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.
1,587 solutions
- startupShut down2010
Sign of the times?
I have been following posts on Hacker News, albeit, not religiously. I wish I had time to neatly categorize posts based on the content in the post but in general, a few themes standout: (1) sagely start-up wisdom (2) another day, another web application (3) another day, another debate about the best MVC framework for the web app (4) VC gossip (5) gossip around Apple, Google and Facebook (6) Another post about how language X sucks, a contrarian spinning his/her wheels on why language Y rocks. That pretty much sums up hacker news. The Signal/Crap ratio is scary if you rip apart fluff masquerading as technology. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against the site. What bothers me is this penchant to appropriate the "start-up" cool as opposed to focusing on the idea, product, or service that is being innovated -- as if a start-up is the end-all-be-all in life. Is start-up association the tec
Why it failed: I have been following posts on Hacker News, albeit, not religiously. I wish I had time to neatly categorize posts based on the content in the post but in general, a few themes standout: (1) sagely start-up wisdom (2) another day, another web application (3) another day, another d
cherenkov
- startupShut down2010
Ask HN: Why do no other laptop manufacturers get it?
I don't own a Macbook, but when people ask me what they should get it's hard to recommend a good alternative. For every other manufacturer - do the model names and numbers have to be so opaque? They could all cut it down to 5 or 6 well designed, sensibly named models and still sell more units. Whenever a friend is looking for a machine they try and wade through the HP, Dell and Sony websites. Eventually they give up trying to decipher the model names, and whether they should be looking iin "Everyday", "Performance", "Thin & Light" or "Business" categories and end up ordering a Macbook. The HP G62-105SA? The Dell Latitude E5410? HP you also sell the Compaq Presario CQ61-406SA? What are these machines? What the hell is wrong with you? I've owned the 13 inch Dell XPS machines. They were pretty good, but are apparently discontinued.
Why it failed: I don't own a Macbook, but when people ask me what they should get it's hard to recommend a good alternative. For every other manufacturer - do the model names and numbers have to be so opaque? They could all cut it down to 5 or 6 well designed, sensibly named models and still se
SandB0x
- startupShut down2010
Ask HN: What makes you happy? What is your American Dream?
I am working on a documentary on the "new" pursuit of happiness. The "old" pursuit of happiness and the American Dream seem to have gotten tangled in money and possessions, but there seems to be some movement toward a non-material, or less material, pursuit of happiness (i.e. The Small House Movement, downshifting, Slow Movement, neo-homesteaders, etc.) No one really created The American Dream, but we inherited a national charter that promised us "inalienable rights" that included happiness. Somewhere along the line the American Dream has become associated with "a consumeristic nightmare" (to quote Vanity Fair writer David Camp http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2009/04/american-dream200904 ). But there are some- my husband being one- who would argue we're at a moment of change. Given the world's economic crisis, a heightened awareness of our earth, and a new post Baby Boom gener
Why it failed: I am working on a documentary on the "new" pursuit of happiness. The "old" pursuit of happiness and the American Dream seem to have gotten tangled in money and possessions, but there seems to be some movement toward a non-material, or less material, pursuit of happiness (i.e. The
kirstendirksen
- startupShut down2010
Ask HN: Do you have any startup related regrets? Epic failures?
I've heard so many optimistic stories of "failed" startups where the founders continue on to new startups, or end up leading better lives afterwards regardless. But the whole time I'm thinking "there's got to be some downside to all this..." There just seems to be this great optimism within the startup world that even if your idea or company fails, you're still fine, and I'm curious to if anyone has any stories of that not being the case. Where are the startup stories of terrible regrets and failures? Is there anyone who's said "I wish I never tried that" or "those years were a waste of my life?" and why? I've just found the startup industry to be extremely optimistic about things, and with so much attention on all the epic successes, I'm looking for some truly epic failures; mainly to keep my feet on the ground and in touch with reality.
Why it failed: I've heard so many optimistic stories of "failed" startups where the founders continue on to new startups, or end up leading better lives afterwards regardless. But the whole time I'm thinking "there's got to be some downside to all this..." There just seems to be this great opti
makeramen
- startupShut down2010
Ask HN: Does anyone use the Amazon Mechanical Turk API?
I'm working on a project that relies on a human workforce to perform some simple image identification tasks. AWS Turk seemed to fit the requirements pretty well, and I have the basics working with externally-hosted tasks. Does anyone here actually use Turk, though? The forum seems nearly abandoned (http://developer.amazonwebservices.com/connect/forum.jspa?forumID=11), and no Amazon employees have responded to any questions. The API has not had any updates in years. Is the Mechanical Turk now a walking corpse? Read on for a description of the problem I've run into. Maybe a fellow enterprising HN reader dealt with something similar and found a solution. :) I need to enforce that the same worker does not look at closely-related images. I can enforce that in my app, and basically show a task that says "please return this task and try some of our other tasks in a couple of hours". This is ann
Why it failed: I'm working on a project that relies on a human workforce to perform some simple image identification tasks. AWS Turk seemed to fit the requirements pretty well, and I have the basics working with externally-hosted tasks. Does anyone here actually use Turk, though? The forum seem
gcv
- startupShut down2010
Ask HN: Surprised by your revenue? Easier than you thought?
I'm slowly hacking away at a niche B2B SaaS product after work and on weekends. I'm looking forward to the prospect of some extra monthly cash. I get a kick out of thinking, "At $30/mo, I only need 200 users to bring in a cool $6000 a month!" (gross, of course) ...but wait. Will I get even 200 subscribers? Maybe I'll struggle to reach 10. What if I'm underestimating my market here - what if I get 2,000? I bounce ideas around in my head: "Of course I'll get 200 subscribers. 1.3 million people live in New Hampshire alone, and we're just one small state in the USA!" Even though my product is for a niche market, my local Yellow Pages confirms there are a dozen likely candidates for my application. I sometimes think I could secure 200 subscribers from just New York City alone, never mind the rest of the country, world. I'm genuinely interested in the product I'm working on and the experience
Why it failed: I'm slowly hacking away at a niche B2B SaaS product after work and on weekends. I'm looking forward to the prospect of some extra monthly cash. I get a kick out of thinking, "At $30/mo, I only need 200 users to bring in a cool $6000 a month!" (gross, of course) ...but wait. Will
route3
- startupShut down2010
Ask HN: Show me the money - Advice needed
I'm not asking for legal advice (it's trivial to use the small claims system in the UK). I mostly need advice on dealing with people here. DETAILS I am owed money for some web design by a small (~5 man) company. As a student this represents a couple of months rent and forms a significant part of my budget for the summer. We are both in the UK, and the client was invoiced about five weeks ago. A friend of mine works at this place, and most of my correspondence has been with him, rather than the company owner. I have twice chased it up with my friend, who has in turn nagged his boss. All I'm getting is that it's on the to-do list, cashflow is tight but it's coming at some point. I asked "does some point mean before the end of the month?", and got an "oooh, not sure". I know the boss is not short of money, and I'm not getting a good vibe from this. We did not set a credit period, but the un
Why it failed: I'm not asking for legal advice (it's trivial to use the small claims system in the UK). I mostly need advice on dealing with people here. DETAILS I am owed money for some web design by a small (~5 man) company. As a student this represents a couple of months rent and forms a sig
SandB0x
- startupShut down2010
Ask HN: Loosing Faith - the startup killer
I'm coding for 15 years, I've met a bunch of of bright, skilled and motivated people trying to build "their own project": Nearly everyone of them had on some point the idea to build a startup, a small web project, a passive income business. And mostly everyone, including myself, failed. We've failed not because nobody wanted our product. Or because of missing programming skills. We've failed because we've lost faith in our product! We may have started, wrote weeks of code, played with it. And finally abandoned it without finishing it. I'm not talking about "missing market"/lack of customer acceptance. We just were not able to finish it. What I wonder: We're all intelligent enough to understand, that it probably takes some time to finish a product (SaaS app for example). We all now, that it takes some time to get a few beta customers and even more time and hard work to attract paying cust
Why it failed: I'm coding for 15 years, I've met a bunch of of bright, skilled and motivated people trying to build "their own project": Nearly everyone of them had on some point the idea to build a startup, a small web project, a passive income business. And mostly everyone, including myself,
rmoriz
- startupShut down2010
Ask HN: How much is too much?
I'm a cofounder in a small Canadian-based startup. We think we're on to something big, but we're pretty much out of cash and need a couple more months to get to revenue. As luck would have it, we have been approached by an angel investor who's willing to give us the injection we need, but at no small cost. Since this is an anonymous disclosure, I'll just open up and give some numbers. The investor is successfully running his own large company and has no burning need to see a monetary return on his investment. He's openly stated that he is more interested in vicariously living the startup life through us, and is also excited about exploring a new space from the same level as the founders. He runs a large company and pines for the days of a young, scrappy, agile startup. To that end, he has asked for an equal stake in the company and a directorship. The valuation on the table is quite low
Why it failed: I'm a cofounder in a small Canadian-based startup. We think we're on to something big, but we're pretty much out of cash and need a couple more months to get to revenue. As luck would have it, we have been approached by an angel investor who's willing to give us the injection we
seaking
- startupShut down2010
Ask HN: What do you do to relax?
One thing I do is work out. But I'm trying to find something I can do every night to wind down and have a bit of fun. I'm thinking I might watch a movie (or part of one) a few nights a week. Maybe a tv show. Maybe read. What else? What do you do?
Why it failed: One thing I do is work out. But I'm trying to find something I can do every night to wind down and have a bit of fun. I'm thinking I might watch a movie (or part of one) a few nights a week. Maybe a tv show. Maybe read. What else? What do you do?
oldmanstan
- startupShut down2010
Ask HN: whither Billmonk?
My roommates and I have been happily using Billmonk (http://www.billmonk.com) for years. Today, it appears to have vanished. I knew the service wasn't really being actively developed since the Obopay acquisition, but that's OK, it was perfect for us as it was! I don't recall seeing any "we're shutting down" message, and there's no status blog I could find - the company blog has been dormant for over a year. So, with that: 1) Does anyone here know what's up with Billmonk - are they just having a nasty server problem that they're not motivated enough to fix, or has the plug been pulled sans announcement? 2) Anyone have contact info for the [former] Billmonks? (I believe they were a YC company? Not 100% sure.) My roommates and I have some valuable (to us, no one else) data in there... at a minimum, we'd like to have our final totals so we can settle up; ideally, we'd love to have our histor
Why it failed: My roommates and I have been happily using Billmonk (http://www.billmonk.com) for years. Today, it appears to have vanished. I knew the service wasn't really being actively developed since the Obopay acquisition, but that's OK, it was perfect for us as it was! I don't recall seei
kgrin
- startupShut down2010
Ask HN: Successful entrepreneurs, what (non-startup) areas in life did you fail?
My mentor once told me, "you can have it all, just not all at the same time." Time and time again I forget and try to do it all, and I end up frustrating myself. I know this, but I often forget: If I want to succeed at the things that are important to me in my life (such as building a successful startup), there will be areas in my life that I will have to be ok with getting a failing grade in. (e.g. relationships will suffer, etc.) It's one thing to try and fail (negative "ROI"), it's another to knowingly accept and say, "ok, I'm going to get a C- in certain areas so I'm not going to invest too much of my finite resources in this area (non-negative ROI)." Would successful entrepreneurs share with us here what they had to give up? Personally, I find it hard to keep up with my relationships. If I know that others went through the same, it would make me feel a lot better that it's not just
Why it failed: My mentor once told me, "you can have it all, just not all at the same time." Time and time again I forget and try to do it all, and I end up frustrating myself. I know this, but I often forget: If I want to succeed at the things that are important to me in my life (such as build
jayliew
- startupShut down2010
Awesome email advice from a friend on how to learn programming.
Let's start with the first and most important rule of learning to code. Read everything and understand what you're reading. Do not skip or skim words or communication of any kind. Don't read something assuming you know what it means; if you don't understand it, look around, ask someone, or google until you understand what you've just read. Then, you can move on. The reason for this is that programming involves comprehension, not knowledge (more on that below). Failure to follow this will make you a sucky programmer. You'll write buggy code. You'll piss yourself off when you think nobody wants to help you. Then, you'll end up really pissed because everything you thought you knew how to do falls apart, and you finally realize you're a bad programmer. This happened to me about 7yrs ago -- so, I'm trying to save you the trouble. After I realized this, and, after I learned how to program, not
Why it failed: Let's start with the first and most important rule of learning to code. Read everything and understand what you're reading. Do not skip or skim words or communication of any kind. Don't read something assuming you know what it means; if you don't understand it, look around, ask s
nav
- startupShut down2010
Stealth VC funded YC startup seeking Backend/Operations Engineer (S09)
Operations Engineer We seeking a forward-thinking experienced engineer to lead our operations. You’ll start out supporting the existing tools that we already have and quickly move on to owning automation and integration projects. You’ll also be responsible for managing and providing active support for mission-critical MySQL production/QA/dev environments. You should have a “can-do” attitude and work well in a cross-functional environment. This position is full-time and will report to the CTO. The position is based in our main office in downtown Burlingame, CA. Responsibilities * Create and maintain tools that facilitate administration of servers * Create and maintain scripts to deploy web applications to multiple environments * Assist in tracking server issues * Understand and debug network, hardware, and Linux OS related issues * Predict growth and scaling issues before they occur and i
Why it failed: Operations Engineer We seeking a forward-thinking experienced engineer to lead our operations. You’ll start out supporting the existing tools that we already have and quickly move on to owning automation and integration projects. You’ll also be responsible for managing and provid
wc_hacker
- startupShut down2010
Ask HN: I'm 20 and I need advice.
If you were 20 years old today, what would you be doing? I am 20. My goal is to amass $1m (Australian) by 35 so I can do some substantial things later in life (I've got an idea for a business of maintaining water wells built by various charities in African villages and charging the US government for it.). I could do this by getting a high paying job within 5 years and getting above average returns investing $50,000 a year. I could also do this by building a successful small business and reaping a high income or even gasp selling that business for $1 million. I imagined that if I was 35, and I became 20 again and asked myself what I would be doing... I'd be saving money, learning how to invest in stocks, a girlfriend, learning to drive, finding a part time IT job, building random stuff and trying my hand at making a mini-business. I've saved up several thousand dollars which I've invested
Why it failed: If you were 20 years old today, what would you be doing? I am 20. My goal is to amass $1m (Australian) by 35 so I can do some substantial things later in life (I've got an idea for a business of maintaining water wells built by various charities in African villages and charging t
meric
- startupShut down2010
Ask HN: What is your workflow for saving bookmarks?
Interested in hearing the various services/methods folks use to save url's. Especially with delicious likely shutting down (which I used), I'm interested in hearing about this. The only requirement is that the url's are available everywhere and not (just) stored locally. Thanks.
Why it failed: Interested in hearing the various services/methods folks use to save url's. Especially with delicious likely shutting down (which I used), I'm interested in hearing about this. The only requirement is that the url's are available everywhere and not (just) stored locally. Thanks.
mr_november
- startupShut down2010
Ask HN: "Is that work?"
It's a commonly heard phrase in my office. I'm the only developer where I work, based in a [car] dealership, which is one of the franchise locations of a car dealer group which owns [more than a few] (or so) other dealerships in quite a large area of the United Kingdom. For the record, I am not writing this on company time [half an hour lunch break, although he still does this even if I AM on my lunch break] I build websites, web apps, microsites, soon to be Android Apps and iPhone apps. I am in charge of slicing and dicing photoshop templates which we get from our designer (Who sits behind me in the same office) into HTML templates to use with Drupal, CakePHP et al. I am in charge of inputting the copy for said microsites and websites from MS Word documents, this copy is written by the "Marketing Manager", who currently sits behind and to the right of me. To the right of where I sit, is
Why it failed: It's a commonly heard phrase in my office. I'm the only developer where I work, based in a [car] dealership, which is one of the franchise locations of a car dealer group which owns [more than a few] (or so) other dealerships in quite a large area of the United Kingdom. For the r
throwaway_burn
- startupShut down2010
Ask HN: Review My Startup - Hypernumbers The Team Spreadsheet
Please review my startup: http://hypernumbers.com We finally have a ‘quantum of utility’ - a product like a spreadsheet but better at doing some things... I would love to get your thoughts and opinions on what a native-web spreadsheet should be like - and in which ways hypernumbers meets (or fails to meet) your expectations. BACK STORY When I started writing this submission I googled for Paul Graham’s 'Startup Ideas We'd Like to Fund' No 22 - web spreadsheet ( http://ycombinator.com/ideas.html ) from 2008 – so I could point out we started full time work on it in 2007. Through the miracle of Google I found this article of Paul’s from 2005 ( http://www.paulgraham.com/ideas.html ) which predates us. I have no idea if I read that article at the time :( That got me thinking. Reading Paul’s articles today it all seems so simple and obvious
Why it failed: Please review my startup: http://hypernumbers.com We finally have a ‘quantum of utility’ - a product like a spreadsheet but better at doing some things... I would love to get your thoughts and opinions on what a native-web spreadsheet should be like - and in which ways
gordonguthrie
- startupShut down2010
Ask HN: How would you spend $1-2K a month in marketing/ads for a web app?
We have a web app/service (http://nextproof.com) that is about 18 months old. It has a solid user base, a steady number of signups, and is profitable. However, most of the signups are coming from existing customers of our other services (we offer it when they signup). I'd like to start bringing in new customers directly. I've set aside $1-2k per month for marketing, ad campaigns, etc. Anyone have creative suggestions on how to spend this money? Ideas so far include: - AdWords - Facebook ads - Niche ads on industry-related sites, blogs, and forums - Paying someone to blog steadily I also don't mind spending on related tools and apps. I'm looking into things like Kissmetrics, AdGrok, etc.
Why it failed: We have a web app/service (http://nextproof.com) that is about 18 months old. It has a solid user base, a steady number of signups, and is profitable. However, most of the signups are coming from existing customers of our other services (we offer it when they signup). I'd like to
callmeed
- startupShut down2010
Tell HN: Denver Meetup of HN
We're throwing a meetup of HN fans in Denver, Colorado next week, on Thursday October 7th. If anyone is interested, please come join us. Ideally you live in Colorado but if you're just visiting, that's cool too. Very informal, just to say hello, chat, network, maybe enjoy a beer or two. Starts at 6:30pm at the Rock Bottom Brewery in downtown Denver, off 16th Street. Myself and evo_9 are organizing it. A few of us will have an orange-and-white HN badge on our shirt, or standup card on a table, so you know what group to look for. If you can't make this one, there will be more in the future, at different times and locations so that everybody gets a chance to make it. Please email me if you plan on coming, just so I know what to expect. Email in my HN profile. Thanks, and I think we'll have fun! Map: http://maps.google.com/maps?client=safari&rls=en&oe=UTF-8&um=1&ie=UTF-8&
Why it failed: We're throwing a meetup of HN fans in Denver, Colorado next week, on Thursday October 7th. If anyone is interested, please come join us. Ideally you live in Colorado but if you're just visiting, that's cool too. Very informal, just to say hello, chat, network, maybe enjoy a beer
mkramlich
- startupShut down2010
Tell HN: I got screwed by my employer
Premise: this story is in part my fault too, but I will leave it here to warn other people on this subject: bootstrapping a startup while employed. I worked in a consulting company in my country of origin and I was bootstrapping a startup in the meanwhile. A few weeks ago I moved to another job in another country. Now I have to close my startup because my employer does not allow it. There are posts like this one http://blog.asmartbear.com/working-startup.html that tell you that usually things go well in this regard. While I don't doubt it, it wasn't my case. If you want to start a startup while employed, be very careful on this matter. Actually everything seemed ok with this at first. I was hired in my current position because of my startup (I have an iPhone developer position here and the only iPhone development I ever made was in my startup) and during the interview I was asked if I wa
Why it failed: Premise: this story is in part my fault too, but I will leave it here to warn other people on this subject: bootstrapping a startup while employed. I worked in a consulting company in my country of origin and I was bootstrapping a startup in the meanwhile. A few weeks ago I moved
DeusExMachina
- startupShut down2010
Plea HN: Any work?
This is a throwaway account. My main is a fairly high karma HN account that's been here for years. I've met some of you in real life. I recently took a lower paying (but much lower stress) job to allow me more time to bootstrap my own startup. This made our budget tighter, but between my income and my wife's, all the necessities were at least covered. Fast forwarding to now, my wife just lost her job, making my leaner budget entirely unworkable. I have no idea how I'm going to cover the bills that we have, much less have any money left over for Christmas for my family. I'm a competent Python web developer, and have familiarity with Django, Tornado, Mongo, MySQL, SQLite, Nginx, et al. I have decent design skills, though I am nowhere near a master, understand HTML, XHTML, CSS and am dabbling with HTML5. I can slice PSDs, develop web pages end-to-end. I build solid UI/UX interfaces that are
Why it failed: This is a throwaway account. My main is a fairly high karma HN account that's been here for years. I've met some of you in real life. I recently took a lower paying (but much lower stress) job to allow me more time to bootstrap my own startup. This made our budget tighter, but be
throwaway911
- startupShut down2010
Ask HN: Do the benefits of the Valley outweigh the costs?
This might seem like a no-brainer for those of you who live in Silicon Valley, but coming from way, way outside the Valley (as in Melbourne, Australia) I would love to hear your views on whether the benefits of building a startup in the Valley outweigh the high costs of living there. I have some idea of the advantages. Here are three that come to mind: access to venture capital, networking and jobs (i.e. if my company failed in the Valley I could probably get an equivalent executive role with a technology company, whereas such opportunities are thin on the ground in Australia, let alone Melbourne.) Or am I wearing a pair of rose colored glasses?
Why it failed: This might seem like a no-brainer for those of you who live in Silicon Valley, but coming from way, way outside the Valley (as in Melbourne, Australia) I would love to hear your views on whether the benefits of building a startup in the Valley outweigh the high costs of living th
annajohnson
- startupShut down2010
Tell HN: I can't even get a job offering to work for free
This is a short, funny but tragic story about my quest for a job. (Apologies for the length and writing style, its half story / half venting). Background: I’m 23, graduated last year with a business degree. I have a bunch of startup experience, having projects mentioned on Techcrunch, TIME, CNet, CBSNews, and more. After a summer of working on a startup with my friend and technical partner, he decided to get a job with one of the big mobile handset developers. That left me with a choice; do something on my own (with limited technical ability) or get a job and learn something. In September, I decided to give it shot and sent email out to the CEO of a local startup. I figured I wanted to be a part of the growing social product space, so a social analytics company made sense. I kidd you not, the subject of my email was “I want to work for you for free!”. It worked, and I got the attention I
Why it failed: This is a short, funny but tragic story about my quest for a job. (Apologies for the length and writing style, its half story / half venting). Background: I’m 23, graduated last year with a business degree. I have a bunch of startup experience, having projects mentioned on Techcr
coryl