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.
1,703 solutions
- startupShut down2010
Ask HN: Can you code more than 40 hours/wk?
Greetings HN. I have a problem, at least I think I do. I want to code more because I'm really passionate about creating things. That has meant many different things throughout my life, but it has meant writing software since I discovered my first BBS. I have a full-time day job and, while I enjoy it, I want to create something on the side. I've been working on a side-project since early August but I feel like it's developing extremely slowly. I can code about 40 hours a week. And I mean really code, not just being at work: heads-down, super-productive hacking. All told, I spend about 32-34 hours a week at work coding so I usually end up spending about 10 hours a week on my side-project. This comes out to around 6-8 hours coding and 2-4 hours designing, researching, etc. Those numbers change quite a bit depending on overtime so I typically get in about 25 hours a month on my side-project.
Why it failed: Greetings HN. I have a problem, at least I think I do. I want to code more because I'm really passionate about creating things. That has meant many different things throughout my life, but it has meant writing software since I discovered my first BBS. I have a full-time day job a
netmau5
- startupShut down2010
Ask HN: Average coder at dead-end. What now?
Greetings all! I was hoping the fine minds here might be able to help me out a little with the quandary I'm in. Some woeful backstory: I'm a (ahem) PHP developer & been doing it for 8 or so years now. I'll be honest, I'm no 'rockstar', 'ninja' or 'action-monk' but I think I'm reasonably good and have always managed to build whatever is required within a decent timescale. Nothing has even blown the heck up on my watch. I've done everything from proper low-end nonsense to working on/building on a few largeish e-commerce sites (nothing enormous but in the $millions taken through site in a year). Right now I'm earning £18,000/yr (approx $26,708.40 - off the top of my head ;) with ZERO chance of pay rise (it's been 2 years since my last one) and while this pays the rent, that's about it. I can't pay every bill that comes through each month as it stands. The problems I have are twofold: 1.
Why it failed: Greetings all! I was hoping the fine minds here might be able to help me out a little with the quandary I'm in. Some woeful backstory: I'm a (ahem) PHP developer & been doing it for 8 or so years now. I'll be honest, I'm no 'rockstar', 'ninja' or 'action-monk' but I think I'm
forcetenhen
- startupShut down2010
Noisebridge SF might shutdown
From Shannon Lee via Noisebridge-announce: Hi All, We have a problem. Actually, I think we have several problems, but we have one major manifestation of our problem: We are broke. We are not going to be able to pay February's rent at the current rate of input/output. We're currently taking in about $2500/month in dues & donations, and we're spending about $5000 in rent and utilities and whatnot. This is a dramatic drop-off from this summer, when we were doing a little better than breaking even. So, no joke, Noisebridge may close its doors in February, unless we can solve our problem. This is way past the time for "let's have a party and charge money!" -- the thing we need is for people who don't want Noisebridge to close to reach into their wallets and shell out some cash. Some of you will have noticed the new donation box with a sign that says "It costs $165 per day to keep us open"
Why it failed: From Shannon Lee via Noisebridge-announce: Hi All, We have a problem. Actually, I think we have several problems, but we have one major manifestation of our problem: We are broke. We are not going to be able to pay February's rent at the current rate of input/output. We're curren
lowglow
- startupShut down2010
Ask HN: Rails or Django?
For the past 5 years I've been a PHP developer. For the past 2 I've been using frameworks to make my life a lot easier. The thing is, I'm a bit bored with PHP. I'd like to expand my horizons and learn a new language + framework. Currently I'm looking at Ruby + Rails and Python + Django. I already know a bit of Python (I write back-end scripts with it), but not enough to have it influence my decision. The criteria I'm looking at are: * Adoption - Are a lot of people using this framework and does it look like it is still gaining followers? * Community - Is there a strong support community around it? Are there good resources for learning? * Jobs - What are the job prospects like for this language + framework? * Scalability - Does the framework scale well? I imagine this is determine by application design too, but lets assume that it's designed well. * Fun - Is it a fun language to code in?
Why it failed: For the past 5 years I've been a PHP developer. For the past 2 I've been using frameworks to make my life a lot easier. The thing is, I'm a bit bored with PHP. I'd like to expand my horizons and learn a new language + framework. Currently I'm looking at Ruby + Rails and Python +
vital101
- startupShut down2010
Ask HN: Career path for founder of a failed venture backed startup?
Hi guys, this is anonymous for obvious reasons. Say I'm the founder and CTO of a venture backed startup. We had a good run but, for a variety of reasons, the company fizzles after a few years (and series A and B). Now I'm a 26 year old college drop out (from a top tier school), with some pretty cool experience (I've written huge software from the ground up, ran a company, hired/trained a dev team, etc). So, what are my job options? I have the contacts/team/etc to start another company, but I don't have an idea that really excites me and I feel like I need a few years without the huge ups and downs of a startup. (I have offers to go be 'director of engineering' or something similar at a few other startups, but I'd like something a little slower paced for a while ...) Without a college degree can I go to the big guys (Microsoft, Google, etc?). Can I go become an associate at a VC firm (it
Why it failed: Hi guys, this is anonymous for obvious reasons. Say I'm the founder and CTO of a venture backed startup. We had a good run but, for a variety of reasons, the company fizzles after a few years (and series A and B). Now I'm a 26 year old college drop out (from a top tier school), w
anoncto
- startupShut down2010
Ask HN: Feedback our Startup Garmz.com - Start your own fashion label
Hi all, i know several HN members have a family and/or professional background in the fashion industry so i am really keen to get feedback :) We do Garmz.com Garmz.com is essentially a webpage where you can start your own fashion label. What we basically do is we provide online portofolios for upcoming fashion designers (think fashion students or young fashion designers). They can upload their fashion designs and get feedback votings etc. If we see demand for a product WE do the actual production and sell it in our webshop and in partner webshops. We launched the very first version of our platform - nothing but an upload button - middle of june and recieved uploads from all over the world within the first week. (Hongkong, India, Brazil, USA, Kanada, Australia, Vietnam, All over Europe - like in a Bad Hollywood Startup Movie but for real) We launched the Design pages end of July and recie
Why it failed: Hi all, i know several HN members have a family and/or professional background in the fashion industry so i am really keen to get feedback :) We do Garmz.com Garmz.com is essentially a webpage where you can start your own fashion label. What we basically do is we provide online p
andreasklinger
- startupShut down2010
Ask HN: When are you allowed to quit a startup?
Hi Everyone-- Long wall of text ahead, sorry, but hopefully details will help. I've been working at a startup since the beginning of the year. It has been good thus far -- great environment, great people, great time. I'm the only programmer and our products absolutely require this company to have a programmer on staff. I'm very much enjoying the work -- this wasn't in my area of expertise before (the business end) but I'm really getting a knack for understanding how our product fits in the field. And further, I've been able to really develop my skills to be a versatile programmer/dev. ops. guy. The problem is that I'm looking at the calendar, and listening to all the conversations about sales and what not, and thinking: "Man, this company is probably going to go belly up around Christmas." And while in this part of the world, it wouldn't be too hard for a programmer to get work -- even f
Why it failed: Hi Everyone-- Long wall of text ahead, sorry, but hopefully details will help. I've been working at a startup since the beginning of the year. It has been good thus far -- great environment, great people, great time. I'm the only programmer and our products absolutely require thi
throwaway52
- startupShut down2010
Ask HN: Dropbox?
Hi All, I would live thoughts on the Dropbox service. Reliable? Good Customer Service? Horror stories? My goal here is just what they advertise for functionality. Unified across my devices, sharing, etc. I currently backup to a number of devices, etc. Could I make my home directory for My mac my DropBox drive? Smart idea? What do you all think would happen if DropBox went out of business. Would they make sure we all had copies of our data? I have MobileMe now. It is decent for sure. I can buy 60gb more space for $99 for the year (or $49 for 40gb) It seems to have similar functionality. I doubt Apple would give us our data if they decided to discontinue MobileMe. It seems unlikely they would though.
Why it failed: Hi All, I would live thoughts on the Dropbox service. Reliable? Good Customer Service? Horror stories? My goal here is just what they advertise for functionality. Unified across my devices, sharing, etc. I currently backup to a number of devices, etc. Could I make my home directo
jason_slack
- startupShut down2010
Ask HN: Have you had laser eye surgery? What was your experience?
Hi, I am a long term HN member writing under an anonymous account as this is a somewhat personal issue for me. I have been short-sighted (myopia of about -5.00 in both eyes) all my life, and generally wear both contact lenses and glasses. I find contact lenses really irritate my eyes when programming (dry eyes due to less blinking when on computer) and am fed up of issues with glasses (steaming, cleaning, etc) and recently have been considering laser eye surgery. I live in the UK, and have booked consultations at the 3 main providers here - UltraLase, Optimax, Optical Express. I'll write my assessment of them each later once I go for my consultation with the last provider at the end of the month, but so far have concluded that one has to really research the area to avoid much of the nonsense that they tell patients especially with regard to equipment and surgeons used and why e.g. Ultral
Why it failed: Hi, I am a long term HN member writing under an anonymous account as this is a somewhat personal issue for me. I have been short-sighted (myopia of about -5.00 in both eyes) all my life, and generally wear both contact lenses and glasses. I find contact lenses really irritate my
lasik
- startupShut down2010
Ask HN: My startup failed. $9k in debt and need to pay most of it in 12 days.
HN, A startup that I am part of failed. Prereq: USA, C-Corp in Delaware. We have $6k in server fees to Rackspace and $3k in debt with our lawyer. We also have a huge amount of credit card fraud that went through our credit card processing account/merchant account (like $8k), which is going to be an ongoing issue for the next year+ and may end up in me and my SSN being blacklisted from Visa and Mastercard. I used to be able to cover this kind of failure, but over the past few months, I've sunk tons of my money into this company and completely depleted my checking and savings accounts. The account goes into collections in the first week of October (which means my credit will be destroyed). I will be leaving the startup after I sort everything out. I need a way to make this $6k in about 12 days. My savings is shot. I have some consulting (WordPress, PHP, Rails) money coming in, but it's onl
Why it failed: HN, A startup that I am part of failed. Prereq: USA, C-Corp in Delaware. We have $6k in server fees to Rackspace and $3k in debt with our lawyer. We also have a huge amount of credit card fraud that went through our credit card processing account/merchant account (like $8k), whic
debtscrewed
- startupShut down2010
Please help Suicide hotline non profit
Hi, I belong to a developing nation, where we have almost no suicide hotlines. So i am thinking of starting a suicide hotline but I am facing some technical difficulties. I don't have a large budget to purchase Cisco unified communication system so i looking at something cheaper. This is what i am looking for : 1) People call to one unified number, a standard line number and it gets routed. 2) The calls should be routed to mobile numbers instead of landline numbers. This is a non profit venture which means that i can't employ people.So i want the calls get routed to mobile number of volunteers who are available at that time, despite their location. I have figured out asterisk but i don't know if it is best solution for this. If it is, i don't know my way around that. So guys please advice me on this issue, you might end up saving someones life.
Why it failed: Hi, I belong to a developing nation, where we have almost no suicide hotlines. So i am thinking of starting a suicide hotline but I am facing some technical difficulties. I don't have a large budget to purchase Cisco unified communication system so i looking at something cheaper.
ammarkalim
- startupShut down2010
I need someone to build my website. My budget is $200 and I need it ASAP.
How many times have you been asked this by friends, colleagues, and referrals. The person generally continues to say... "I really don't need anything too advanced. Just a simple ecommerce/wiki/forum/community website. With a blog. It shouldn't take you more than a few hours. I actually could even do it myself no problem, but its just not worth my time. You know, I used to be the #1 COBOL programmer in the 70s." At this point, I sarcastically interrupt "Would you like me to program your website in COBOL so you can maintain it?" They never get the satire... "Oh, and really important. I like this website (shows random crappy website) that my friend has. Can you make it like this? You know, but different? We're ready to launch, all we need is the website, and we need it done ASAP. If you say its going to take 8 hours, I expect that you could get it done by tomorrow." I usually respond to thi
Why it failed: How many times have you been asked this by friends, colleagues, and referrals. The person generally continues to say... "I really don't need anything too advanced. Just a simple ecommerce/wiki/forum/community website. With a blog. It shouldn't take you more than a few hours. I ac
bdclimber14
- startupShut down2010
How You Can Directly Help Haiti
Howdy. ++This is at least a double-scroll message, so I appreciate you taking a couple minutes to read it++ I'm currently working on growing my startup (a YC company), but previously I spent 2 years building a non-profit that sets up volunteer centers in disaster areas and I'd like to ask you for your help in supporting it. We are a super lean organization with an executive director that takes a $0 per year salary. Donations are being gathered to directly help the people in Haiti. Haiti has suffered a catastrophic disaster. It's quite hard to fully conceptualize what something like this does to a country. For those of you who have experienced life in a 3rd world country, you know how shocking everyday life can be for some people... add on top of that chaos, pain, fear and a collapse of basic services... The people in Haiti are greatly suffering now and will be for the months if not years
Why it failed: Howdy. ++This is at least a double-scroll message, so I appreciate you taking a couple minutes to read it++ I'm currently working on growing my startup (a YC company), but previously I spent 2 years building a non-profit that sets up volunteer centers in disaster areas and I'd li
dariusmonsef
- startupShut down2010
Ask HN: Please review our startup: historious
historious is basically a search engine for sites you have bookmarked. Think of it as a cross between delicious and google, you bookmark something and the entire content of the page becomes searchable. It's at http://historio.us/ I have posted it here once before, and you guys were very helpful, giving a deluge of very good suggestions. Right now I'd like to ask for your opinion on the pricing model. Our model right now is a free option, which has a limit of 1000 bookmarks for a month, and then it becomes unlimited. This is to avoid people coming in, importing their 20,000 bookmarks and leaving, never to return. There are also some extra features here: http://historio.us/pricing/ The main problem, and what we'd like your feedback on, is that every bookmark a user adds is expensive, as we have to store the entire page. Right now the service is profitable, but we'd like to improve it so we
Why it failed: historious is basically a search engine for sites you have bookmarked. Think of it as a cross between delicious and google, you bookmark something and the entire content of the page becomes searchable. It's at http://historio.us/ I have posted it here once before, and you guys we
stavros
- startupShut down2010
Ask HN: Moving balls to the wall on a fantastic idea?
Howdy HN. I've been sucking on an idea for the past few weeks that seems to get exponentially better and better every time I discuss it out loud. Tonight's conversation with my girlfriend is what inspired me to go absolutely batty with it. All of us have felt this way one time or another. The thing preventing us from executing or going all-out on it always comes down to a handful of things. 1) It's a brilliant idea that we came up with all on our own, but it's been done before, sometimes better, and sometimes worse. 2) We don't have any time. We're too busy with X, Y, or Z gig that is paying the bills and is therefore more important. 3) We don't have the resources to execute on it. 4) A combination of all of the above. I'm stuck with items 2 and 3 in the list. I'm a freelancer who is working hard right now to support myself. 20 years old, skipping college, writing my own ticket. I've man
Why it failed: Howdy HN. I've been sucking on an idea for the past few weeks that seems to get exponentially better and better every time I discuss it out loud. Tonight's conversation with my girlfriend is what inspired me to go absolutely batty with it. All of us have felt this way one time or
whalesalad
- startupShut down2010
HN Domain Exchange: Add your unused domains
I registered a domain for a project a year ago and lost interest after about six months. Still I think it is a decent domain name and I don't want to release it in the void. I'd much prefer if a HNer would get it from me and build it into something great. If you are similarly sitting on cool domain names from abandoned projects or weekend hacks, here is a google spreadsheet for you to share them: https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Aue8w7GPjATXdF9jSW1IV3BlWE1TYjM3R0JMV1hYUHc&hl=en
Why it failed: I registered a domain for a project a year ago and lost interest after about six months. Still I think it is a decent domain name and I don't want to release it in the void. I'd much prefer if a HNer would get it from me and build it into something great. If you are similarly sit
oozcitak
- 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: What Python web programming frameworks and tools are you using?
I'm interested in hearing from the community about what tools you are using for building web applications in Python. This was last asked about half a year ago (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1357925) and 2 years before that (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=153487), but things are changing fast, especially with the recent popularity of NoSQL, so I think it's worth bringing up again. So, what tools, databases, web servers and frameworks are you using for your latest Python web application projects? Or, if you've abandoned Python, what language have you moved to, and why?
Why it failed: I'm interested in hearing from the community about what tools you are using for building web applications in Python. This was last asked about half a year ago (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1357925) and 2 years before that (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=153487), but t
akamaka