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.
2,800 solutions
- startupShut down2016
Ask HN: Am I expecting too much?
I work at a large, non-software company in the US as an entry-level software engineer, where I've been working for a little over a year, now. This has been my first job out of college, though I did do freelance work for a few years prior. I'm very unhappy at my company, and I'm wondering whether this is due to the company, or instead due to my own unrealistic expectations. In my organization at this company, each team is assigned one senior engineer, one or more non-senior engineers, and one or more offshore engineers. On my team, I am the only non-senior engineer, in addition to half a dozen offshore engineers. In the ~12 months that I've been on my team, 3 senior engineers have joined and subsequently quit, which has left me to learn the ropes of our (unnecessarily large and often undocumented) application and manage all of our offshore engineers on my own. This mea
Why it failed: I work at a large, non-software company in the US as an entry-level software engineer, where I've been working for a little over a year, now. This has been my first job out of college, though I did do freelance work for a few years prior. I'm very unhappy at my company,
throwawaypotato
- startupShut down2016
Ask HN: What kind of projects should I build for a front-end portfolio?
I have no professional experience, so I'll be applying to junior positions. What kind of projects should I build to showcase my skills? I'm thinking of doing re-designs of a few popular websites (2-3 pages mobile & desktop, wireframes) that I think can be improved. And then coding them into life. Would that make a good front-end portfolio or are there better projects that I can be doing? Also, I'm new to github-- What could I contribute to on there?
Why it failed: I have no professional experience, so I'll be applying to junior positions. What kind of projects should I build to showcase my skills? I'm thinking of doing re-designs of a few popular websites (2-3 pages mobile & desktop, wireframes) that I think can be improved.
Calist0
- startupShut down2016
Ask HN: Is it just me or do a lot of people not know how stock options work?
I work in a startup in San Francisco. We're profitable & growing, about 30 people now. I'm one of the first engineers so I have a good chunk of stock options. A lot of times when I talk to my friends (mostly engineers, mostly in their middle 20s) about stock options they don't even know the basics. A few examples from my life: * A coworker left the company right before the end of his first year. He had ISOs, and it wouldn't be that expensive to buy them, but he still decided to leave right before the 1 year cliff date to go work in another company. * A friend of mine did not sign his stock options paperwork when his employer gave it to him more than 1 year ago. I guess he was just lazy, didn't want to sign something he did not fully understand. I don't know all the details but I assume if he signs it now he loses 1 year of vesting, the grant price will b
Why it failed: I work in a startup in San Francisco. We're profitable & growing, about 30 people now. I'm one of the first engineers so I have a good chunk of stock options. A lot of times when I talk to my friends (mostly engineers, mostly in their middle 20s) about stock options
stockoptionsta
- startupShut down2016
Ask HN: Need advice.My story:Once an $90k jQuery developer,now a “useless lamer”
I worked as a web dev for 9 years and wrote my first website for money when I was 16. Yesterday, I came for a job interview and was called "a useless lamer" by unshaved, hoodie wearing CTO after a long argument about whether jQuery is obsolete. I finished last contract in April, and didn't manage to get a new one since then. Before, I thought that skill obsolescence is just an excuse to fire old, unproductive people, now it became my own issue. There were years when I was getting multiple calls from recruiters in single day,but I got only 3 calls in the whole 2015. I understand now that my past success was only thanks one trendy buzzword on my resume, and that the hoodie CTO who was interviewing me was 90% right. My weak sides: >I never learnt any real OOPL. I didn't even study JS as a programming language >Bad credentials: BCIT marketing and no-name college in
Why it failed: I worked as a web dev for 9 years and wrote my first website for money when I was 16. Yesterday, I came for a job interview and was called "a useless lamer" by unshaved, hoodie wearing CTO after a long argument about whether jQuery is obsolete. I finished last contract
baybal2
- startupShut down2016
Ask HN: I need advice, Mid-life crisis
I'm 26. No college degree no job no money single no kids and now a DUI on my record so hard to even hire. I'm not depressed but I feel like I can do better in life. I want to make something of myself but not sure where to even begin. I thought I would want to become a Web developer because I saw it as a way out of poverty for me and my family but I find it hard and give up at times because everything is so overwhelming and I don't have anyone to ask questions to because I have so many questions plus I can't afford bootcamps. I'm leaning towards becoming a PHP freelancer but even that seems hard to me. Because of my record of DUI I feel like being a freelancer is a good route With no money and lack of training I don't know how I'll succeed as a developer. Or get a decent paying job in general I just don't want to end up homeless or poor.
Why it failed: I'm 26. No college degree no job no money single no kids and now a DUI on my record so hard to even hire. I'm not depressed but I feel like I can do better in life. I want to make something of myself but not sure where to even begin. I thought I would want to become a W
alexhakawy
- startupShut down2016
Ask HN: What is your viable aka money making startup or side project idea?
I want to be clear before we start. I am not looking for fantasy ideas. E.g. Uber for X , AirBnB for Y. No , it doesn't work that way. I do personally know 3 founders who tried this stuff and failed. Uber is Uber and AirBnB is AirBnb. No more this for that. Also, ideas such as AI, deep learning, space travel require more research work than near immediate monetization opportunities available for solo entrepreneur. Notes app , timetracker, project management software have tons of tools and app so I am reluctant to try in these areas. AI Personal assistant also have large blockade for monetization. At this point I don't have necessary skillset for building AI bots. I am looking for ideas like Improvely, ticket search, fashion cloths and marketplace optimization. I want to know what is your startup idea that could also make money ? We all have ideas but 90 % of them are fantasies o
Why it failed: I want to be clear before we start. I am not looking for fantasy ideas. E.g. Uber for X , AirBnB for Y. No , it doesn't work that way. I do personally know 3 founders who tried this stuff and failed. Uber is Uber and AirBnB is AirBnb. No more this for that. Also, ideas such
uibkend
- startupShut down2016
Ask HN: Consider banning paywalled articles like those from wsj.com please
I can't read the paywalled articles on wsj.com anymore. So it's breaking my web experience of reading HN. The first post on the page is mostly a TLDR or a link to an alternative article instead of a real comment. For example the current #1 post : Samsung to Permanently Discontinue Galaxy Note 7 Smartphone (wsj.com) - https://gyazo.com/440858bfcc2f94d912a087ca2ef7ce26 There will always be a discussion about paywalled articles and or alternative sources, which takes the discussion away from the topic and there is a high chance that this will be a top comment ( because of upvotes). The current #1 link and #7 link are currently unusable to me : https://gyazo.com/578b105ce67f9b6d14cefe0dfeb43efb The trick with bypassing it through the web doesn't work for me anymore ( and multiple others). This was good in the past, but not anymore. An alternative
Why it failed: I can't read the paywalled articles on wsj.com anymore. So it's breaking my web experience of reading HN. The first post on the page is mostly a TLDR or a link to an alternative article instead of a real comment. For example the current #1 post : Samsung to Permanently
NicoJuicy
- startupShut down2016
Ask HN: Good source code search engines?
I recently saw an article on HN about how to use GitHub's search as a starting point when writing code. That indeed is a great trick and it has already helped me save a lot of time. Unfortunately, GitHub's search is very lacking and most of the time instead of showing relevant search results it just shows lots and lots of duplicates for the main library. For example, I was searching for this[1], but the search results show the Main SDK files and not the files created with the SDK (which is what would've helped me). I couldn't find a way to suppress the files or duplicate searches. So I tried looking for a good source code search engine and I've find none so far. I've tried almost everything I could find on Google and Quora but most of these services are either discontinued (Google code, etc) or very bad. So, I was wondering what you guys use to search source
Why it failed: I recently saw an article on HN about how to use GitHub's search as a starting point when writing code. That indeed is a great trick and it has already helped me save a lot of time. Unfortunately, GitHub's search is very lacking and most of the time instead of showing r
supersan
- startupShut down2016
Ask HN: What do you do if you can't pass technical interviews?
I just received yet another rejection email, tonally similar to many of the others I've gotten. This paragraph in particular sticks out [problem details omitted]: "This was a tough decision. We enjoyed talking with you and saw strengths through various parts of the interview, in particular on the [design discussion] and [list traversal] problems. However we made the final decision because we didn't see the overall level of coding we're looking for, especially during the [interactive terminal-based application] problem. The rate of progress on this problem wasn't as fast as we'd hoped and we weren't able to build a nice, generic solution within the time available. There was also a fair amount of confusion on the out of bounds issue, which we feel was the type of bug that would have been caught faster by a more experienced engineer." This is a patter
Why it failed: I just received yet another rejection email, tonally similar to many of the others I've gotten. This paragraph in particular sticks out [problem details omitted]: "This was a tough decision. We enjoyed talking with you and saw strengths through various parts of the inte
Kapura
- startupShut down2016
Love My Company but Feel Like My Salary Is Low
Like the title says, I love my company and everyone that works there. It's a company with about 20 of us who are mostly developers. I generally really like it - I feel like I could be more challenging work (but I think that's a bit of the grass is always greener). My friends in tech are giving me crap because they know I only make around 50k and I'm entering a mid level of experience as a Front-End Dev. My skill set looks like this: high levels of knowledge with OO Javascript, Angular.js/Backbone/Ember.js, Ruby on Rails, Postgres/Mysql, Grunt, Less/SCSS. I've been here for 4 years now. I'd rather have better quality of life than get paid a lot but I can't help thinking that 50k is feeling a little low for the Portland, OR area. Any stories of a good balance between salary and quality of life? Or in a similar situation?
Why it failed: Like the title says, I love my company and everyone that works there. It's a company with about 20 of us who are mostly developers. I generally really like it - I feel like I could be more challenging work (but I think that's a bit of the grass is always greener). My fr
spellsadmoose
- startupShut down2016
Apply HN: Jobinder – checkr meets match.com meets career builder
jobinder.com Problem: The job search procedure is monotonous and job seekers are impatient, they despise the ineffectiveness of most job boards because of the fact that they spend hours on the computer searching without the assurance of a fairly good job coming their way. Employers are overwhelmed with the amount of unqualified candidates they get and look for ways to cut that number down without spending an arm and a leg because hey, they still have to spend on background checks and other essentials for the hiring process. Solution: So we came up with Jobinder a match system to combat the time consuming employment process by utilizing resume matching and the four steps in the hiring process (Personality test, Reference verification, Interview and Background check) PRIB. Job seekers simply upload their resume and instantly get matched to employers looking for their specific skills and qu
Why it failed: jobinder.com Problem: The job search procedure is monotonous and job seekers are impatient, they despise the ineffectiveness of most job boards because of the fact that they spend hours on the computer searching without the assurance of a fairly good job coming their way. Employe
adesuwa
- startupShut down2016
Ask HN: I'm depressed, what should I do?
I'm an active member of this community but I'm using a throwaway instead because I don't want this issue to be linked to my identity tl;dr: I graduated Software engineering 3 months ago and I'm currently without a job and back to live with my parents. During school I was always told that I was "brilliant and one of the best". I tried not to show it with any attitude, but after a lot of people repeating over a period of many years, I think it entered the back of my mind but still with impostor syndrome. On my final year I interned at a very prestigious company (not big 4, but still a huge one) with a great salary and an important project. Everything seemed to go the way everybody predicted and expected of me. At the end of my internship, my manger lets me know that I will not be hired because the company is not hieing junior engineers at this time, but he wou
Why it failed: I'm an active member of this community but I'm using a throwaway instead because I don't want this issue to be linked to my identity tl;dr: I graduated Software engineering 3 months ago and I'm currently without a job and back to live with my parents. During s
throwAwayXYZ69
- startupShut down2016
Ask HN: Is Silicon Valley Becoming an Insiders Club?
I've been a web developer my whole career, with a CS degree, and 16 years experience. In 2007 I joined a new VOD startup and quickly rose to CTO position, then over the next 9 years grew it to 7-figure users and revenue, 16 engineers, and a highly respected brand in an industry niche. We hit a rough financial patch, so I left for another seed-stage startup which failed to gain traction. Now, for the first time in 16 years I find myself looking for a job in SV without a direct reference. I was assuming that my broad experience, ability to bridge the technology-business gap, natural programming ability, and entrepreneurial spirit and tenacity would make me the kind of sought after employee that all growing SV companies claim they can't find enough of. Unfortunately after interviewing at ten top companies (mostly later stage YC), I've been declined nine times. The last compan
Why it failed: I've been a web developer my whole career, with a CS degree, and 16 years experience. In 2007 I joined a new VOD startup and quickly rose to CTO position, then over the next 9 years grew it to 7-figure users and revenue, 16 engineers, and a highly respected brand in an indus
svreject
- startupShut down2016
Ask HN: Is it possible for someone to not be cut out for software engineering?
I'm pretty new to software engineering (~1 year out of college as a CS major) and am having some serious problems improving my skillset (particularly with interviews). Background: - I worked as a linux sysadmin at a startup before going to school for CS. After 3 years, I graduated with a decent GPA (>3.6) and a couple internships at a large tech company. - In college, I always felt like I had to work a harder than most of my classmates in order to get the same result. I would regularly spend 60 - 80 hours per week on schoolwork. - Upon graduation, I accepted a job with the company I interned with and have worked there for ~1.3 years. However, I've been prepping to jump to a different role for a few months now. - Recently (past 1.5 months), I've spent 1 - 3 hours per day on tech interview prep using CLRS, Cracking the Coding Interview, etc. My current target is a role at
Why it failed: I'm pretty new to software engineering (~1 year out of college as a CS major) and am having some serious problems improving my skillset (particularly with interviews). Background: - I worked as a linux sysadmin at a startup before going to school for CS. After 3 years, I gra
conflicted_dev
- startupShut down2016
Followup: Ask HN: Struggling to pay rent this month. Can I help you with a gig?
Original: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10813746 I wanted to share with HN what happened, since a lot of these "hey, help me" posts go unanswered. I was able to successfully pay rent thanks to a few quick gigs that came my way. I was able to work about $2k, a comfortable position while I decide what my next move is. Said invoice remains unpaid. I'm now a debt collector. There are options to consolidate, but the amount is in excess of $25k which makes things difficult. I do have contracts in place, and counsel I can lean on, but it’s an incredibly exhausting and lengthy process. As a 24-year-old dev-shop founder I have learned my lesson. I'll require pre-paid invoices from here on. There’s more to the story, but in short, I've wound things down after my co-founder (design/sales) unexpectedly left us in early Q2 2015. The response was ove
Why it failed: Original: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10813746 I wanted to share with HN what happened, since a lot of these "hey, help me" posts go unanswered. I was able to successfully pay rent thanks to a few quick gigs that came my way. I was able to work a
_whynow
- startupShut down2016
Apply HN: Anonymous P2P therapy phone calls (going through a rough time?)
What we do: We like to think of it as a ‘Anonymous User to User therapy sessions’. We are building a mobile app that allows users who are going through a rough time in their life to be connected to a random person around the world to have a real phone call with. Why: We all go through rough times. It can be school, love life, or not getting into YC fellowship (hint). Some of these things are very tough to talk about with people you know IRL (judgmental, embarrassing, they don’t care, ect). And we all know for a fact that talking it out with someone and getting advice is a great way to fix problems. This is done much easier when it’s an anonymous person on the other end so you can be 100% free. How it works: Imagine you just got denied from YC fellowship. You’re there lying in bed all embarrassed and sad, but you can’t tell anyone about it because you’re just not that close to someone els
Why it failed: What we do: We like to think of it as a ‘Anonymous User to User therapy sessions’. We are building a mobile app that allows users who are going through a rough time in their life to be connected to a random person around the world to have a real phone call with. Why: We all go th
yshajahan16
- startupShut down2016
Need a raise, how to ask?
This is probably a very simple question that a simple Google query can answer, but I'd like to get some opinions on the matter. About me: - 3 year exp software engineer - 84k/year salary - Ruby on Rails, JS, CoffeeScript, MySQL, HTML/CSS (currently the UI guru..) - Oversee 2 folks on the US side (we also have offshore folks) and we all work under 1 App Architect - Company is based out of Boston - I live and work remotely outside of Boston. The company has always been fast-paced. I work on everything for the front end. This means: 7 different Rails apps (internal & external), 5 different Rails engines, ~10 in-house built gems, and I also delegate work to 2 folks under me as a tech lead for a new project. According to Payscale.com (including perks, etc): - Boston rankings: 38th percentile @ 84k/year - Where I live/work remotely: 75th percentile @ 84k/year
Why it failed: This is probably a very simple question that a simple Google query can answer, but I'd like to get some opinions on the matter. About me: - 3 year exp software engineer - 84k/year salary - Ruby on Rails, JS, CoffeeScript, MySQL, HTML/CSS (currently the UI guru..) -
djmill
- startupShut down2016
Private Internet Access: We Are Removing Our Russian Presence
To Our Beloved Users, The Russian Government has passed a new law that mandates that every provider must log all Russian internet traffic for up to a year. We believe that due to the enforcement regime surrounding this new law, some of our Russian Servers (RU) were recently seized by Russian Authorities, without notice or any type of due process. We think it’s because we are the most outspoken and only verified no-log VPN provider. Luckily, since we do not log any traffic or session data, period, no data has been compromised. Our users are, and will always be, private and secure. Upon learning of the above, we immediately discontinued our Russian gateways and will no longer be doing business in the region. To make it clear, the privacy and security of our users is our number one priority. For preventative reasons, we are rotating all of our certificates. Furthermore, we’re updating our c
Why it failed: To Our Beloved Users, The Russian Government has passed a new law that mandates that every provider must log all Russian internet traffic for up to a year. We believe that due to the enforcement regime surrounding this new law, some of our Russian Servers (RU) were recently seize
radiorental
- startupShut down2016
Suggest HN: Studies based on small sample sizes shouldn't be on HN
Reading about studies based on small sample sizes has in total misinformed me. I've been convinced of many surprising things based on a trust that the research was well conducted, and that published results are on average true. The building replication crisis has shown that this faith was misplaced, particularly in certain fields. For instance, it's now clear that I would have believed more true things and fewer false things if I had not heard about a single result from social psychology. I'm still rooting out beliefs that I came to based on bad research. (Unfortunately my mind doesn't maintain an index of beliefs by source. I wish I could request this feature.) I'm rightly bitter about this, and I see the problem continuing. For instance, this submission is worse than worthless: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13144483 . It's impossible
Why it failed: Reading about studies based on small sample sizes has in total misinformed me. I've been convinced of many surprising things based on a trust that the research was well conducted, and that published results are on average true. The building replication crisis has shown that
syllogism
- startupShut down2016
Ask HN: Is Apple about to kill the Macbooks?
With no announcements in sight for new MBPs and Apple pushing iPads as replacement for full laptops, are MacOS and Macbooks going to be discontinued in the near future? Will we end up programming on an iPad if we want to program for their products?
Why it failed: With no announcements in sight for new MBPs and Apple pushing iPads as replacement for full laptops, are MacOS and Macbooks going to be discontinued in the near future? Will we end up programming on an iPad if we want to program for their products?
rreyes1979
- startupShut down2016
Microsoft is closing all old bug reports they couldn't fix
That's a letter I received today: This notification was generated for feedback item: <...> which you submitted at the Microsoft Connect (http://connect.microsoft.com) site. Thank you for taking the time to report this problem. This problem was reported two years ago. In an effort to focus our resources on the most impactful problems, we are closing old Connect issues. If this problem is still important to you, please go to https://community.visualstudio.com and follow the instructions there to file a new report.
Why it failed: That's a letter I received today: This notification was generated for feedback item: <...> which you submitted at the Microsoft Connect (http://connect.microsoft.com) site. Thank you for taking the time to report this problem. This problem was reported two ye
ianderf
- startupShut down2015
Ask HN: Implementing a graph database using Postgres tables for nodes and edges?
After hearing/reading about the negative experiences many people have had with upcoming graph databases, I am wary of jumping into a graph db. But almost any modern application has things that will be suited to a graph representation. So I am considering a workaround to use a graph structure, but represent the underlying data in a reliable rdbms, in particular postgres. The approach is: 1. Make two parent tables: node and edge. 2. Make separate tables for all "objects" (like people, places, things, etc.) which would be inherited from node, so they would all have a unique node ID. 3. Make separate tables inherited from edge which would be used to represent the many many relations. So each relation has an edge ID, and each table inherited from edge can be thought of as representing a specific kind of relation (like person lives in place, or person is friends with person). On
Why it failed: After hearing/reading about the negative experiences many people have had with upcoming graph databases, I am wary of jumping into a graph db. But almost any modern application has things that will be suited to a graph representation. So I am considering a workaround to use
arunnanda
- startupShut down2015
Ask HN: What startups were refused from YC but became successful?
Alternatively, what startups did the YC partners failed to see become successful, but did so?
Why it failed: Alternatively, what startups did the YC partners failed to see become successful, but did so?
mw67
- startupShut down2015
Ask HN: Clothing for a lazy programmer
At the moment I cycle between about 40 tees from H&M in either navy blue or navy blue. I recently went off to purchase a couple extra to discover they have discontinued the style and replaced it with a thin nylon stretch type. Wasn't there a couple of startups in this space? Ideally they should deliver to the UK.
Why it failed: At the moment I cycle between about 40 tees from H&M in either navy blue or navy blue. I recently went off to purchase a couple extra to discover they have discontinued the style and replaced it with a thin nylon stretch type. Wasn't there a couple of startups in this sp
mrkmcknz