static thresholds (e.g., "CPU > 80%") and lack the context to tell us what's actually an anomaly. I've been exploring a different approach based on peer-group comparisons (e.g., is api-server-5 behaving differently from its peers api-server-1 through 4?). But I'm coming at this f
Why it failed: I'm a solo developer working on a new tool, and I need a reality check from the ops and infrastructure experts here. My background is in software development, not SRE. From my perspective, the monitoring alerts that bubble up from our infrastructure have always felt like a m
yansoki
- startupShut down2025
Show HN: Open-source Deep Research across workplace applications
I’ve been using deep research on OpenAI and Perplexity and it’s been just amazing at gathering data across a lot of related and chained searches. Just earlier today, I asked “What are some marquee tech companies / hot startups (not including the giants like FAAMG, Samsung, Nvidia etc.)”. It’s a pretty involved question and looking up “marquee tech startups” or "hot tech startups" on Google gave me nothing useful. Deep research on both ChatGPT and Perplexity gave really high quality responses with ChatGPT siding on slightly larger scaleups and Perplexity siding more on up and coming companies. Given how useful AI research agents are across the internet, we decided to build an open-source equivalent for the workplace since a ton of questions at work also cannot be easily resolved with a single search. Onyx supports deep research connected to company applications like Google
Why it failed: I’ve been using deep research on OpenAI and Perplexity and it’s been just amazing at gathering data across a lot of related and chained searches. Just earlier today, I asked “What are some marquee tech companies / hot startups (not including the giants like FAAMG, Samsung, N
yuhongsun