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.
1,395 solutions
- startupShut down2014
My mom is dying, and my bank account is dry. I need help
TL;DR If anyone has any work for me (strengths are Ruby/Rails, data mining) please email me. ilovemymomjeanine@gmail.com (will go to my professional email) -- This is in regards to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7214446 If you’re in Minnesota and would like to meet with me, let’s meet. Very-long; will read: I’m posting here so I can vent to people that I would normally talk to in my day-to-day life. My life, however, hasn’t felt day-to-day in so long. It’s felt like one, long clusterfuck of a bullet train inside my head. I’m not popular here or in the startup community (in the larger sense). I haven’t worked for any well-known startups nor do I contribute to any open-source projects. I haven’t developed any killer libraries and I don’t belong to mailing lists. But I don’t let that define me. At all. There’s nothing that I haven’t taught myself. I’m very prideful
Why it failed: TL;DR If anyone has any work for me (strengths are Ruby/Rails, data mining) please email me. ilovemymomjeanine@gmail.com (will go to my professional email) -- This is in regards to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7214446 If you’re in Minnesota and would l
helpmymomisx
- startupShut down2014
I open sourced my startup
So I've spent the last 3 years attempting to teach a computer how to understand recipes. What they taste like, ingredients you'd need to make them. If they have animal products or are gluten free. If they're a dessert. This work involved a lot of natural language processing, Beyesian filtering, etc. With this, I built a very powerful recipe search engine. It allows you to find recipes using some pretty interesting queries. For example, if the user wants to make 5 recipes that will efficiently use a head of lettuce, 12 bananas, a pound of salmon, and 6 eggs, it can find the most efficient set of recipes that will use as much of those ingredients as possible, while requiring the user to have to buy as few new ingredients as possible. It's also able to normalize the ingredients across all recipes to build really accurate shopping lists. For example, if one recipe calls f
Why it failed: So I've spent the last 3 years attempting to teach a computer how to understand recipes. What they taste like, ingredients you'd need to make them. If they have animal products or are gluten free. If they're a dessert. This work involved a lot of natural language p
MikeChristensen
- startupShut down2014
Ask HN: Open source an abandoned Mac app for mockups?
Wondering whether to open source an old project I worked on, and abandoned... It's a native Mac app for building static mockups (iOS and web apps). I doubt anyone would be interested, but thought it worth asking, see if anyone has any opinions. Screenshot: http://cl.ly/image/0o1h0q1L3u1o/o
Why it failed: Wondering whether to open source an old project I worked on, and abandoned... It's a native Mac app for building static mockups (iOS and web apps). I doubt anyone would be interested, but thought it worth asking, see if anyone has any opinions. Screenshot: http://c
markdodwell
- startupShut down2013
Twitter Should Shut Me Down
Cached version: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fedu.mkrecny.com%2Fthoughts%2Ftwitter-should-shut-me-down&aq=f&oq=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fedu.mkrecny.com%2Fthoughts%2Ftwitter-should-shut-me-down&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
Why it failed: Cached version: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fedu.mkrecny.com%2Fthoughts%2Ftwitter-should-shut-me-down&aq=f&oq=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fedu.mkrecny.com%2Fthoughts%2Ftwitter-should-shut-me-down&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
mkrecny
- startupShut down2013
Ask HN: How do you suggest we technologists get our industry back?
At least on Hacker News, it's well-known that we (technologists) work in conditions of low autonomy, answer to arrogant non-technical forces, don't get to pick our tools or projects, are often forced to deal with awful legacy complexity that any reasonable person would discard, and generally have pretty miserable working lives. We make half-decent (but not great, especially considering what we have to deal with) money, but often find that some VP/NTWTFK (Non-Technical Who-The-Fuck-Knows) is getting higher salary and ten times as much equity. It has to end. And we have the talent to stop the world if we want to do so. I'd like to ask the crowd, to source some new ideas: what do you suggest that we do to win back the autonomy that is rightfully ours? What's the best idea you can come up with for how to restore our industry to decency? How do we get back the autonomy originally associated w
Why it failed: At least on Hacker News, it's well-known that we (technologists) work in conditions of low autonomy, answer to arrogant non-technical forces, don't get to pick our tools or projects, are often forced to deal with awful legacy complexity that any reasonable person would discard, a
michaelochurch
- startupShut down2013
Ask HN: Any startups working to capitalize on the coming privacy boom?
Big opportunities are opening up for companies in a position to offer services free of government snooping. Are any startups in the community specifically oriented to this market positioning? Any big company or non- U.S. government seems likely to ask the question "If we move our tens of thousands of users to service X or service Y (i.e. gmail or Oracle)" will our data be gathered by the U.S. government? If the answer is yes, or "maybe" then surely they'll look for "snoop free" alternatives. Is anyone working to become the snoop free alternative?
Why it failed: Big opportunities are opening up for companies in a position to offer services free of government snooping. Are any startups in the community specifically oriented to this market positioning? Any big company or non- U.S. government seems likely to ask the question "If we mov
hoodoof
- startupShut down2013
Ask HN: What am I going to do with my job?
Dear HN community, I know many of you will understand me. I am a software engineer working in a big multinational company. Software has always been my dream. I love it, I spend my free time mostly for it. Now I am middle aged, I have a family and kids. We are living in a non-english speaking european country as foreigners and kids are going to the school now. What I daily do is to develop enterprise software (mainly web applications) using the recipe which many of you know. Jsp, application servers, synchronous servlets, heavy SOAP interfaces, many JEE beans, hibernate, thousands of threads and locks, JMS, one big expensive database in the backend. I see that most the problems that we have are coming from architectural choices. Business units want to decrease the cost but no one wants to get rid of the license of that big expensive database. Everybody wants to improve backend performance
Why it failed: Dear HN community, I know many of you will understand me. I am a software engineer working in a big multinational company. Software has always been my dream. I love it, I spend my free time mostly for it. Now I am middle aged, I have a family and kids. We are living in a non-engl
desperateone
- startupShut down2013
Need job to save my relationship
Dear HNers I have been reading HN for a while and I've never thought I would reach out to this community for this reason. Guess what, I want to save my relationship, and I'm sure you guys can help me. Here's the problem: my girlfriend can't find a job. She is very smart (not only because I say she is, she is actually really smart) and has all qualities to be doing awesome work in a startup as a multi-hat talent. She has been a product manager in the valley for a couple years and has project management experience, well appreciated by customers. She is also perfectly trilingual and has a real gift for communication. But, it's not that simple. She is not a US citizen. She needs a visa to work, and the more we try to understand why she doesn't get any traction after the usual first round of interviews, the more we are convinced that doors close automatically when HR people get to know that t
Why it failed: Dear HNers I have been reading HN for a while and I've never thought I would reach out to this community for this reason. Guess what, I want to save my relationship, and I'm sure you guys can help me. Here's the problem: my girlfriend can't find a job. She is very smart (not only
mazenne
- startupShut down2013
Ask HN: Interview as a Service – Any interest?
Hello Everyone, TL;DR I am offering interview as a service (taking first round on your behalf) for technical roles (0-8 yrs exp) for $150 each. Would you be interested? Generally (assumption) even after the resume has been filtered by HR folks (who are mostly non-tech), you end up with 1 out of 5 candidate cleared after the telephonic rounds. This is definitely time consuming as developers are getting involved here and their hours are getting wasted. If you do the calculation (assumption here), so to hire 1 candidate, you end up wasting 15-20 hours (at least) of developers time on unsuccessful interviews. My proposal: I will study your company, team and requirements beforehand. Once you have identified a candidate, you can let me know and I will conduct the first round and give you a feedback. My assumption again, this will improve the ratio to 1 out of 2. My confidence is that it will b
Why it failed: Hello Everyone, TL;DR I am offering interview as a service (taking first round on your behalf) for technical roles (0-8 yrs exp) for $150 each. Would you be interested? Generally (assumption) even after the resume has been filtered by HR folks (who are mostly non-tech), you end u
shail
- startupShut down2013
The new Google Hangouts will not support XMPP
Hello from Google! You are the administrator for one or more Google App Engine applications that may be impacted by an upcoming new product release. Google will be releasing a new communications product called Hangouts which users may choose to use instead of Google Talk. The new service does not support XMPP. As a result XMPP bots such as the App Engine XMPP service will not be able to communicate with users who adopt the new service. There are two ways to keep your App Engine XMPP service working for end users: 1) Your users may use any chat client that supports XMPP. XMPP clients will continue to work as usual with the App Engine XMPP service. 2) End users will be asked to opt-into the new service when it goes live. Note that the go-live date may vary for Google Apps domains. End users and google app domain administrators may choose not to opt into the new system. If they do not opt i
Why it failed: Hello from Google! You are the administrator for one or more Google App Engine applications that may be impacted by an upcoming new product release. Google will be releasing a new communications product called Hangouts which users may choose to use instead of Google Talk. The new
moobirubi
- startupShut down2013
Ubuntu Edge lowers prices on IndieGogo
Hi everyone The last few days have been absolutely incredible -- over $3.5 million in the first 40 hours. We’ve broken records, we’ve attracted the attention of the world, and we’re marching closer and closer to bringing the Ubuntu Edge to life. $32 million is a huge number, and we’ve never danced around this fact. To get there, we’re going to need your help to bring family, friends, fans, and followers to the campaign. This crowdfunding process has already provided us with a lot of great feedback, especially about our perks -- and we’ve been listening to it all. You told us you want more opportunities to get the Ubuntu Edge at a lower contribution level, so we went back to our spreadsheets and came up with a solution. Today we’re changing our perk levels. We’ll offer a limited number of phones at each level, and as each tier runs out the next ones will be made available, so act quickly
Why it failed: Hi everyone The last few days have been absolutely incredible -- over $3.5 million in the first 40 hours. We’ve broken records, we’ve attracted the attention of the world, and we’re marching closer and closer to bringing the Ubuntu Edge to life. $32 million is a huge number, and
thejosh
- startupShut down2013
Ask PG: Did the WWDC shut HN down?
HN went down for like an hour. It's back now, but some comments links still don't work and display the nginx error page. Was this because of the WWDC event?
Why it failed: HN went down for like an hour. It's back now, but some comments links still don't work and display the nginx error page. Was this because of the WWDC event?
csomar
- startupShut down2013
Unhappy with career, please help.
I'm at crossroads in my career. I'm looking for some advice. My case should be fairly typical, so I expect the responses I get to be useful to others in my situation too. First, some context: I work for a big company on a popular online service. I have a masters degree and my field is machine learning. I'm smarter than all my peers at work. I started off with a my-code-is-going-to-change-the-world attitude. I remember my heart racing the first time I was looking at results of my code processing petabytes of data. Then, slowly my smart, idealistic, I-will-create-perfect-AI self started bumping into reality. Rather than math/ML challenges, I was faced with problems like technical debt, missed deadlines, unmet expectations, unhealthy peer competition, endless frog-eating, fragmented days, daily scrums... to cut a long story short, it has been a long time since I did anything that I'm proud
Why it failed: I'm at crossroads in my career. I'm looking for some advice. My case should be fairly typical, so I expect the responses I get to be useful to others in my situation too. First, some context: I work for a big company on a popular online service. I have a masters degree and my fie
kannappan
- startupShut down2013
Ask HN: I can't think straight, my life is in limbo, and I want to end it now
I have absolutely no idea why I am still posting this right now. Maybe I am just less resilient than most people. Maybe I am sick mentally. Maybe I just don't belong. For the past 20 years, my life has been a joke. I live in B.C, Canada. A few years ago, I traveled 21 hours by plane to see what my father looked like. He didn't want me, didn't even call me his son. My 9 cousins and 3 aunts/uncles don't know I exist. My grandmother died without knowing I existed. My mother and I have moved 30 times, and I've been doing my best to help provide for our lives. I made the first big mistake of my life and gave up a full scholarship to law school because I wouldn't be able to provide for my mother. I dropped out of college after 1 year so she (being at such an old age) could have a decent standard of living, and see her happy for once in her life. Then the seco
Why it failed: I have absolutely no idea why I am still posting this right now. Maybe I am just less resilient than most people. Maybe I am sick mentally. Maybe I just don't belong. For the past 20 years, my life has been a joke. I live in B.C, Canada. A few years ago, I traveled 21 hours
goodbyeworld
- startupShut down2013
Ask HN: Where are all the programming jobs?
I am getting frustrated. I have a really good job at the moment. I am a software engineer for the new york stock exchange. I am seeking something in the USA which would allow me to relocate with a H1B to live and work in America. Finding potential employers isn't so hard. But finding something which actually fits under the topic of programming and not glorified web development is much, much harder. Every time I see a challenge these days as part of a job interview process, I end up having to go off and write something in rails, asp.net or even PHP. Where in the world are all the C / C++ and Java roles that used to be available in America? It has gotten so bad that there are literally thousands of employers moving to Europe to in order to get hold of programmers who develop code for these native languages. There has to still be some employers who wish to hire for these roles IN America, I
Why it failed: I am getting frustrated. I have a really good job at the moment. I am a software engineer for the new york stock exchange. I am seeking something in the USA which would allow me to relocate with a H1B to live and work in America. Finding potential employers isn't so hard. But fin
AncoraImparo
- startupShut down2013
I Resent My Cofounder
I've written and deleted this post more than once, and I've worked very hard to not be judgmental and make invalid assumptions, but today I just couldn't stop writing, and I think it's finally time to sit on the therapy couch that is HN. I've been working with my co-founder for a number of years. We're great friends, and we have a lot in common. We both have passion for what we do and for our road ahead. I don't think I'd be where I am today without her, but at the same time, I'm starting to see we're not the same people we used to be. I put in around 60-70 hours/week on our startup. She puts in maybe 60-70% of that. I obsess over it 24/7. She seems content to let me do that. When we have new ideas, they are always mine. There are many times I've thought about holding them back in order to build them on my own. That alone tells me I need to do something about it. I have to constantly pul
Why it failed: I've written and deleted this post more than once, and I've worked very hard to not be judgmental and make invalid assumptions, but today I just couldn't stop writing, and I think it's finally time to sit on the therapy couch that is HN. I've been working with my co-founder for a
anotherfork
- startupShut down2013
Ask HN: PHP vs. Node.js vs. Go for a new startup?
I am coming back to the IT industry after about 6 years of being involved in something completely unrelated. My partner and I are starting a startup that’s going to make a online blogging application for a niche market. If we are successful, the application would need to be able to scale to handle a lot of users (100k visitor per day if we are successful, nothing like FB levels or something). Because it’s going to be a blogging platform with a business model similar to squarespace.com, the load will be distributed over many different domains, making it easier to scale. Both my partner and I have good knowledge of PHP. However, due to the complexity of the project, we will have to find additional developers anyway. From what I read online Node.js and Go are the in thing right now, and scale much better than PHP. My question is, should we stick with the “Devil we know,” PHP, or dive into l
Why it failed: I am coming back to the IT industry after about 6 years of being involved in something completely unrelated. My partner and I are starting a startup that’s going to make a online blogging application for a niche market. If we are successful, the application would need to be able
x0054
- startupShut down2013
Startup CEOs: you are overestimating your tech talent
I have been struck recently over many conversations with different VC-funded startup CEOs (series A or B money, all at least $5M) at how strong the CTO/tech team rockstar/ninja kool-aid seems to be. "Our tech guys are smarter than everyone else in the world" seems to be a pervasive sentiment. Generally speaking, the CTO/tech team also seems to believe that about themselves, and usually the CEO is personally self-effacing and does not have that kind of personal arrogance. I know that there are dark days and uncertainty within a startup, and that you do have to "fake it until you make it", but there's a real danger in drinking that kool-aid and missing out on the fact that everything reverts to the mean, and not everyone can even be "above average", let alone the smartest people in the world. The reality is that your startup that's sur
Why it failed: I have been struck recently over many conversations with different VC-funded startup CEOs (series A or B money, all at least $5M) at how strong the CTO/tech team rockstar/ninja kool-aid seems to be. "Our tech guys are smarter than everyone else in the world" s
joeemison
- startupShut down2013
Ask HN: I failed a lot, what should I do?
I somehow got in to a top 5 CS program. I got D's in a lot of classes because they didn't want to give me F's. It was very hard following lectures and reading and understanding test questions. I graduated about a year ago. I did interviews and each one I got I was mercilessly shot down with tough CS questions. I got a job in sales, I was fired for paperwork errors. I am now unemployed, occasionally making web sites for people. It turns out my doctor says I probably have ADHD and I have been working with him on getting this diagnosed correctly but it takes time and I am already on medication, I don't want more. I can't get to grad school, I am having a hard time finding a job. I don't know what to do, I narrowed it down to either 1) going back to school for another degree taking on more loans to improve grades 2) trying my hand at a startup but I have about $
Why it failed: I somehow got in to a top 5 CS program. I got D's in a lot of classes because they didn't want to give me F's. It was very hard following lectures and reading and understanding test questions. I graduated about a year ago. I did interviews and each one I got I was
lemaudit
- startupShut down2013
Ask HN: Going back to programming
I'd like to get opinions on whether going back to programming as a career in my late 30s is a good idea or not. I was a web programmer in the first four years of my career; however then I thought I could make more money doing things like project management and spent the next ten years pushing paper. I've done a couple of side projects in the meantime as the thought of going back to programming has kept coming back. I even attempted to do a SaaS startup but failed to get any traction. Anyways, at this point I'm sick of pushing paper and want to go programming full-time. A few things are holding me back though: * I can't leverage the last 10 years of my career; it would basically become a lost decade for me * my technical skills are rusty; I'd have to most likely get a huge pay cut and start at a junior-level position * I think recruiters are going to give me a wei
Why it failed: I'd like to get opinions on whether going back to programming as a career in my late 30s is a good idea or not. I was a web programmer in the first four years of my career; however then I thought I could make more money doing things like project management and spent the next
teekay
- startupShut down2013
Tell HN: My first protest
I'm 27 years old and I've never really been bothered to protest before. Sure, I've volunteered. I've participated in political campaigns. I've signed petitions and written my Congressmen. I've voted. But nothing had ever felt quite so bad to me that I needed to march. Other people would take care of that, as they always have, and the system would fix itself. Something's changed. A little over a year ago today I enlisted in the Army National Guard. In a week I head to SD for "Phase 1" of Officer Candidate School. (I don't purport to represent the military). Perhaps the reality of putting my life on the line for our country has made me take political change more personally. Of course, the past decades' worth of restrictions on our freedoms hasn't helped. I've seen many comparisons here between warrantless spying and past oppr
Why it failed: I'm 27 years old and I've never really been bothered to protest before. Sure, I've volunteered. I've participated in political campaigns. I've signed petitions and written my Congressmen. I've voted. But nothing had ever felt quite so bad to me that
joshdotsmith
- startupShut down2013
Ask HN: Should I go to Sweden for work?
I have been freelancing from home in Moscow, Russia for 4 years now as a frontend developer and as a self-taught UI/UX specialist. There were good and bad times in regard to work/life balance, money, clients and myself. I am not a famous rockstar freelancer, but during recent 2 years I have been earning $7-$10k per month average, making my clients quite happy and being able to support my wife and our two children. Before starting freelancing I had been working for 8 years at a local publishing house where I got from an ordinary designer to a head of IT dept serving 20+ daily/monthly editions. Now I feel like I am ready to perform a next step in my life, in regard to my career. Recently I have received a job offer from a company in Stockholm doing a software as a service, for a position of a frontend developer. I had a talk via Skype with a couple of representatives of the
Why it failed: I have been freelancing from home in Moscow, Russia for 4 years now as a frontend developer and as a self-taught UI/UX specialist. There were good and bad times in regard to work/life balance, money, clients and myself. I am not a famous rockstar freelancer, but during
cosmorocket
- startupShut down2013
Exec Shuts Down Non-Cleaning Service
Just received this email: Dear Exec Errands Customers, Thank you for being great customers of Exec. Sadly, Exec Errands will be shutting down on Friday, September 20. Exec as a company will continue to operate our cleaning service. Errands that have already been scheduled for after September 20 we will unfortunately not be able to perform. We apologize for any inconvenience this causes. Thanks for using Exec. Best Regards, Justin Kan CEO, Exec
Why it failed: Just received this email: Dear Exec Errands Customers, Thank you for being great customers of Exec. Sadly, Exec Errands will be shutting down on Friday, September 20. Exec as a company will continue to operate our cleaning service. Errands that have already been scheduled for aft
nicklovescode
- startupShut down2013
Ask HN: I actually need a job now
I've been working in startups for the last few years, using a lot of the latest tech that startups often use (Rails, Node, Mongo, Angular etc.). Now I'm back in my home town (failed and can't afford to be out in London doing this any more), and seeking any job for a developer. But all I see is PHP, .NET, VB, Java and everything that HN seems to hate. I actually haven't touched this stuff since school, and everything I've learned and used over these last few years seems to be useless in the corporate world here. I'm renting alone and therefore need a job quickly. My options are finding a quick job (e.g. waiter, shop assistant) while brushing up on PHP (or maybe something else has better career opportunities?) in the evenings, or just doing something completely different. Truth is I want a stable career now and care little about whether we're coding in Er
Why it failed: I've been working in startups for the last few years, using a lot of the latest tech that startups often use (Rails, Node, Mongo, Angular etc.). Now I'm back in my home town (failed and can't afford to be out in London doing this any more), and seeking any job for
berrypicker