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.
3,400 solutions
- startupShut down2014
Ask HN: Kicked out by co-founders – what are my options?
Last year I won a hackathon contest with a large group including only one other dev. After the contest we decided to keep working on the project. For a couple of months I played a central role developing the fundamental product concept, business strategy, legal approach, and the coding itself. Periodically I raised concerns that we still hadn't formalised equity share. My concerns were dismissed. I discovered two of the non-devs had applied to accelerators without asking the team, despite me making it clear that in my opinion we didn't need outside investment. I handed over my work-in-progress and emailed the team saying I was moving to the "advisor tier" which the two had previously described as coming with "a small share of equity", and received positive replies from them. Since then I've been contacted by the other dev for assistance (he'd never
Why it failed: Last year I won a hackathon contest with a large group including only one other dev. After the contest we decided to keep working on the project. For a couple of months I played a central role developing the fundamental product concept, business strategy, legal approach, and the
anon29022014
- startupShut down2014
Ask HN: Looking for advice – Failed startup, long term relationship at same time
Spent the last 12 months on a startup that's basically failed and over the last 2 months fallen into a dark and lonely place. I'm typically an upbeat and positive person, but this failure has taken a bit of a toll. All of the family and friends money is gone. I feel guilty. I'm in tons of debt and have constant waves of disbelief at how I actually got into this spot. Especially as it's all self-inflicted. Adding another layer, my long term relationship with my gf just ended. We were together for 8 years. Looking for advice from other founders that have gone through some dark days. Preferably over email or IM
Why it failed: Spent the last 12 months on a startup that's basically failed and over the last 2 months fallen into a dark and lonely place. I'm typically an upbeat and positive person, but this failure has taken a bit of a toll. All of the family and friends money is gone. I feel gui
verysadpanda
- startupShut down2014
My mom is dying, and my bank account is dry. I need help
TL;DR If anyone has any work for me (strengths are Ruby/Rails, data mining) please email me. ilovemymomjeanine@gmail.com (will go to my professional email) -- This is in regards to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7214446 If you’re in Minnesota and would like to meet with me, let’s meet. Very-long; will read: I’m posting here so I can vent to people that I would normally talk to in my day-to-day life. My life, however, hasn’t felt day-to-day in so long. It’s felt like one, long clusterfuck of a bullet train inside my head. I’m not popular here or in the startup community (in the larger sense). I haven’t worked for any well-known startups nor do I contribute to any open-source projects. I haven’t developed any killer libraries and I don’t belong to mailing lists. But I don’t let that define me. At all. There’s nothing that I haven’t taught myself. I’m very prideful
Why it failed: TL;DR If anyone has any work for me (strengths are Ruby/Rails, data mining) please email me. ilovemymomjeanine@gmail.com (will go to my professional email) -- This is in regards to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7214446 If you’re in Minnesota and would l
helpmymomisx
- startupShut down2014
I open sourced my startup
So I've spent the last 3 years attempting to teach a computer how to understand recipes. What they taste like, ingredients you'd need to make them. If they have animal products or are gluten free. If they're a dessert. This work involved a lot of natural language processing, Beyesian filtering, etc. With this, I built a very powerful recipe search engine. It allows you to find recipes using some pretty interesting queries. For example, if the user wants to make 5 recipes that will efficiently use a head of lettuce, 12 bananas, a pound of salmon, and 6 eggs, it can find the most efficient set of recipes that will use as much of those ingredients as possible, while requiring the user to have to buy as few new ingredients as possible. It's also able to normalize the ingredients across all recipes to build really accurate shopping lists. For example, if one recipe calls f
Why it failed: So I've spent the last 3 years attempting to teach a computer how to understand recipes. What they taste like, ingredients you'd need to make them. If they have animal products or are gluten free. If they're a dessert. This work involved a lot of natural language p
MikeChristensen
- startupShut down2014
Ask HN: Handling an international non-paying client
tl;dr foreign company hasn't paid my team's invoices, we probably can't sue, what else can we do? I contracted with an overseas company and was paid for most of my work there. Unfortunately, the company hasn't paid my team for the last few months of our work. We're now coming around on 9 months since the due date. The manager still promises payment but always has new excuses. The company has not gone under and actually has even hired new contractors, albeit in different divisions. Due to the fact that this company is on the other side of the globe, a lawsuit is impractical. Are there any other tactics we might employ, such as public shaming blogs, glassdoor reviews, etc? edit: thanks for all the helpful feedback. Some more details: we have not worked for quite some time (basically after it was clear that something was wrong with payments). I've escalated thi
Why it failed: tl;dr foreign company hasn't paid my team's invoices, we probably can't sue, what else can we do? I contracted with an overseas company and was paid for most of my work there. Unfortunately, the company hasn't paid my team for the last few months of our work.
ycombosnator
- startupShut down2014
No More Promises: Realizing Your Programming Job Sucks
Read time: 2 minutes Somewhere in the annexes of maxims and guidance, there is a statement that reads: “Actions speak louder than words.” When I worked for my first company out of college I began with “part-time” work as a junior Rails developer. The rate was $1000 a month for up to 30/hrs a week. Two months would then pass and they would consider an increase in salary. Why would anyone accept that offer as a junior Rails developer? Was it me being naive, hopeful, stupid, or something more? I think it was the belief in promises. Their first promise, a $90,000 salary by the end of the year. Two months passed and the work increased. I’m given tasks with impossible deadlines. In one situation I worked 60 straight hours with 1.5 hours of sleep. Was I given a bonus? No. Was I given a week off to recover? No. More promises were given. Shares in the company, you’ll have normal work again,
Why it failed: Read time: 2 minutes Somewhere in the annexes of maxims and guidance, there is a statement that reads: “Actions speak louder than words.” When I worked for my first company out of college I began with “part-time” work as a junior Rails developer. The rate was $1000 a month for up
supburger
- startupShut down2014
Ask HN: What can I ask potential employers?
This question is specifically referring to startups, because startups generally have more risk involved. I'm currently looking at job openings at startups. There's some that interest me, but I'm worried about some of the risk that comes with joining a startup. That's not to say that I'm not willing to take on any risk, but I at least want to know what I'm getting in to before I bet me and my families financial well-being on it. That said, I'm never sure what I'm allowed to ask startups. Given that I haven't been hired yet, I would think some startups would prefer not to give out too much information about business plans or traction statisics. Am I allowed to ask questions like: - How much runway do you have left? What's your plan for extending that runway? If you're planning on new investments, are you actively seeking that? - Why do
Why it failed: This question is specifically referring to startups, because startups generally have more risk involved. I'm currently looking at job openings at startups. There's some that interest me, but I'm worried about some of the risk that comes with joining a startup. That
josephwegner
- startupShut down2014
Show HN: Many to Many, a different kind of tech meetup (London, UK)
We love tech events. But often the one-to-many talk format is a bit hit and miss. Sometimes you learn lots of wonderful new things, but frequently the talks are too long and of questionable quality. Watching someone go over the basics of a library/technology/etc in a real life presentation generally didn't provide a lot of value to us. Instead, we always found the best parts were in the questions and discussions at the end of each talk - except this time was often cut off in order to make room for the next talk. What we wanted was a smaller, more intimate event aimed at talking through the technology side of building startups. One didn't exist, so we decided to do something about that and created Many to Many. Many to Many is aimed at fostering group discussion instead of the traditional 'one person talks to audience' format. There are 3 discussions topics p
Why it failed: We love tech events. But often the one-to-many talk format is a bit hit and miss. Sometimes you learn lots of wonderful new things, but frequently the talks are too long and of questionable quality. Watching someone go over the basics of a library/technology/etc in a re
hafabnew
- startupShut down2014
Offer HN: Free Use of Agricultural Land 30 miles Northwest of Chicago
We own 13 acres of ag-zoned land just outside of Chicago. We have access to an adjacent 70 acres. I am offering free use of the land for anyone who has an interesting project that requires land and proximity suburban/urban environment--and wifi network. The land is located 35-miles from downtown Chicago and 25 miles from O'Hare airport. It's smack-dab in the middle of suburbia and there is a Menards within walking distance. http://goo.gl/6tjC8g If the idea is interesting enough, I'll even build you a shed or a cabin (out of 2x4s; nothing fancy). The land will include the following amenities, all of which is available at no cost (for really cool projects). --well water (within reason) --septic field --electricity (within reason) --wifi --fenced and unfenced acreage Starting next year, there will be bees, flowers, goats, chickens, dogs, and alpaca on the
Why it failed: We own 13 acres of ag-zoned land just outside of Chicago. We have access to an adjacent 70 acres. I am offering free use of the land for anyone who has an interesting project that requires land and proximity suburban/urban environment--and wifi network. The land is located 3
syedkarim
- startupShut down2014
Ask HN: Founders whose startups failed, do you experience bias in interviews?
Over the past few years I've been seeing a steady increase in the number of resumes that pass in front of my eyes that have the last job experience at 1-2 years with the title "CEO" or "President" and this very much signals "failed startup". Several of us who are part of the hiring process (note: we're all programmers) find ourselves having to try and ignore certain biases we've been noticing: "Oh, failed company, they must not be very good..." "Is someone who's used to being boss of the company going to handle taking orders?" etc. And the bias appears to be worse the older the applicant is (that's just a gut feel, I have no data to back that up). Obviously these are false, and we take time to stop and remind each other of the many quality traits a startup founder brings (and the experiences a failed one brings as
Why it failed: Over the past few years I've been seeing a steady increase in the number of resumes that pass in front of my eyes that have the last job experience at 1-2 years with the title "CEO" or "President" and this very much signals "failed startup". Sev
massung
- startupShut down2014
Ask HN: Open source an abandoned Mac app for mockups?
Wondering whether to open source an old project I worked on, and abandoned... It's a native Mac app for building static mockups (iOS and web apps). I doubt anyone would be interested, but thought it worth asking, see if anyone has any opinions. Screenshot: http://cl.ly/image/0o1h0q1L3u1o/o
Why it failed: Wondering whether to open source an old project I worked on, and abandoned... It's a native Mac app for building static mockups (iOS and web apps). I doubt anyone would be interested, but thought it worth asking, see if anyone has any opinions. Screenshot: http://c
markdodwell
- startupShut down2013
MyOpenID will be turned off on February 1, 2014
[Email sent to myOpenID users] Hello, I wanted to reach out personally to let you know that we have made the decision to end of life the myOpenID service. myOpenID will be turned off on February 1, 2014. In 2006 Janrain created myOpenID to fulfill our vision to make registration and login easier on the web for people. Since that time, social networks and email providers such as Facebook, Google, Twitter, LinkedIn and Yahoo! have embraced open identity standards. And now, billions of people who have created accounts with these services can use their identities to easily register and login to sites across the web in the way myOpenID was intended. By 2009 it had become obvious that the vast majority of consumers would prefer to utilize an existing identity from a recognized provider rather than create their own myOpenID account. As a result, our business focus changed to address this desire
Why it failed: [Email sent to myOpenID users] Hello, I wanted to reach out personally to let you know that we have made the decision to end of life the myOpenID service. myOpenID will be turned off on February 1, 2014. In 2006 Janrain created myOpenID to fulfill our vision to make registration
yureka
- startupShut down2013
We need an NRA for privacy
A software company shuts its secure email service pre-emptively so that they wouldn't be forced to comply with government orders to ... what? insert back doors? hand over encryption keys? What country did this happen in? Soviet Russia? Cuba? Iran? No the United States of America. Truly chilling. I'm talking about Silent Circle. see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6183059 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6183352 If this had been about a gun-making/selling company shutting down its operation because they were afraid the government come to them and force them to violate the privacy of their customers, or for example insert, surreptitiously, some sort of tracking device into the guns themselves, the country (and the mainstream media, by the way) would be UP IN ARMS. What we need is a "National Privacy Association" like the
Why it failed: A software company shuts its secure email service pre-emptively so that they wouldn't be forced to comply with government orders to ... what? insert back doors? hand over encryption keys? What country did this happen in? Soviet Russia? Cuba? Iran? No the United States of Ame
plg
- startupShut down2013
Ask HN: I Used My Credit Cards to Fund My Failed Startup and Now They're Suing
About four or five years ago I applied for several credit cards to augment my freelance income, so that I could drastically cut back on the hours I spent working for others and focus mostly on my project. We're not talking huge amounts here - three cards with around 5k each. Anyway, fast forward a couple of years and the freelance market collapsed in my region and my startup failed. I recently received notice that a process server is trying to track me down to serve me. I'm assuming the other debt collection companies will too at some point. Is it too late to contact the debt collection companies and try to work something out? I can probably swing a 1k down payment and the rest over monthly payments for a year to a year and a half. There's also the additional issue that I may have exaggerated my freelance income somewhat on the applications. I'm not sure how worried I should be about tha
Why it failed: About four or five years ago I applied for several credit cards to augment my freelance income, so that I could drastically cut back on the hours I spent working for others and focus mostly on my project. We're not talking huge amounts here - three cards with around 5k each. Anyw
ThrowawayTheDay
- startupShut down2013
Zerigo terminates annual plans mid-way to jack rates 19x
aka "How NOT to raise your prices on prepaid plans" The last few years have been rough for Zerigo customers, with several well-publicized DNS outages. As a reward for hanging in there, Zerigo sent an email this morning they will discontinued their DNS Essentials plan ($39/YEAR) and are replacing it January 31 2014 with a $63/MONTH plan. (pricing shown for 50 domains)...a 19-fold increase, one month's notice. And no, they just confirmed, they will NOT wait until your current annual plan expires even though it is pre-paid (September 2014 in my case). They will jack up the rate 19-fold, beginning Jan 31, applying a prorated credit, rather than letting current annual plans run their course. To my mind, the rate increase might be reasonable if they really did upgrade their infrastructure to prevent further outages. What is completely unacceptable IMO is a policy to te
Why it failed: aka "How NOT to raise your prices on prepaid plans" The last few years have been rough for Zerigo customers, with several well-publicized DNS outages. As a reward for hanging in there, Zerigo sent an email this morning they will discontinued their DNS Essentials plan ($
pardner
- startupShut down2013
Linkedin Answers Shuts Down
And I just started looking at them a few days ago.
Why it failed: And I just started looking at them a few days ago.
JimWillTri
- startupShut down2013
Ask HN: What am I going to do with my job?
Dear HN community, I know many of you will understand me. I am a software engineer working in a big multinational company. Software has always been my dream. I love it, I spend my free time mostly for it. Now I am middle aged, I have a family and kids. We are living in a non-english speaking european country as foreigners and kids are going to the school now. What I daily do is to develop enterprise software (mainly web applications) using the recipe which many of you know. Jsp, application servers, synchronous servlets, heavy SOAP interfaces, many JEE beans, hibernate, thousands of threads and locks, JMS, one big expensive database in the backend. I see that most the problems that we have are coming from architectural choices. Business units want to decrease the cost but no one wants to get rid of the license of that big expensive database. Everybody wants to improve backend performance
Why it failed: Dear HN community, I know many of you will understand me. I am a software engineer working in a big multinational company. Software has always been my dream. I love it, I spend my free time mostly for it. Now I am middle aged, I have a family and kids. We are living in a non-engl
desperateone
- startupShut down2013
Ask HN: Any startups working to capitalize on the coming privacy boom?
Big opportunities are opening up for companies in a position to offer services free of government snooping. Are any startups in the community specifically oriented to this market positioning? Any big company or non- U.S. government seems likely to ask the question "If we move our tens of thousands of users to service X or service Y (i.e. gmail or Oracle)" will our data be gathered by the U.S. government? If the answer is yes, or "maybe" then surely they'll look for "snoop free" alternatives. Is anyone working to become the snoop free alternative?
Why it failed: Big opportunities are opening up for companies in a position to offer services free of government snooping. Are any startups in the community specifically oriented to this market positioning? Any big company or non- U.S. government seems likely to ask the question "If we mov
hoodoof
- startupShut down2013
Ask HN: How do you suggest we technologists get our industry back?
At least on Hacker News, it's well-known that we (technologists) work in conditions of low autonomy, answer to arrogant non-technical forces, don't get to pick our tools or projects, are often forced to deal with awful legacy complexity that any reasonable person would discard, and generally have pretty miserable working lives. We make half-decent (but not great, especially considering what we have to deal with) money, but often find that some VP/NTWTFK (Non-Technical Who-The-Fuck-Knows) is getting higher salary and ten times as much equity. It has to end. And we have the talent to stop the world if we want to do so. I'd like to ask the crowd, to source some new ideas: what do you suggest that we do to win back the autonomy that is rightfully ours? What's the best idea you can come up with for how to restore our industry to decency? How do we get back the autonomy originally associated w
Why it failed: At least on Hacker News, it's well-known that we (technologists) work in conditions of low autonomy, answer to arrogant non-technical forces, don't get to pick our tools or projects, are often forced to deal with awful legacy complexity that any reasonable person would discard, a
michaelochurch
- startupShut down2013
Twitter Should Shut Me Down
Cached version: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fedu.mkrecny.com%2Fthoughts%2Ftwitter-should-shut-me-down&aq=f&oq=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fedu.mkrecny.com%2Fthoughts%2Ftwitter-should-shut-me-down&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
Why it failed: Cached version: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fedu.mkrecny.com%2Fthoughts%2Ftwitter-should-shut-me-down&aq=f&oq=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fedu.mkrecny.com%2Fthoughts%2Ftwitter-should-shut-me-down&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
mkrecny
- startupShut down2013
The new Google Hangouts will not support XMPP
Hello from Google! You are the administrator for one or more Google App Engine applications that may be impacted by an upcoming new product release. Google will be releasing a new communications product called Hangouts which users may choose to use instead of Google Talk. The new service does not support XMPP. As a result XMPP bots such as the App Engine XMPP service will not be able to communicate with users who adopt the new service. There are two ways to keep your App Engine XMPP service working for end users: 1) Your users may use any chat client that supports XMPP. XMPP clients will continue to work as usual with the App Engine XMPP service. 2) End users will be asked to opt-into the new service when it goes live. Note that the go-live date may vary for Google Apps domains. End users and google app domain administrators may choose not to opt into the new system. If they do not opt i
Why it failed: Hello from Google! You are the administrator for one or more Google App Engine applications that may be impacted by an upcoming new product release. Google will be releasing a new communications product called Hangouts which users may choose to use instead of Google Talk. The new
moobirubi
- startupShut down2013
Need job to save my relationship
Dear HNers I have been reading HN for a while and I've never thought I would reach out to this community for this reason. Guess what, I want to save my relationship, and I'm sure you guys can help me. Here's the problem: my girlfriend can't find a job. She is very smart (not only because I say she is, she is actually really smart) and has all qualities to be doing awesome work in a startup as a multi-hat talent. She has been a product manager in the valley for a couple years and has project management experience, well appreciated by customers. She is also perfectly trilingual and has a real gift for communication. But, it's not that simple. She is not a US citizen. She needs a visa to work, and the more we try to understand why she doesn't get any traction after the usual first round of interviews, the more we are convinced that doors close automatically when HR people get to know that t
Why it failed: Dear HNers I have been reading HN for a while and I've never thought I would reach out to this community for this reason. Guess what, I want to save my relationship, and I'm sure you guys can help me. Here's the problem: my girlfriend can't find a job. She is very smart (not only
mazenne
- startupShut down2013
Ask HN: Interview as a Service – Any interest?
Hello Everyone, TL;DR I am offering interview as a service (taking first round on your behalf) for technical roles (0-8 yrs exp) for $150 each. Would you be interested? Generally (assumption) even after the resume has been filtered by HR folks (who are mostly non-tech), you end up with 1 out of 5 candidate cleared after the telephonic rounds. This is definitely time consuming as developers are getting involved here and their hours are getting wasted. If you do the calculation (assumption here), so to hire 1 candidate, you end up wasting 15-20 hours (at least) of developers time on unsuccessful interviews. My proposal: I will study your company, team and requirements beforehand. Once you have identified a candidate, you can let me know and I will conduct the first round and give you a feedback. My assumption again, this will improve the ratio to 1 out of 2. My confidence is that it will b
Why it failed: Hello Everyone, TL;DR I am offering interview as a service (taking first round on your behalf) for technical roles (0-8 yrs exp) for $150 each. Would you be interested? Generally (assumption) even after the resume has been filtered by HR folks (who are mostly non-tech), you end u
shail
- startupShut down2013
Ubuntu Edge lowers prices on IndieGogo
Hi everyone The last few days have been absolutely incredible -- over $3.5 million in the first 40 hours. We’ve broken records, we’ve attracted the attention of the world, and we’re marching closer and closer to bringing the Ubuntu Edge to life. $32 million is a huge number, and we’ve never danced around this fact. To get there, we’re going to need your help to bring family, friends, fans, and followers to the campaign. This crowdfunding process has already provided us with a lot of great feedback, especially about our perks -- and we’ve been listening to it all. You told us you want more opportunities to get the Ubuntu Edge at a lower contribution level, so we went back to our spreadsheets and came up with a solution. Today we’re changing our perk levels. We’ll offer a limited number of phones at each level, and as each tier runs out the next ones will be made available, so act quickly
Why it failed: Hi everyone The last few days have been absolutely incredible -- over $3.5 million in the first 40 hours. We’ve broken records, we’ve attracted the attention of the world, and we’re marching closer and closer to bringing the Ubuntu Edge to life. $32 million is a huge number, and
thejosh