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 down2018
Ask HN: My startup is going remote-only. Is this a giant red flag?
My startup company, located in a major city, is going remote-only. Meaning, we are currently in a shared office space, but some time in the coming months, we will no longer have that space and will be a remote-only org. A variety of reasons were given for this decision, including the fact that we already have a bunch of remote workers. Has your startup successfully transitioned to be remote-only or is this a flag I should start looking for other jobs?
Why it failed: My startup company, located in a major city, is going remote-only. Meaning, we are currently in a shared office space, but some time in the coming months, we will no longer have that space and will be a remote-only org. A variety of reasons were given for this decision, including
inlinefun
- startupShut down2018
Ask HN: How will it go for Raspberry Pi in the coming years?
In the consumer and the small business markets, we are having computing power being more and more shifted from desktops or laptops to tablets and smartphones, we are even seeing full computing watches these days. In your opinion, what about DIY, IoT, small robotics, etc. and the generalist barebone computers they use, like Arduino, Raspberry, etc.? Will they become more and more powerful for a new race to bigger, maybe embedded systems or will they stay small, open, very cheap and marginally energy-hungry?
Why it failed: In the consumer and the small business markets, we are having computing power being more and more shifted from desktops or laptops to tablets and smartphones, we are even seeing full computing watches these days. In your opinion, what about DIY, IoT, small robotics, etc. and the
DrNuke
- startupShut down2018
Ask HN: What would your ideal programming language be like?
I'm a language designer. I know I love writing compilers and interpreters, but I always had this constant problem of fitting the languages I create into a niche. I always aim for the ultimate swiss-knife kind of language or I always end up doing that. However, many people have told me, I'm wasting my time creating general-purpose languages, instead I should focus on a niche. Now I'm looking for the niche. So I'm directing this question to you coders, old and young. What do you think a new programming language should have and not be considered a waste of time? What features or environment do expect from a new programming language? Why do you think current languages cannot have those features? In short, what areas do you think current languages suck in and would be a good starting point for a new programming language? Or should I just give up on language design and comp
Why it failed: I'm a language designer. I know I love writing compilers and interpreters, but I always had this constant problem of fitting the languages I create into a niche. I always aim for the ultimate swiss-knife kind of language or I always end up doing that. However, many people ha
appcypher
- startupShut down2018
Ask HN: Reached rock-bottom low point in my life – how to get back up?
This is the 2nd time in my life that I turn to HN for help. The first time, I already thought I was kind of in a bad shape. But tonight, I reached a new low point. I have been out of a job for a long time. Currently, my only income is from a small remote job that requires no special skills. I can only survive on it, because I moved to a developing country in Southeast Asia. But this is a dead-end. I need to change - everything. I know the best way would be through a job that would allow me to gradually learn new skills. I don't really care that much about pay. I can survive on a few hundred dollars a month. Although I would like to say that I'm willing to do almost anything, I also know my limitations. I previously created some websites on my own using Ruby on Rails. But I'm probably quite far from a 'real' hacker who enjoys coding so much, they do it in their fr
Why it failed: This is the 2nd time in my life that I turn to HN for help. The first time, I already thought I was kind of in a bad shape. But tonight, I reached a new low point. I have been out of a job for a long time. Currently, my only income is from a small remote job that requires no spec
whysine
- startupShut down2018
Ask HN: Are my technical interview questions too hard?
We just finished hiring our first 2 JS developers in a while and I was surprised how many seemingly perfect candidates completely failed my technical interview. Our funnel was 150 applications -> 75 potentially viable applicants -> 20 interviews -> 8 finalists. I thought all 8 finalists would breeze through my technical interview but, in reality, 6 of them completely failed it. I'm trying to determine if I'm just horrible at sniffing out bad programmers or if my questions were too hard, bad, or both. The format was a 1 hour in-person interview using a pre-setup JSFiddle to perform the following tasks. (I made it clear that asking me questions, using Google, using libraries like jQuery, or whatever else you'd do during a real-world scenario was perfectly fine). In the comments below I added details about why I asked certain questions and what I was looking for. 1)
Why it failed: We just finished hiring our first 2 JS developers in a while and I was surprised how many seemingly perfect candidates completely failed my technical interview. Our funnel was 150 applications -> 75 potentially viable applicants -> 20 interviews -> 8 finalists. I thought
yeldarb
- startupShut down2018
Tell HN: Goo.gl (Google link Shortener) is shutting down
When you visit the goo.gl homepage, this message appears: > Starting March 30, 2018, we will be turning down support for goo.gl URL shortener. From April 13, 2018 only existing users will be able to create short links on the goo.gl console. You will be able to view your analytics data and download your short link information in csv format for up to one year, until March 30, 2019, when we will discontinue goo.gl. Previously created links will continue to redirect to their intended destination. Please see this blog post[1] for more details. [1]: https://developers.googleblog.com/2018/03/transitioning-google-url-shortener.html?m=1
Why it failed: When you visit the goo.gl homepage, this message appears: > Starting March 30, 2018, we will be turning down support for goo.gl URL shortener. From April 13, 2018 only existing users will be able to create short links on the goo.gl console. You will be able to view your analyt
illustrioussuit
- startupShut down2018
Ask HN: What is your 'end game'? What kind of life are you striving to live?
Something that's been on my mind lately. I enjoy the depth of thought on HN, I always learn the most here.
Why it failed: Something that's been on my mind lately. I enjoy the depth of thought on HN, I always learn the most here.
rblion
- startupShut down2018
Show HN: Intercept.rest – Faster API debugging
Sharing an internal tool that accelerated my development work 10-fold, especially with API debugging. Thought fellow developers here might find it useful. As a developer, I often have trouble reproducing errors at the client end. https://intercept.rest lets me debug and monitor API requests and responses. It is similar to the Network tab in Chrome Developer Tools but works for any API: mobile apps, webhooks, frontend etc. After I shared it with a close circle of friends, they found it incredibly useful and even found new use cases, I never imagined. Been a long time lurker here and have found several such tools that made my life easier. So, wanted to share this here and keen to hear if you folks find it useful too. Some of the Use cases (Look forward to other use cases for this tool): - Reproduce error requests at client side, helps to debug faster. – Easily switch between mock
Why it failed: Sharing an internal tool that accelerated my development work 10-fold, especially with API debugging. Thought fellow developers here might find it useful. As a developer, I often have trouble reproducing errors at the client end. https://intercept.rest lets me debug and
saleeh
- startupShut down2018
Ask HN: YC Research Cities Now Listed as a Past Project. Is There a Post-Mortem?
See on https://ycr.org/ Same with HARC - any post mortem? I'm really glad that YC is ambitious and tried to do these things. Of course, failure is a natural part of ambitious bets. I'd also love to hear what they learned and why they didn't end up being overwhelming successes.
Why it failed: See on https://ycr.org/ Same with HARC - any post mortem? I'm really glad that YC is ambitious and tried to do these things. Of course, failure is a natural part of ambitious bets. I'd also love to hear what they learned and why they didn't end up be
arikr
- startupShut down2017
Ask HN: Underemployed and anxious. What would you do?
After a brief career in publicity, I decided to make the switch into engineering. I enrolled in a bootcamp—knowing full well the laudations and condemnations of the bootcamp model—and graduated in November. This maybe isn't the place for a full postmortem; suffice it to say that I came out of the program confident in my own enthusiasm for programming, and less confident in how hiring companies may interpret the presence of a bootcamp on my resumé. In the months since, every day, I have: —Applied to two jobs here in NY, taking my time with cover letters, following up where appropriate, researching the companies, etc. These are overwhelmingly junior front-end or full stack positions. —Studied compsci and new technologies so I'm a stronger candidate —Practiced whiteboarding-style questions so that I'm prepared for interviews —Freelanced so that I can pay rent and continue sur
Why it failed: After a brief career in publicity, I decided to make the switch into engineering. I enrolled in a bootcamp—knowing full well the laudations and condemnations of the bootcamp model—and graduated in November. This maybe isn't the place for a full postmortem; suffice it to say
MsgingABottle
- startupShut down2017
Tell HN: Please dont brick the app
An old friend of mine died of cancer on Sunday, alone in a Thai government hospital, with no family or friends around him, in a language he didn't really understand, it sad ending, it was not a dignified way to go. His only contact with the others in world in recent months has been WhatsApp which I setup when I visited him earlier in the year. He had expected to live several months but things took a turn for the worse and rapidly deteriorated over a few days. WhatsApp the buggers put an arbitrary time limit on the app between updates so he was locked out - confused and desperate (coupled with the morphine), I guess he had enough mentally. I presume his phone was never updating due to storage being near limit - tbf his phone was a mess and he was a technophobe, and since he never saved contacts just sent off the number I guess there was no record of his contacts in his main phone. I
Why it failed: An old friend of mine died of cancer on Sunday, alone in a Thai government hospital, with no family or friends around him, in a language he didn't really understand, it sad ending, it was not a dignified way to go. His only contact with the others in world in recent months h
sitepodmatt
- startupShut down2017
Ask HN: What to do as a back-end dev and with many app ideas but can't do UX?
As a backend deveveloper, I often have many webapp ideas, but I can't do design/UX to save my life, so I never finish things because I get discouraged of how bad it looks in the beginning. Does this happen to anyone else? This is so frustrating and discouraging. I often get unmotivated to finish things because of this issue. How do you guys deal with it? I'm talking strictly about side/weekend projects.
Why it failed: As a backend deveveloper, I often have many webapp ideas, but I can't do design/UX to save my life, so I never finish things because I get discouraged of how bad it looks in the beginning. Does this happen to anyone else? This is so frustrating and discouraging. I often
humaninstrument
- startupShut down2017
Ask HN: Life as a developer gets boring real quick.remedy?
For the last 3 years I have been developing software of mainly the web kind. Did Clojure dev last year, some C projects before that and have a bunch of scala projects this year and hopefully a bunch of Haskell projects later this year. After failing culture fit tests at companies of interest after passing tehnical rounds, I've taken a step back to examine where things are going. The more I examine my life so far, though plastered with opportunities to work with functional Lang's that most people don't get, everything I've done so far seems meaningless. I excercise regularly, I don't like people that much though I do put up a front, I don't play video games not do I read literature or watch anime or any shows. I am relearning proof writing in math, but after a while it gets boring because there isn't any end goal in mind. Will take up some Bayesian based
Why it failed: For the last 3 years I have been developing software of mainly the web kind. Did Clojure dev last year, some C projects before that and have a bunch of scala projects this year and hopefully a bunch of Haskell projects later this year. After failing culture fit tests at companies
oggyhead
- startupShut down2017
Google is shutting down the QPX Express API for airfare data
Google has been offering an API for airfare data at https://developers.google.com/qpx-express. I just received this email: "Dear QPX Express API Customer, After careful consideration, we've decided to shut down the QPX Express API as of April 10, 2018. How this affects you After April 10th, you will not be able to access the API and will no longer be charged for this service. Until then, you will be charged a reduced rate of $0.02 per query for any queries beyond the 50 free daily quota. Next steps You don't need to take any action. However, if you are actively using this product you may want to find an alternate solution before April 10, 2018. If you have any questions about these changes, please don't hesitate to contact us at any time. Sincerely, The QPX Express API team" More info on the shutdown: https://developers.google.com/qp
Why it failed: Google has been offering an API for airfare data at https://developers.google.com/qpx-express. I just received this email: "Dear QPX Express API Customer, After careful consideration, we've decided to shut down the QPX Express API as of April 10, 2018. Ho
imartin2k
- startupShut down2017
Launch HN: Feather (YC S17), painless furniture rental for people who move a lot
Feather ( https://rentfeather.com ) is a furniture rental company, setting out to provide stylish, affordable furniture to people and startups that move frequently. I've moved 5 times in 6 years living in New York, and each time I spent an overwhelming amount of time at IKEA buying, schlepping, and assembling furniture I didn't exactly want. And at the end of each lease, I found myself with furniture that didn't travel well to my new apartment, and often had to scrap it, only to return to IKEA again to furnish my new apartment. It was a cycle of buying things I didn't really want, that didn't really last - and I'm sure many of you have gone through the same trouble. That gave me the idea for Feather. Click a few buttons and your furniture is delivered, fully assembled, and placed in the room of your choice. And importantly, when you're ready t
Why it failed: Feather ( https://rentfeather.com ) is a furniture rental company, setting out to provide stylish, affordable furniture to people and startups that move frequently. I've moved 5 times in 6 years living in New York, and each time I spent an overwhelming amount of ti
jayreno
- startupShut down2017
Ask HN: What was it like to quit your job and focus on your successful startup?
For most people, dreaming about quitting a job to focus on a side project or a startup is a dream come true, especially if it ends up being successful. It can bring about so many emotions and fears all during that entire process... not knowing what is going to happen.. and what if it failed? Would it have been possible to return to your old job? So, for those who quit their jobs and were successful, how did it feel and what did you learn?
Why it failed: For most people, dreaming about quitting a job to focus on a side project or a startup is a dream come true, especially if it ends up being successful. It can bring about so many emotions and fears all during that entire process... not knowing what is going to happen.. and what i
mattbgates
- startupShut down2017
Ask HN: My company has been acquired and I'm kicked out. What should I do now?
Hello HN! Let me give you some background info: - I'm 29 years old, computer science graduate. - I founded two startups. First one failed after 4 years. The second one was acquired 3 months ago but do not take it as a success. We had to sold it to one of our competitors at a price of one tenth of the our series A valuation. Basically, things go bad so fast, it was our best option. I've left the company as a part of the deal. - In both of the companies I've founded, I had to wear too many hats. As a result, I have not excelled in any particular skill, rather I've gained medium level of experience in variety of skills from development to product design to finance. - As a result of the recent acquisition I've some money in my bank account which can cover my expenses for a year from now. - I was mentally exhausted, so I decided to keep things slow for a while and tha
Why it failed: Hello HN! Let me give you some background info: - I'm 29 years old, computer science graduate. - I founded two startups. First one failed after 4 years. The second one was acquired 3 months ago but do not take it as a success. We had to sold it to one of our competitors at a
throwaway487
- startupShut down2017
Launch HN: Lyrebird (YC S17) – Create a digital copy of your voice
Hi HN! We are the co-founders of Lyrebird ( https://lyrebird.ai/ ) and PhD students in AI at University of Montreal. We are building speech synthesis technologies to improve the way we communicate with computers. Right now, our key innovation is that we can copy the voice of someone else and make it say anything. The tech is still at its early stage but we believe that it is eventually going to make possible a wide range of new applications such as: - reading loud text messages with the voice of the sender, - reading audiobooks with the voice of your choice, - giving a personalized digital voice to people who lost their voice due to a disease, - allowing video game makers to have more customized dialogs generated on the fly, or avatars of their players, - allowing movie makers to freeze the voice of their actors so that they can still use it if the actor ages or dies. Yest
Why it failed: Hi HN! We are the co-founders of Lyrebird ( https://lyrebird.ai/ ) and PhD students in AI at University of Montreal. We are building speech synthesis technologies to improve the way we communicate with computers. Right now, our key innovation is that we can copy th
adbrebs
- startupShut down2017
Launch HN: Darmiyan (YC S17) – Early Detection of Alzheimer's Disease
Hi HN, I'm Padideh Kamali-Zare, co-founder and CEO at Darmiyan in the current YC batch ( https://www.darmiyan.com/ ). We work on early detection of Alzheimer's disease. I'm told that launching on HN should come with the backstory of how we came to work on this, so I need to tell you about my grandmother, the most precious gift in my life. She was a poet who raised me, and was always full of life and stories to keep me amazed and excited. As the first female bank executive in a conservative society in the middle east, she was also socially progressive and outstanding. A brilliant brain. A beautiful mind. A few months before she died, on a sunny day, she told me: “Do you know what I want the most from my life?” I stared at her in silence. She continued: “To die decently while I still remember myself, my memories and my loved ones. It feels like as I’m getting
Why it failed: Hi HN, I'm Padideh Kamali-Zare, co-founder and CEO at Darmiyan in the current YC batch ( https://www.darmiyan.com/ ). We work on early detection of Alzheimer's disease. I'm told that launching on HN should come with the backstory of how we came to wo
kvejdani
- startupShut down2017
Launch HN: Bitrise (YC W17) – Continuous Integration and Delivery for Mobile Apps
Hi, we’re the founders of Bitrise ( https://www.bitrise.io/ ) in the YC W17 batch — YC's first-ever Hungarian startup! Bitrise is a Continuous Integration and Delivery platform specifically for mobile apps. We started working on Bitrise when we were running our dev agency, building apps for clients. It was frustrating to go through all the manual tasks when somebody needed a fresh build, or when all the bugs piled up before releases. We wanted to automate all the manual aspects of app development so we could get back to coding, because that’s what we loved to do. We’ve started with iOS CI/CD, because that seemed to be the hardest and that’s what we had the most experience in. For starters we had to build up a scalable Mac infrastructure, since iOS apps can only be compiled on a Mac machine. That was tough. We also wanted to make setting up and maintaining CI way
Why it failed: Hi, we’re the founders of Bitrise ( https://www.bitrise.io/ ) in the YC W17 batch — YC's first-ever Hungarian startup! Bitrise is a Continuous Integration and Delivery platform specifically for mobile apps. We started working on Bitrise when we were running ou
thebloodrabbit
- startupShut down2017
Launch HN: Thematic (YC S17) Customer Feedback Analysis via NLP
Hi! I’m the CEO of Thematic, http://www.getthematic.com . We analyse customer feedback to tell companies how to increase customer satisfaction and reduce churn. We are one of the handful of companies that got into YC through the Startup School, and (I have to say) the only company that signed YC itself as a customer! I have a PhD in NLP and ML and was consulting when two large media companies came to me with a problem: They collect tons of customer feedback in free text as part of their NPS surveys, but don’t have the time to sift through the responses. This turned out to be common. Most companies collect feedback but, especially in large companies, nobody reads this data, and definitely not people who are in charge of strategy. Customers are screaming what’s wrong and what they want, but nobody is listening. I tried a few open-source packages but found that none worked well. D
Why it failed: Hi! I’m the CEO of Thematic, http://www.getthematic.com . We analyse customer feedback to tell companies how to increase customer satisfaction and reduce churn. We are one of the handful of companies that got into YC through the Startup School, and (I have to say) the o
zelandiya
- startupShut down2017
Ask HN: Ways to deal with ADHD?
I really value here the interesting and intelligent perspectives of the HN readers which taught me a lot, maybe even now for dealing with ADHD. About me: Had a huge crisis doing my bachelor degree was almost dropping out (same in high school), was also dealing with anxiety and feeling depressed and thus tried a lot of experimental things to "cure" me. In the end I just barely managed to pass my bachelor degree in CS (with an extension-semester) and doing now my masters. The experimental things that I did so far: -Doing 3 10-day meditation retreats to make me feel less stressed and overwhelmed. -Meditating at home(although it's often difficult to maintain this habit) -2-3 times a year LSD to have a mental reset if I feel stuck(cleaning my turmoil, refocus on the important). Recently also two times mircodosed LSD on days where I'm stressed or depressed to have more ener
Why it failed: I really value here the interesting and intelligent perspectives of the HN readers which taught me a lot, maybe even now for dealing with ADHD. About me: Had a huge crisis doing my bachelor degree was almost dropping out (same in high school), was also dealing with anxiety and fe
throwaway_adhd
- startupShut down2017
Ask HN: Good place to get help on / learn WebAssembly? (beginner level)
I started to get some interest in WebAssembly after seeing the possible applications and decided to take the leap this week-end. I managed to get past the hello world stage on my own with some help from stackoverflow but I'm now stuck while trying to re-implement my js game of life in wasm. The IRC #webassembly does not seem active. Any good place you know for some practical advice ? The webassembly, emscripten, mozilla docs are a bit overwhelming and not that much example oriented and the tutorials I found are probably out of date on many aspects considering the moving target that WebAssembly is...
Why it failed: I started to get some interest in WebAssembly after seeing the possible applications and decided to take the leap this week-end. I managed to get past the hello world stage on my own with some help from stackoverflow but I'm now stuck while trying to re-implement my js game
blaze33
- startupShut down2017
Ask HN: How do you close your side projects?
I have worked on various side projects involving design, development, music, etc. over time and generally kept the remnants living on somewhere (DropBox folders, word docs, random repositories). I like to have reference for nostalgia or to reflect on the lessons learned before my next pursuit. Recently, I have been considering creating a blog or documenting the key parts like screenshots along with a write up recap in an Archive folder somewhere and then purging the content such as code, mockups, assets, etc. I would partially like to write a post-mortem about a side startup but the rest are not as valued. I was just curious if you have any personal examples or practices for closing out your cancelled or completed projects (Archive - Purge - Blog Post - Open Source - viking send-off)?
Why it failed: I have worked on various side projects involving design, development, music, etc. over time and generally kept the remnants living on somewhere (DropBox folders, word docs, random repositories). I like to have reference for nostalgia or to reflect on the lessons learned before my
andrewgrossi