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.
3,100 solutions
- startupShut down2020
Launch HN: PostEra (YC W20) Medicinal Chemistry-as-a-Service and Covid Moonshot
Hey everyone! We’re Alpha, Matt and Aaron, co-founders of PostEra ( https://postera.ai/ ). The title above is quite a mouthful (we used all 80 characters) so we'll begin by breaking down what it means. What is medicinal chemistry? It’s part of discovering new drugs. A drug hunter decides what disease to focus on and then selects ‘targets’: usually proteins whose activity is key to the disease. Then they look for a molecule that can ‘hit’ that target and stimulate a response which will hopefully have beneficial effects. Developing such a molecule that is potent and safe is medicinal chemistry. Despite it being a crucial part of drug development, this field has relied on trial-and-error approaches—a very expensive way to muddle toward a drug. Where computational tools have been used, they have emphasized the 'best' designs without any awareness of what it woul
Why it failed: Hey everyone! We’re Alpha, Matt and Aaron, co-founders of PostEra ( https://postera.ai/ ). The title above is quite a mouthful (we used all 80 characters) so we'll begin by breaking down what it means. What is medicinal chemistry? It’s part of discovering new
morraa
- startupShut down2020
Launch HN: Reploy (YC S20) – Instant fullstack staging environments for web apps
Hello Hacker News! We're Jay and Himank from Reploy ( https://getreploy.com ). We're building a platform that allows teams to easily configure full-stack staging environments or "previews" of their web app which are created on every open PR. In the past, Himank and I spent time at several startups (~10->200 employees), where we were on customer-facing, product-oriented teams. We often found ourselves in positions where we wanted to share our environment with designer/PM/sales folks who didn't necessarily have a dev environment setup, and ngrok didn't cut it. Further, even when trying to share our environment with fellow engineers, there was always a slow down when requiring that they git stash, git pull, etc.. The solution to these pain points was either: 1) Waiting for a full staging or production deployment, which in most cases, wasn
Why it failed: Hello Hacker News! We're Jay and Himank from Reploy ( https://getreploy.com ). We're building a platform that allows teams to easily configure full-stack staging environments or "previews" of their web app which are created on every open PR. In the p
podoman
- startupShut down2020
Ask HN: What is the best way to target restaurants and small businesses?
Hello, We are a chatbot startup, targeting restaurants and other small businesses, brick and mortar that might be affected by covid19. What is the best way to target these businesses, specially that many of them are closing down? We want to help them sell through our delivery system.
Why it failed: Hello, We are a chatbot startup, targeting restaurants and other small businesses, brick and mortar that might be affected by covid19. What is the best way to target these businesses, specially that many of them are closing down? We want to help them sell through our delivery sys
ahmedaly
- startupShut down2020
Let's use more of Firefox, only YOU can stop Chrome from becoming the next IE
For those who don't know (or belong to a newer generation), Microsoft's IE (Internet Explorer) was one browser that had almost monopolized itself globally for many years mostly during the early nineties decade. They managed to do it but the backlash was such that the public pressure practically caused a storm that made Bill Gates sit in front of the jury and answer some hard questions. And today, I'm seeing history is repeating all over again, only Chrome has taken IE's place but there is no storm coming this time. Unlike our predecessors, we are giving in to convenience, we are acting like its not a botheration at all. PLEASE DON'T DO IT . Consider the sheer browser market share that Chrome enjoys and Google's data interests for a moment, and it might already be too late for us. If a web service insists only on Chrome for best performance then change that s
Why it failed: For those who don't know (or belong to a newer generation), Microsoft's IE (Internet Explorer) was one browser that had almost monopolized itself globally for many years mostly during the early nineties decade. They managed to do it but the backlash was such that the pu
smart_jackal
- startupShut down2020
Ask HN: Advice for staying in the job market while homeless?
Hello HN, I've lived as a "hand to mouth" freelancer for a while and can no longer keep up with rent due to clients shutting down. I have over a dozen job applications under way, but obviously progress is slow and even if I do get an offer it won't pay off until I'm "on the streets". I do have good friends who will let me stay on their couches for some time. Given the circumstances I'm afraid that I'll be stuck in this situation until my food budget is used up, at which point I don't know what to do. Frankly I feel like throwing myself into the river right now, but obviously that is not helping anyone. I have a fairly niche skill set that no one wants. My specialty is building and running complex on-prem infrastructure (in the petabytes and teraflops range), though in the recent years I've been doing DevOps in the cloud like everyone
Why it failed: Hello HN, I've lived as a "hand to mouth" freelancer for a while and can no longer keep up with rent due to clients shutting down. I have over a dozen job applications under way, but obviously progress is slow and even if I do get an offer it won't pay off unt
HelpImHomeless
- startupShut down2020
Launch HN: Batch (YC S20) – Replays for event-driven systems
Hello HN! We are Ustin and Daniel, co-founders of Batch ( https://batch.sh ) - an event replay platform. You can think of us as version control for data passing through your messaging systems. With Batch, a company is able to go back in time, see what data looked like at a certain point and if it makes sense, replay that piece of data back into the company's systems. This idea was born out of getting annoyed by what an unwieldy blackbox Kafka is. While many folks use Kafka for streaming, there is an equal number of Kafka users that use it as a traditional messaging system. Historically, these systems have offered very poor visibility into what's going on inside them and offer (at best) a poor replay experience. This problem is prevalent pretty much across every messaging system. Especially if the messages on the bus are serialized, it is almost guaranteed that you wil
Why it failed: Hello HN! We are Ustin and Daniel, co-founders of Batch ( https://batch.sh ) - an event replay platform. You can think of us as version control for data passing through your messaging systems. With Batch, a company is able to go back in time, see what data looked like a
dsies
- startupShut down2020
Tell HN: Amazon Cloud Drive is banning encrypted content and backup data
Got this from Amazon today. I wonder if they're going to refund my money. Also, anyone know of a good alternative? > Dear Customer, We’re writing to let you know about an upcoming change that may affect how you access your content on Amazon Drive, and to help you take steps to keep your content safe. We understand that you have used Synology Cloud Sync or Hyper Backup on Synology NAS to store information on Amazon Drive. Amazon will discontinue access to Amazon Drive by Synology Cloud Sync and Hyper Backup starting on November 1st, 2020. Neither application will have access to Amazon Drive after November 1st, 2020, and the only way you will be able to access your stored content will be via Amazon Drive or Amazon Photos web, desktop, and mobile apps. To ensure a smooth transition, we urge all Synology Cloud Sync and Hyper Backup users to follow these steps: For Photo and Video con
Why it failed: Got this from Amazon today. I wonder if they're going to refund my money. Also, anyone know of a good alternative? > Dear Customer, We’re writing to let you know about an upcoming change that may affect how you access your content on Amazon Drive, and to help you take ste
hedora
- startupShut down2020
Ask HN: Is HN a ‘healthy online community’? I’m doing a case study for a class
Hello HN! My name is Sankalp. I’m taking a class called Fixing Social Media at MIT ( https://fixingsocialmedia.mit.edu ). We are examining problems with existing modes of social media and exploring affirmative visions for social media that are good for individuals and society. At this point, the class is working on case studies of successful and healthy online communities, where we are seeking insights from online communities we are part of, inspired by, or find interesting. The goal of the assignment is to figure out whether an online community exemplifies or doesn’t exemplify ‘healthy’ behaviors, from the points of view of their own members, on their own terms. I’m here to understand HN from your perspectives and I’m interested in hearing from all of you. What criteria do you use to determine 'health' in online communities? How do these differ from those criteria yo
Why it failed: Hello HN! My name is Sankalp. I’m taking a class called Fixing Social Media at MIT ( https://fixingsocialmedia.mit.edu ). We are examining problems with existing modes of social media and exploring affirmative visions for social media that are good for individuals and s
sankalpb
- startupShut down2020
Ask HN: How do you guys deal with laziness?
Hello everyone! I usually think of myself as a curious, open-minded person. When I think about things they are all sounds interesting to me, especially if they are connected to technology. Unfortunatelly, the last week shows that I just cannot win with my laziness. I spend all the time lurking on the internet or watching youtube vides. I've tried ti blocked time-wasting pages (like 9gag/reddit/etc.) but it clearly didn't help at all. I have a lot of books and articles to read, topics to explore, projects to finish but every time when I'm trying to dig into it I end up feeling tired and resigned. It really makes me worry about myself, because I'm wasting so much time! What can I do to improve my attitude toward useful areas of my life and convince myself to stop wasting time?
Why it failed: Hello everyone! I usually think of myself as a curious, open-minded person. When I think about things they are all sounds interesting to me, especially if they are connected to technology. Unfortunatelly, the last week shows that I just cannot win with my laziness. I spend all th
kkthxbb
- startupShut down2020
Launch HN: Mindset Health (YC S19) – Hypnotherapy apps for chronic conditions
Hey HN! We're Alex & Chris, brothers from Melbourne, Australia, and the founders of Mindset Health ( https://www.mindsethealth.com ). We create mobile apps to help people manage chronic health conditions at home. Our programs use hypnosis-based techniques, developed by clinicians, to help people manage conditions like anxiety, depression & Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS). Mindset Health came out of a difficult period after Chris and I wound down our first startup. During this time, we experienced a lot of anxiety and stress. I ended up being prescribed anti-anxiety medication, but the side effects and the lack of control I felt caused me to look for non-pharmacological options, like CBT and biofeedback. Someone we trusted recommended hypnotherapy. Chris and I were skeptical about hypnosis (the 'being made to cluck like a chicken' reputation), but after com
Why it failed: Hey HN! We're Alex & Chris, brothers from Melbourne, Australia, and the founders of Mindset Health ( https://www.mindsethealth.com ). We create mobile apps to help people manage chronic health conditions at home. Our programs use hypnosis-based techniques, deve
alexnaoumidis
- startupShut down2020
Launch HN: Rally.Video (YC S20) – Dynamic video platform for social groups
Hey HN! My name is Ali and I am one of the three co-founders of https://rally.video/ . Rally is a video application that makes it easy to hop between breakout conversations. Users can see and hear other conversations around them, as if they were in a shared space. We started Rally because we needed to host a virtual birthday party, and existing solutions suck for larger groups. At the same time, we noticed bars and restaurants closing, and wanted to build a platform that emulated these physical spaces. With that in mind, we added venues, rooms, and tables. A venue (like a bar or banquet hall) can consist of multiple rooms (like a patio, DJ lounge etc). Each room can fit 35 people, and people can form tables (groups) in a room organically. Tables could have up to 9 people, and can be joined with a simple click. Users can create multiple rooms, allowing for events of all siz
Why it failed: Hey HN! My name is Ali and I am one of the three co-founders of https://rally.video/ . Rally is a video application that makes it easy to hop between breakout conversations. Users can see and hear other conversations around them, as if they were in a shared space.
Ali_Jiwani
- startupShut down2020
Launch HN: Epihub (YC S20) – Shopify for teaching online
Hey HN! I’m Uday, and I co-founded Epihub [0] with Kwasi and Michael ( https://epihub.com ). Epihub is Shopify for teaching online. Our software lets you schedule, meet, and bill clients from your own website. A few years ago, we started building a product called Epigrammar, which was a collaborative document annotation tool that let teachers rapidly give feedback to their students by identifying trends in their feedback. Kwasi and I really wanted to see if we could scale the tutoring experience to an entire classroom, since my co-founder Mike was teaching Classics at a private school in Connecticut while running a non-profit tutoring program in Latin/Greek for public school students in New York. Mike would try out our products that we had built over the weekend during the week (sometimes to success), but oftentimes, things were not actually helping him teach. That’s when
Why it failed: Hey HN! I’m Uday, and I co-founded Epihub [0] with Kwasi and Michael ( https://epihub.com ). Epihub is Shopify for teaching online. Our software lets you schedule, meet, and bill clients from your own website. A few years ago, we started building a product called Epigra
urs
- startupShut down2020
Launch HN: Taiv (YC W20) – Replace TV commercials with content people care about
Hey HN! We’re Noah, Avi, and Jordan from Taiv ( https://www.taiv.tv ). We make a box that lets sports bars and other businesses replace live TV commercials with content their customers actually care about. A year and a half ago, I was sitting in a local bar and saw a commercial showing that the same beer I was drinking was cheaper across the street. The place I was in had other drinks on specials for way cheaper and great happy hour food, but they didn’t have an effective way to tell me about it. I ended up walking away feeling ripped off when I could have left a happy customer if they had been able to more effectively make me aware of their specials. It got me investigating how businesses communicate with their customers. I found out that half of all restaurants close within a year and that one of the most common reasons they fail is because they’re unable to educate their cus
Why it failed: Hey HN! We’re Noah, Avi, and Jordan from Taiv ( https://www.taiv.tv ). We make a box that lets sports bars and other businesses replace live TV commercials with content their customers actually care about. A year and a half ago, I was sitting in a local bar and saw a co
npalansky
- startupShut down2020
Launch HN: Castodia (YC W20) – Populate Google Sheets from databases
Hey HN, we’re Jimmy and Ayazhan, founders of Castodia ( https://www.castodia.com ). We help pull data from databases directly into Google Sheets. It’s basically a live database connector for Google Sheets that allows for data refreshes. Before we started working on this, we were working on an idea around data pipelines. It didn’t take off so we had to pivot mid-batch. We had less than 1 month to do user interviews, build our product, get it approved, and launch it. To start with, we knew we wanted to stay in the data space. We spent the first week talking to over 30 people at different companies. In those conversations, we noticed that sales, marketing, and operations teams constantly need to ask developers to help them export data from the database and often have to submit follow-on data requests because they forgot to add a dimension needed for analysis (they often do this by
Why it failed: Hey HN, we’re Jimmy and Ayazhan, founders of Castodia ( https://www.castodia.com ). We help pull data from databases directly into Google Sheets. It’s basically a live database connector for Google Sheets that allows for data refreshes. Before we started working on this
jimmyechan
- startupShut down2020
Launch HN: Belvo (YC W20) – Financial Data API Platform for Latin America
Hey HN, Pablo and Oriol here, founders of Belvo ( https://belvo.co/ ), a financial data API platform for Latin America. Think Plaid for Latam. We were previously building a payments startup (something like Venmo) in Europe and when expanding to Latam realised how hard it is to connect to legacy infrastructure, whether it is to access data, validate bank accounts or process payments. We’ve also been working in fintech in Europe for the past few years (at companies like Revolut) and one of us comes from a traditional financial services background. We’ve seen the impact open banking technology, which has become common in Europe, has had on providing end-users with more transparent and fair offerings and on lowering barriers for fintech developers to get started and launch innovative new products. But this technology hasn't made it into Latam yet, so we saw a big opportun
Why it failed: Hey HN, Pablo and Oriol here, founders of Belvo ( https://belvo.co/ ), a financial data API platform for Latin America. Think Plaid for Latam. We were previously building a payments startup (something like Venmo) in Europe and when expanding to Latam realised how h
viguerapablo
- startupShut down2020
Launch HN: Quell (YC S20) – Immersive gaming and combat workout
Hey HN, We're Cam, Doug, Lorenzo and Martin, co-founders of Quell ( https://quell.tech ). Quell is an immersive fitness game which guides players through an exciting, effective combat workout at home. Players fight enemies with a low-cost wearable which uses smart resistance bands to simulate real combat training. Our aim is to be Peloton meets gaming meets boxing, at 1/10th of the price. We launched on Kickstarter yesterday, and would love it if you checked us out! Here’s the link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/quelltech/quell-real-ga... We started building Quell because for us, exercise wasn’t fun; it was work. We’d tried all the stats tracking apps and the cycling simulators, but they weren’t treating that root problem. Over time, as the novelty wore off, we were left with the feeling that working out was still boring and uncomfortab
Why it failed: Hey HN, We're Cam, Doug, Lorenzo and Martin, co-founders of Quell ( https://quell.tech ). Quell is an immersive fitness game which guides players through an exciting, effective combat workout at home. Players fight enemies with a low-cost wearable which uses smart
douglaspaul
- startupShut down2020
Launch HN: Edlyft (YC W20) – Paid Support Program for CS College Students
Hi HN! We’re Erika and Arnelle, friends since high school and co-founders of Edlyft ( https://www.edlyft.com ). We help college students pass their most challenging computer science classes, by offering them group tutoring sessions, study groups, and guidance from peers who’ve done it before them. Arnelle and I came into college as freshmen not knowing how to code, but wanting to graduate with a CS degree. We found the steep learning curve discouraging, the lack of support frustrating, and felt like everyone else was always ahead. Impostor syndrome hit hard. But we made it through! In the end, what made the difference was connecting with students and mentors who had come before us. My junior year out of desperation, I wrote a letter to a grad student who was willing to meet with me weekly to review concepts and connect me with other CS students. Without that support system, I p
Why it failed: Hi HN! We’re Erika and Arnelle, friends since high school and co-founders of Edlyft ( https://www.edlyft.com ). We help college students pass their most challenging computer science classes, by offering them group tutoring sessions, study groups, and guidance from peers
ehairston
- startupShut down2020
Launch HN: Goodcover (YC S17) – Cooperative renters insurance for half the price
Hi HN, we’re Chris and Dan, co-founders of Goodcover ( https://www.goodcover.com ). Goodcover provides renters insurance (only in California at the moment) and operates as a cooperative. We take a fixed fee on every policy, pool the premiums to pay claims, and then return what’s left over back to Members through an annual dividend. Thanks to this model and good technology we’re able to cut the price of renters insurance in half. I (Chris) worked in traditional insurance for 8 years. That time taught me to love insurance and how it picks people up after disasters, but it also gave me first hand exposure to the things people hate about it – the ever-increasing prices, the adversarial claims negotiations, the mountains of paperwork, and the byzantine decision making. All these inefficiencies kept us from really understanding and working for our policyholders – the people we were m
Why it failed: Hi HN, we’re Chris and Dan, co-founders of Goodcover ( https://www.goodcover.com ). Goodcover provides renters insurance (only in California at the moment) and operates as a cooperative. We take a fixed fee on every policy, pool the premiums to pay claims, and then retu
chrisplotz
- startupShut down2020
Launch HN: Nestybox (YC S20) – Containers beyond microservices
Hi HN, This is Cesar Talledo and Rodny Molina, co-founders of Nestybox (www.nestybox.com). Nestybox has developed a new container runtime that sits under Docker/containerd (it's a new type of runc) and enables containers to act as virtual-servers capable of running software such as systemd, Docker, and Kubernetes, easily and with proper isolation. The motivation came from noticing that containers are great at running microservices but struggle to run system-level software in them such as those mentioned above. That is, in order to run such software in a container, we needed unsecure privileged containers with complex images, custom entrypoints, volume mounts, etc., or alternatively a heavier virtual machine. This did not seem right. We studied the problem and noticed that the container abstraction was not complete enough, meaning that inside the container a root process lacked
Why it failed: Hi HN, This is Cesar Talledo and Rodny Molina, co-founders of Nestybox (www.nestybox.com). Nestybox has developed a new container runtime that sits under Docker/containerd (it's a new type of runc) and enables containers to act as virtual-servers capable of running soft
ctalledo
- startupShut down2020
Launch HN: Data Mechanics (YC S19) – The Simplest Way to Run Apache Spark
Hi HN, We’re JY & Julien, co-founders of Data Mechanics ( https://www.datamechanics.co ), a big data platform striving to offer the simplest way to run Apache Spark. Apache Spark is an open-source distributed computing engine. It’s the most used technology in big data. First, because it’s fast (10-100x faster than Hadoop MapReduce). Second, because it offers simple, high-level APIs in Scala, Python, SQL, and R. In a few lines of code, data scientists and engineers can explore data, train machine learning models, and build batch or streaming pipelines over very large datasets (size ranging from 10GBs to PBs). While writing Spark applications is pretty easy, managing their infrastructure, deploying them and keeping them performant and stable in production over time is hard. You need to learn how Apache Spark works under the hood, become an expert with YARN and the JVM, manual
Why it failed: Hi HN, We’re JY & Julien, co-founders of Data Mechanics ( https://www.datamechanics.co ), a big data platform striving to offer the simplest way to run Apache Spark. Apache Spark is an open-source distributed computing engine. It’s the most used technology in big da
jstephan
- startupShut down2020
Launch HN: Papercups (YC S20) – Open-Core Intercom Alternative
Hi HN! Kam and Alex here. We’re founders of Papercups ( https://papercups.io ), a live customer chat app written in Elixir. We offer an open-core self-hosted alternative to Intercom for companies that are security and privacy conscientious. Alex and I met in SF around 6 years ago, and have been hacking on small projects together for the past couple years. Before covid, we would spend many Sunday afternoons in coffee shops building prototypes of whatever our latest and greatest idea was… most of these fizzled out after a few weeks or so For 2020, we wanted to take the idea of “building something people want” a bit more seriously. We started off trying to build SaaS tools for ocean freight logistics companies. That failed, but we learned a ton in the process. After our experience in freight we wanted to work on tools that are a little closer to home and tried a completely new ide
Why it failed: Hi HN! Kam and Alex here. We’re founders of Papercups ( https://papercups.io ), a live customer chat app written in Elixir. We offer an open-core self-hosted alternative to Intercom for companies that are security and privacy conscientious. Alex and I met in SF around 6
cheeseblubber
- startupShut down2020
Launch HN: Terusama (YC W20) – We help warehouses schedule trucks
Hi HN, Andrew and Chris here. We’re building Terusama ( https://www.terusama.com ), a truck appointment system for logistics teams at warehouses and distribution centers. We automate the labor-intensive process of coordinating arrival times with a trucking company, checking a truck in at a facility, and keeping track of everything. Oh, and we have a theme song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyp4O4s5tk4 The status quo here is really antiquated software that is really hard to use. Not only is the current way of doing things inefficient for logistics folks, it has a big impact. The inefficiency created by poor supply-chain coordination costs $30B a year in the U.S. and generates billions of tons of C02, mostly from trucks idling in parking lots. On top of that, it has a huge impact on the lives of truck drivers, who are legally limited to 11 hours of driving time
Why it failed: Hi HN, Andrew and Chris here. We’re building Terusama ( https://www.terusama.com ), a truck appointment system for logistics teams at warehouses and distribution centers. We automate the labor-intensive process of coordinating arrival times with a trucking company, chec
adenta
- startupShut down2020
Launch HN: Sunsama (YC W19) – Daily Planner for Busy People
Hi HackerNews! I'm Ashutosh, one of the founders of Sunsama ( https://sunsama.com ). Sunsama is a daily planner for busy folks. Each day, Sunsama walks you through a guided daily planning process that helps you create a calm, focused, and intentional plan for the day. Sunsama pulls together your calendar, emails, and tasks from other SaaS tools into a single place. Travis and I started building products in the calendar and productivity space a couple years after graduating and working our first jobs. The idea that we were going to spend the next 40 years behind computers, working, and that Outlook or Google calendar would be the best way for us to be thoughtful and intentional with what we did at work felt unacceptable. Before Sunsama, we built, launched, and shut down six different products in this space over the course of four years. I’ll spare you the postmortem on each
Why it failed: Hi HackerNews! I'm Ashutosh, one of the founders of Sunsama ( https://sunsama.com ). Sunsama is a daily planner for busy folks. Each day, Sunsama walks you through a guided daily planning process that helps you create a calm, focused, and intentional plan for the d
priyadarshy
- startupShut down2020
Launch HN: GitDuck (YC S20) – Zoom for developers with real-time code sharing
Hi everyone! We are Dragos and Thiago from GitDuck ( https://gitduck.com ). We are building GitDuck, a Zoom for developers with direct integration to the IDE so software developers can talk and collaborate in real-time. It all started by accident, Dragos and I were working on something else, a screen recording tool and we started to use it internally to record short videos of our code. At first it was just for quick code reviews and to debug, but soon we realized how helpful it was to have a video explanation of the code. Kind of rubber duck debugging with video. ;) After talking to almost 300 developers and learning that other people were facing similar collaboration issues we decided to focus 100% on building this tool. We are the first users and we use GitDuck internally for quick assistance, pair programming, code reviews or just discussing ideas. It has the features you wo
Why it failed: Hi everyone! We are Dragos and Thiago from GitDuck ( https://gitduck.com ). We are building GitDuck, a Zoom for developers with direct integration to the IDE so software developers can talk and collaborate in real-time. It all started by accident, Dragos and I were work
borisandcrispin