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: 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
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: Have any of you filed "$0" in your Tax return?
I have been working on my startup for the past couple of years and have been drawing no salary and living on personal savings. I am in the process of filing for my Tax return by oct 15th (the extended deadline). Does this mean I put a big fat "$0" on my tax returns? I know it sounds obvious, but I find it quite strange to do that. I used to make quite a bit before I did my startup and I was also married till my last filing where even if I was making no money, my former wife's income would atleast show some income in the tax return. Do all startup people who live of my personal savings actually file a "$0" in thier tax return? I know this is not a tax/CPA forum but I am curious about other founders experiences.
Why it failed: I have been working on my startup for the past couple of years and have been drawing no salary and living on personal savings. I am in the process of filing for my Tax return by oct 15th (the extended deadline). Does this mean I put a big fat "$0" on my tax returns? I know it sou
taxquestion
- startupShut down2010
Ask HN: Is anyone else tired of reading the same articles?
I have spent the last hour reading articles from HN I've saved over the last few weeks. They are all the same. Lean startup this, A/B test that, Design is important, I failed, Build a community then revenues, etc. After years of reading the same articles, I have learned very little. Everyone is repeating the same stories/advice, and, as a community, I don't see any progress. Are we doomed to continuously repeat the same sad stories over and over again? Can we finally kick this habit? I don't know- but I am tired of reading the same articles written with slightly different adjectives.
Why it failed: I have spent the last hour reading articles from HN I've saved over the last few weeks. They are all the same. Lean startup this, A/B test that, Design is important, I failed, Build a community then revenues, etc. After years of reading the same articles, I have learned very litt
emilepetrone
- startupShut down2010
Ocelot: The story of a torrent tracker
I took this directly from a newspost on what.cd, and I have no association with anything written here. Just thought HN would find it interesting. What.CD is a private tracker. Thus, the entire site, staff, and community all revolve around a common piece of software - the tracker backend. Complementing the site frontend, which you're looking at now, the tracker itself handles connections between peers. With over five million peers, our tracker receives an average of 3,500 hits per second, although after a period of tracker downtime, load can spike up to past 12,000 hits per second. This means that, when your client announces, the tracker has 80 microseconds to search through its database of over 900,000 torrents and 5,000,000 peers, compute a response, and send it back to you. That's a lot of stress on a piece of software! We anticipated this problem, of course, back before the site even
Why it failed: I took this directly from a newspost on what.cd, and I have no association with anything written here. Just thought HN would find it interesting. What.CD is a private tracker. Thus, the entire site, staff, and community all revolve around a common piece of software - the tracker
Goonbaggins
- 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: 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
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
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: 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
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: 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: A New Decade. Any Predictions?
Since everybody is talking about predictions for 2010, I thought I would bump it up a notch. Anybody care to make some predictions about what we'll see in the coming decade (2010-2019)? I'll try a couple. - Major changes will happen in Iran, one way or the other. The current trajectory they are on does not seem sustainable for a decade. - Ubiquitous computing will finally arrive, with smart cards/RFID on our bodies seamlessly interacting with computers in our environment. As you walk up to your refrigerator, for instance, you're logged in and presented with a customized display. Same goes for the car or the entertainment surface at the Dentist's. - Flat panel displays will not drop to rock-bottom. Instead, a new generation of 2160 and 3240p 3-D panels will appear for consumer setting. Rock-bottom 10-20 inch panels will stabilize in the 50-100 range and stay there. Sorry, no panel/OLED wa
Why it failed: Since everybody is talking about predictions for 2010, I thought I would bump it up a notch. Anybody care to make some predictions about what we'll see in the coming decade (2010-2019)? I'll try a couple. - Major changes will happen in Iran, one way or the other. The current traj
DanielBMarkham
- startupShut down2010
Ask HN: how many years have you "wasted" on failed startups? And any regrets?
Over the last few days I've seen people post their lists of failed startups. What is not clear, however, is how many man-hours (or man-months or man-years), that were spent on these failed startups: were they working full-time on them, burning their own finances, or were these side-projects while working in full-time employment? So I was wondering: how many man-hours (man-months, man-years etc) have you spent on your "failed" projects? And do you have any regrets? (NB: I use the terms "wasted" and "failed" loosely).
Why it failed: Over the last few days I've seen people post their lists of failed startups. What is not clear, however, is how many man-hours (or man-months or man-years), that were spent on these failed startups: were they working full-time on them, burning their own finances, or were these si
resdirector
- 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
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
Happy New Year in Your Time Zone - What's your resolution?
Since we all live in different time zones, I wanted to post this now. HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE! In America, we have a tradition of making New Year's resolutions. What one thing are you going to do better this coming year, that you know you have to improve? And how are you going to do it?
Why it failed: Since we all live in different time zones, I wanted to post this now. HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE! In America, we have a tradition of making New Year's resolutions. What one thing are you going to do better this coming year, that you know you have to improve? And how are you going to
EGreg
- startupShut down2010
HN Rant: Come and Go Voting
So I log into HN and read the wonderful essay about healthcare and end-of-life costs. I was going to comment and vote on some of the comments, but I can't downvote. Must have ticked somebody off, I guess. I upvote a few of the better comments and move on. Then I go and read about the new Chrome HN extensions. Nice job! Now I can upvote and downvote. I go back to the healthcare essay. Still no ability to downvote. Does anybody here besides the coders of HN want to support the idea that the user can have abilities come and go on a whim and this is going to make for a enjoyable user experience? HN keeps getting more and more nuanced about who can do what when, and, quite frankly, all it seems to do is intermittently piss me off. If it's making things better I can't see it. And even if it is, you don't screw around with system behavior without notifying your user of what's going on. I'm sure
Why it failed: So I log into HN and read the wonderful essay about healthcare and end-of-life costs. I was going to comment and vote on some of the comments, but I can't downvote. Must have ticked somebody off, I guess. I upvote a few of the better comments and move on. Then I go and read about
DanielBMarkham
- startupShut down2010
End-of-Life Warning at $618,616 Makes Me Wonder Was It Worth It
Solid long-format article about the costs of healthcare for a dying husband.
Why it failed: Solid long-format article about the costs of healthcare for a dying husband.
AdamN
- startupShut down2010
Ask HN: Looking for cofounders, I'll pay the bills
Summary: I am looking to create a team of three to live and work together in preparation for the next round of YC. Launching prior to YC or applying to other similar programs are also options but, think the benefits of YC are worth the extra work. Details: After researching the pros and cons of hiring, Angel investing, and finding cofounders have decided the last option is best. I will be looking for two cofounders over the next couple of months to begin work on a minimum viable product. This product will be used in our application to the next round of Y-Combinator. During this time I am offering to pay all standard expenses (rent, food, internet, development costs) as this is the most common objection to starting in my experience. I currently live in San Diego walking distance from UCSD. I would be willing to relocate to the Bay area to build the right team. I have a couple of ideas (an
Why it failed: Summary: I am looking to create a team of three to live and work together in preparation for the next round of YC. Launching prior to YC or applying to other similar programs are also options but, think the benefits of YC are worth the extra work. Details: After researching the p
omni50
- startupShut down2010
Hacker News London Meetup 25th Nov
The next Hacker News London meetup is on Thursday, 25th November. We've decided to split the evening into two parts, short demos and presentations first, followed by a few beers down the pub. Demos and presentations and presentations will be from 6:30 at Skills Matter, 116-120 Goswell Road, London, EC1V 7DP Beers will be at The Slaughtered Lamb, 34-35 Great Sutton St, London, EC1V 0DX, where we have an area reserved for us from 8 o'clock onwards. We have the following 5 minute talks lined up for the evening. Hrishi Mittal: PRETTY GRAPH - MAKE YOUR DATA SING! Philipp Moehring: STARTUP FINANCING FOR NORMAL PEOPLE Douglas Squirrel: INTRODUCING NARRATIVE, A FRAMEWORK FOR BEHAVIOUR-DRIVEN TESTS IN FLUENT JAVA Daniel Tenner: HOW TO GET ON TECHCRUNCH, LIFEHACKER, SLASHDOT, ETC. Lorenzo Stoakes: F# - WHY IT ROCKS Josh Liu: MICRO-CONSULTANCY IS THE NEW BLACK Ben Summers: LINKED DATA, USER EXPERIE
Why it failed: The next Hacker News London meetup is on Thursday, 25th November. We've decided to split the evening into two parts, short demos and presentations first, followed by a few beers down the pub. Demos and presentations and presentations will be from 6:30 at Skills Matter, 116-120 Go
dmitri1981
- startupShut down2010
Ask HN: Why do I always waste time on the weekends?
There's a way for me to make some money, but it requires that I setup a fairly complicated spreadsheet to monitor several variables. All through last week, I've been printing Excel tutorials and ebooks, telling myself that I'll do the spreadsheet over the weekend, so I can start earning immediately. I want to put the money towards a startup. How did I spend my weekend? Friday Night: Listening to rap and channel surfing. I've got all weekend, right? Saturday: Spend half the day browsing, the other half watching about 4 movies. Still got all day Sunday, right? Sunday: Wake up @ 10. Watch a few World Cup matches, while surfing YouTube. I can do it later right? Now I just got to work, and I'm disgusted with myself. I want to leave this job as soon as possible (one's soul can only be sucked so much), but my constant procrastination isn't helping things. The worst part? This isn't the first ti
Why it failed: There's a way for me to make some money, but it requires that I setup a fairly complicated spreadsheet to monitor several variables. All through last week, I've been printing Excel tutorials and ebooks, telling myself that I'll do the spreadsheet over the weekend, so I can start
oz
- startupShut down2010
Ask HN: I feel my dream slipping away
They say advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn't. Well, I'm not looking for hang-in-there-buddy-advice but rather employment ideas or immigration hacks from someone in my situation or who understands it. I'm an Engineer working at a big corp in California - a job I so hate but have been needing to hold on to for green card purposes (I'm a foreign citizen). I'm still at least 2 years away from getting it. Meanwhile, in my spare time, I've been hacking away on my boostrapped startup idea. I released a MVP two months ago and it has been gaining steady traction. I intend to hit ramen profitability by early next year. This is where it gets hard on me. In spite of spending many waking hours working on it, moonlighting often translates to slow progress. At the end of a full 10 hour day working for the man, creativity and productivity are not at their peak wh
Why it failed: They say advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn't. Well, I'm not looking for hang-in-there-buddy-advice but rather employment ideas or immigration hacks from someone in my situation or who understands it. I'm an Engineer working at a big corp i
whatnext