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 down2011
Ask HN: Best way to learn the CS background I missed by not going to school?
I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask if it's not I apologize. This is my first post to HN.<p>Background: Basically I've been a developer for almost four years now. I started as a front-end developer writing HTML/CSS/JS, but quickly moved to the back-end writing PHP. Before now I've considered myself a decent developer, but lately I've been feeling burnt out and have been looking to move to a position that would make me happier. I've been looking at Ruby/Rails positions on the various job boards and I really feel like I don't have enough CS knowledge to land any of these positions. I'm feeling more and more like a copy and paste PHP developer. I mean, how can I get a job that is asking for engineers to apply? I really got a punch in the face when I read through a post on Stack Overflow about lesser known data structures like Ropes, and Bloom Filters, and Skip Lists. I ha
Why it failed: I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask if it's not I apologize. This is my first post to HN.<p>Background: Basically I've been a developer for almost four years now. I started as a front-end developer writing HTML/CSS/JS, but quickly moved to the back-end writing
brandoncordell
- startupShut down2011
Ask HN: How can I quit talking myself out of my own ideas?
I'm sure this is common amongst us developers with ideas. I come up with new ideas for websites all the time. Most of the time I will have 2-3 ideas a week. I will usually invest several hours into each idea. If I know enough to jump right into code, I will. Otherwise I start by researching for the idea. Most of my ideas I am initially excited about. If I'm lucky then I may even be genuinely positive that the idea is "going to work". But, just like clockwork, I eventually begin to doubt the idea and usually end up dropping it. This usually occurs the day or so after the inception of the idea. Usually, my reasoning for dropping an idea is that it seems so useless and minor in the grand scheme of things. I try to picture people using the product and it actually making their life better in some way. This is obviously not an easy thing to do. I think that over the years I've trained myself t
Why it failed: I'm sure this is common amongst us developers with ideas. I come up with new ideas for websites all the time. Most of the time I will have 2-3 ideas a week. I will usually invest several hours into each idea. If I know enough to jump right into code, I will. Otherwise I start by
Skywing
- startupShut down2011
In regards to the opinions about the quality of HN
I've been a long time fan of online community. I've had forums that I attached to and gave them my "blood, sweat and tears." I've made myself a well known member of MMO communities because I enjoyed chatting in the game more than playing it. I turned Blizzard's Battle.net gaming service into an IRC-like hacker chat service because I hadn't discovered IRC yet. I've hosted my own IRC server since 1999 - averaged like ~40 users consistently since then, too! Do you know what the one thing that running this IRC server has taught me over the past 12 years? The people and the purpose behind the server change over time. Initially, the server was full of 14 year old kids, my e-friends from all over the globe, hacking Diablo and Warcraft. I had friends on there that I never thought would leave. Over the period of 12 years things happen, though. Some of them got married. Some got jobs that demanded
Why it failed: I've been a long time fan of online community. I've had forums that I attached to and gave them my "blood, sweat and tears." I've made myself a well known member of MMO communities because I enjoyed chatting in the game more than playing it. I turned Blizzard's Battle.net gaming
Skywing
- startupShut down2011
Spamhaus Nightmare: Domain Shut Down, No Notice, Over A Million Pages Down
I am writing this here on HN, because at the moment you cannot access our blog. Our domain name was shut down this morning, and I'm trying to get it back. Here's what happened... Our company provides tools to help people put together pages for their businesses. Our free tool has been used to create over million page tabs on Facebook. Unfortunately but predictably, sometimes bad people use our app. Like spammers. Overnight, our domain was blacklisted by Spamhaus because one of our pages contained spam. (Anybody want a free iPad?) We run our infrastructure on Heroku, and use Bluehost for domain names. Well, as soon as Bluehost recieved notice from Spamhaus, they shut off the DNS for our domain. All million plus pages, gone in the blink of a DNS propagation. Thankfully we were able to switch over to [appname].heroku.com for now and most of the pages are back, but we have paying customers wh
Why it failed: I am writing this here on HN, because at the moment you cannot access our blog. Our domain name was shut down this morning, and I'm trying to get it back. Here's what happened... Our company provides tools to help people put together pages for their businesses. Our free tool has
jpadvo
- startupShut down2011
Tell HN: Why I want to start a startup
I love my life. No kidding. I do. I'm a young guy in his early twenties and I'm doing great in college. I'm going to grad school next year, that’s exciting! I love Computer Science. I'm having fun with friends. I ride my bike, even when it’s freezing. Does that mean I’m healthy and in shape? You’re right. I have grand plans for the future and everything is fine. Still, I get written off all the time and I guess I’m not the only one. Personally, I just try to not let it get to me. Here’s why. How I got written off: phase one It all started when I was in my final year in high school. One day, my math teacher asked me what I wanted to study. I’ve always been pretty determined and told him the truth. I’d like to study Computer Science in college, sir. Go for a master’s degree. He laughed at me, in my face. Point blank. I studied economics and languages back then, and I admit, the math I was
Why it failed: I love my life. No kidding. I do. I'm a young guy in his early twenties and I'm doing great in college. I'm going to grad school next year, that’s exciting! I love Computer Science. I'm having fun with friends. I ride my bike, even when it’s freezing. Does that mean I’m healthy a
philipDS
- startupShut down2011
The Untold Story of Chegg PT 1
My name is Ousama Haffar and I was one of the early guys at Chegg. While Chegg isn't a Zynga or a Facebook story that attracts the oohs and ahhs of Silicon Valley, I would love to share a bit with you about what I learned about entrepreneurship and being scrappy during my time at Chegg as founding member of the team from 2006-2010 and how we went from $0 to over $100M in revenue. Chegg originally start its life as a college classified site that attracted 60,000 students across the country to buy and sell your everyday college type items; t-shirts, mini fridges, old beat up Pontiacs, etc. Our team was about 5-7 people, mostly engineers and I focused mostly on product, marketing and whatever odd jobs that needed a hand. In our early days we attracted a couple hundred thousand visitors to our website each month, mostly buy building a campus marketing team and doing your traditional marketin
Why it failed: My name is Ousama Haffar and I was one of the early guys at Chegg. While Chegg isn't a Zynga or a Facebook story that attracts the oohs and ahhs of Silicon Valley, I would love to share a bit with you about what I learned about entrepreneurship and being scrappy during my time at
dotmatrix
- startupShut down2011
Wanted: a Mentor
It is time I ask for help. After years of failed website ideas (not startups), I realize I desperately need someone who is willing to guide me in implementing small niche websites. (I typically find niche opportunities than disruptive game changers). By reaching out and asking for help, I am realizing my limitations and hopefully I can learn the skills I currently do not have. If you have been successful in testing ideas, from squeeze page to paid traffic testing, I would love to chat, pick your brain (I hate that term, sorry), or bounce ideas off. In my line of work, I constantly spot small-time opportunities, but just can't seem to get my ideas tested and the lo-fi version implemented, so I can scope out the market to ultimately decide to stay or move on. About me. I work from a home office making digital maps for clients. I have been pipe-dreaming of internet startup since 1993. I hav
Why it failed: It is time I ask for help. After years of failed website ideas (not startups), I realize I desperately need someone who is willing to guide me in implementing small niche websites. (I typically find niche opportunities than disruptive game changers). By reaching out and asking fo
mapster
- startupShut down2011
Show HN: "Never wait on hold again" service built with Rails and Twilio
My buddy paulsingh and I have been working on this for a few weeks, got something up and running and wanted to show you. The problem we're solving: When you need customer service (your flight got canceled, strange fees on your bill, etc) you just want to talk to a real person. Waiting on hold wastes your time AND your concentration; you can't be coding in the zone when part of your brain is waiting for an operator. Our solution: We wanted to make it "one click" to reach a real person. How it works: You click on who you want to talk to (even a specific department, like the billing dept at AT&T) and we take it from there. Our system dials in, presses whatever buttons need pressing and waits on hold for as long as it takes. Only when we have an actual operator on the line do we call you. Website version: http://www.fastcustomer.com (free) iPhone: http://itunes.com/app/FastCustomer (99 c
Why it failed: My buddy paulsingh and I have been working on this for a few weeks, got something up and running and wanted to show you. The problem we're solving: When you need customer service (your flight got canceled, strange fees on your bill, etc) you just want to talk to a real person. Wa
ekanes
- startupShut down2011
Ask HN: Tell me about your failed startup.
Inspired by this post - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2086218 - which mentions the fact people only focus on success stories which are actually the minority. I think it would be good to hear some personal stories of startup failure so we can all learn from them. What went wrong? What did you learn for next time and can pass on? How did you recover and what are you doing now? Having failed once, would you try again?
Why it failed: Inspired by this post - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2086218 - which mentions the fact people only focus on success stories which are actually the minority. I think it would be good to hear some personal stories of startup failure so we can all learn from them. What went w
SimonPStevens
- startupShut down2011
Show HN: Fitocracy, an RPG for fitness
My cofounder and I have been working on a site called Fitocracy (www.fitocracy.com), which is a social game for fitness. The idea was very much inspired by our experiences growing up as nerds playing video games, later on discovering weightlifting, and drawing the parallel between working out and "leveling yourself up." XKCD has a pretty well known comic to this effect: http://xkcd.com/189/. We find that the metaphor of workout out as leveling up in a video game resonates with quite a few people, so Fitocracy is an attempt to bring that to life. On Fitocracy, tracking your workouts earns you points/levels, unlocks special achievements, and fulfills "quests", which are basically exercise milestones that aim for workout variety and progression. As you progress in your training, Fitocracy offers more quests, increases the level up requirements, etc. We also try to make the experience as com
Why it failed: My cofounder and I have been working on a site called Fitocracy (www.fitocracy.com), which is a social game for fitness. The idea was very much inspired by our experiences growing up as nerds playing video games, later on discovering weightlifting, and drawing the parallel betwee
brianmwang
- startupShut down2011
Mixpanel - Internships. A story.
Mixpanel is looking for summer interns. In 2008, I interned at Slide, Inc and it was one of the most valuable summers of my life. I went from college hacker interested in starting a company to learning deeply about product design and what it was like to work on a team. That summer I was fortunate enough to work with an awesome PM, Adora (who taught me the essentials of product development) and Max Levchin. I am still not sure why Max ended up working so closely on the product we working on. Our product was new and had the least business value of all the things Slide was working on but it was still exciting. If I had to say, I think he just liked that we worked so hard on it. At Slide, I was determined to work hard. I wanted to know if hard work paid off so I worked from 10am to 12am. It did: Slide offered me a full-time but I declined. At the end of the summer I had huge takeaways: - I k
Why it failed: Mixpanel is looking for summer interns. In 2008, I interned at Slide, Inc and it was one of the most valuable summers of my life. I went from college hacker interested in starting a company to learning deeply about product design and what it was like to work on a team. That summe
suhail
- startupShut down2011
Open letter to FB from protest leaders in macedonia.
Open Letter to Facebook Re: Protests against Policy Brutality in Macedonia (June 2011) Dear Facebook, We are writing to express our concern over the swift deletion policy that has been imposed on the facebook pages and events that we as participants in a protest against policy brutality in Macedonia are currently dealing with. We have been made aware by the press secretary for the Ministry of Interior that their administrators are responsible for reporting the groups for calls for violence and hate speech, but considering that we know the content of those pages and deny the allegations made by press secretary Kotevski, we wonder how your administrators confirm those allegations before you delete the pages. Do you confirm them at all? The systematic deletion especially of events that bring people together in peaceful protests adds significantly to the climate of fear created by those we a
Why it failed: Open Letter to Facebook Re: Protests against Policy Brutality in Macedonia (June 2011) Dear Facebook, We are writing to express our concern over the swift deletion policy that has been imposed on the facebook pages and events that we as participants in a protest against policy br
Gabriel_Martin
- startupShut down2011
.ly domain reseller suspended by SoftLayer citing US/UN Sanctions
My contact at libyanspider.com has informed me that his hosting and DNS service at SoftLayer.com has been shut down citing UN/US/ Presidential Order of sanctions against Libya. Some ~12,000 sites owned by ~5000 Libyan and International customers are offline or unreachable, 20 employees out of work. LibyanSpider is the largest reseller I think of .ly domains. They also offer other DNS and internet services. Softlayer was kind enough to add "Best of luck in your future endeavors." to their notice before even shutting off his support system account. *wince [quote] Unfortunately, your account has been reclaimed due OFAC violations. With the current situation abroad and subsequent changes to the list, your account has been deactivated immediately. OFAC: http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/Pages/Programs.aspx Best of luck in your future endeavors, SoftLayer Accounting [/
Why it failed: My contact at libyanspider.com has informed me that his hosting and DNS service at SoftLayer.com has been shut down citing UN/US/ Presidential Order of sanctions against Libya. Some ~12,000 sites owned by ~5000 Libyan and International customers are offline or unreachable, 20 emp
strebel
- startupShut down2011
Need Help. Going through late 20 career crisis.
Let me first tell you about the current situation and the events leading to it. I did my B.Sc. in computer science in 2004. My dream since second year of my graduation was to have my own startup, my own company where we can develop quality software products. After my graduation I worked as intern(SAP ABAP Developer) at a large indian IT company. As I excelled in my work there and was better than most of the experienced programmer there, they offered me a permanent position in the company. I worked there for 2 more years and got tired of the boring corporate culture. There was no more real work left and I just got my salary doing nothing. It was frustrating as I always wanted to do quality work. I felt like my life was leading to nowhere. Besides that my ambition was to startup my own business. So, I played a gamble and it backfired. I quit my job and started a company with one of my coll
Why it failed: Let me first tell you about the current situation and the events leading to it. I did my B.Sc. in computer science in 2004. My dream since second year of my graduation was to have my own startup, my own company where we can develop quality software products. After my graduation I
reymook
- startupShut down2011
Ask HN: Startup promised me a job, then backed out after the internship
TL;DR; Student from Europe, did an internship in a NYC startup, got promised to be hired. After having made all the plans for moving to US, the offer was retracted. In August I began an internship at a New York startup. Since I’m European, I had no expectations that it would have led to a full-time job, given the hassle of getting an H1B visa (in fact, I was already surprised that the company sponsored my J-1 for the length of the internship). After just a few weeks, the company was impressed with my performance (they told me I had already accomplished more than they expected from the whole three months) and they gave me a full-time offer. Compensation, option, benefits, visa paperwork, all there. I took some time to decide, as I was considering other opportunities, and eventually accepted. My girlfriend is American (we met in the UK, where we both did our master’s), and this was the bes
Why it failed: TL;DR; Student from Europe, did an internship in a NYC startup, got promised to be hired. After having made all the plans for moving to US, the offer was retracted. In August I began an internship at a New York startup. Since I’m European, I had no expectations that it would have
throwaway87
- startupShut down2011
Inspire HN: Persistent determination
YC deadline is soon, so I just wanted to give some inspiration to all YC applicants. Hope this will help, or at least, you’ll find it worth reading. First, ask yourself a question: if you failed, then how do you know if you failed because it’s impossible or because you just wasn’t determined enough? Well, really, how do you know that? Every real life case falls into two possible categories: either someone succedeed or not. If he or she falied then there is always a lot of obvious reasons for that, because it’s easy to judge when you’re looking into the past. From formal, scientific point of view one can’t prove something is impossible just because someone who tried failed. I challenge you with the hypothesis that the only reason you can fail is insufficient determination. The great Russian mathematician Andrey Kolmogorov discovered evolutionary epistemology principle. It says that humans
Why it failed: YC deadline is soon, so I just wanted to give some inspiration to all YC applicants. Hope this will help, or at least, you’ll find it worth reading. First, ask yourself a question: if you failed, then how do you know if you failed because it’s impossible or because you just wasn’
bloodcarter
- startupShut down2011
Ask HN: How often startups get acquired and you get nothing?
Today the startup I worked for got bought out. I am one of the first few Developers with employee stock options. I have given 3 years of my life to this startup. I believed in what we were doing. During this time I have seen one complete product rewrite, Whole top management being replaced (CEO, CTO, etc), numerous product direction changes. I worked on some of the most critical pieces of the software. I lead the last rewrite as the Principal Architect (with very high control on what to be build). This last rewrite lead the startup being bought out by a very large enterprise company. In the end I got nothing. They tell me my stock options are worth nothing. This has happen to me second time. How often this happen? Is this normal? I am frustrated. The only solace is that they are keeping my team so at least i know my team has a good home. I have decide not to be part of this acquisition.
Why it failed: Today the startup I worked for got bought out. I am one of the first few Developers with employee stock options. I have given 3 years of my life to this startup. I believed in what we were doing. During this time I have seen one complete product rewrite, Whole top management bein
47
- startupShut down2011
Consider your naming schemes - a cautionary tale
Recently we had a contract for a large company that required the code be put in escrow. This isn't unusual, we're in an industry where if you have fewer than 10,000 employees you're regarded as small and a risky proposition. We have succeeded despite that perception because we're very good at what we do. So an agent for the appointed escrow company comes in to vet the software, check that we can do a full and complete build from the source provided, and then are about to take away the copy to put in safe storage. It'll never be seen again unless we fail to meet our (fairly reasonable) obligations. Then the agent doing the vetting asks for a break. He goes away and makes a phone call. Then another. Then another. Finally he comes back and says that he has a legal responsibility to report us to the authorities. Why? We use a package called "upskirt" - https://github.com/tanoku/upskirt - and
Why it failed: Recently we had a contract for a large company that required the code be put in escrow. This isn't unusual, we're in an industry where if you have fewer than 10,000 employees you're regarded as small and a risky proposition. We have succeeded despite that perception because we're
ColinWright
- startupShut down2011
Italian Wikipedia shut down
Today, unfortunately, the very pillars on which Wikipedia has been built - neutrality, freedom, and verifiability of its contents - are likely to be heavily compromised by paragraph 29 of a law proposal, also known as "DDL intercettazioni" (Wiretapping Act). This proposal, which the Italian Parliament is currently debating, provides, among other things, a requirement to all websites to publish, within 48 hours of the request and without any comment, a correction of any content that the applicant deems detrimental to his/her image. Unfortunately, the law does not require an evaluation of the claim by an impartial third judge - the opinion of the person allegedly injured is all that is required, in order to impose such correction to any website. http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Comunicato_4_ottobre_2011
Why it failed: Today, unfortunately, the very pillars on which Wikipedia has been built - neutrality, freedom, and verifiability of its contents - are likely to be heavily compromised by paragraph 29 of a law proposal, also known as "DDL intercettazioni" (Wiretapping Act). This proposal, which
coldarchon
- startupShut down2011
Internet's DNS infrastructure been under attack for days. Anyone else noticed?
This is an email I received from my DNS hosting provider after reporting an unusual spike in number of queries for one of my zones that has been being hit steadily by nearly 140k queries per day since November 29th. Since November 29th, 2011, about 150,000 domains in [DNS hosting provider name] management have been under an ongoing DNS attack. This is not an attack on [DNS hosting provider name], but actually attack on specific domains. We have confirmed this since we have moved many of these domains to different providers and the attack traffic has moved with it. These attacks represent about 15% of all domains under [DNS hosting provider name]. These attacks tend to come for a few hours and then go away; but they do come back, and they are everyday. These DNS attacks are actual queries to live domains that [DNS hosting provider name] is authoritative for. Once again, these are an attac
Why it failed: This is an email I received from my DNS hosting provider after reporting an unusual spike in number of queries for one of my zones that has been being hit steadily by nearly 140k queries per day since November 29th. Since November 29th, 2011, about 150,000 domains in [DNS hosting
gabriele
- startupShut down2011
HN Meetup: Beijing
Since the last one was a really good time, we're organizing another Beijing HN meetup, at 8:00PM on Saturday, May 7th. If you'd like to come, drop a line to eric.meltzer@gmail.com, and I'll send over the details about where we're meeting once we know how many people are coming!
Why it failed: Since the last one was a really good time, we're organizing another Beijing HN meetup, at 8:00PM on Saturday, May 7th. If you'd like to come, drop a line to eric.meltzer@gmail.com, and I'll send over the details about where we're meeting once we know how many people are coming!
emeltzer
- startupShut down2011
Tell HN: Dear 'open source' people (on defending rms)
There have been countless times when rms has said something, and you jumped to attack him, on every level. Here are some of your argumets. I try coming with some answers. 1) "To me, free is the freedom to use whatever I want, including propertiary software." In this context, when we talk about 'Freedom', we mean 'Free Software'. Fortunately, Richard Stallman, they guy you are bashing about, defined the term 'free software'. Freedom 0: The freedom to run the program for any purpose. Freedom 1: The freedom to study how the program works, and change it to make it do what you wish. Freedom 2: The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor. Freedom 3: The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements (and modified versions in general) to the public, so that the whole community benefits. This is what 'Free Software' means. Please, feel free to use any properti
Why it failed: There have been countless times when rms has said something, and you jumped to attack him, on every level. Here are some of your argumets. I try coming with some answers. 1) "To me, free is the freedom to use whatever I want, including propertiary software." In this context, when
emilsedgh
- startupShut down2011
Show HN: Sparkmuse, story and beta of my side project
TLDR: The beta of my my site, Sparkmuse, has begun. Please join me at http://www.sparkmuse.com/invitation/Hacker-News . The Story: Well here it is, the beta of Sparkmuse. I'm pretty happy to "get there", but I'm really just relieved. Don't get me wrong, I'm F'ING STOKED to get this in front of some more valuable eyeballs, especially the Hacker News crowd. Right now though, I'm just leaning back in a rickety old chair thinking "I did it." Several months ago I was pretty down on myself. I wanted to get out there and meet new people, do cool projects, explore new technologies, and just jump into a swimming pool full of what I love. Some people call it passion and maybe that is cliche, but what is passion if it sits on a couch all night? But it was just a dream, I worked the 9-5 at an enterprise job, put in an extra hour here and there, and then came home to waste time on the tube. I love my
Why it failed: TLDR: The beta of my my site, Sparkmuse, has begun. Please join me at http://www.sparkmuse.com/invitation/Hacker-News . The Story: Well here it is, the beta of Sparkmuse. I'm pretty happy to "get there", but I'm really just relieved. Don't get me wrong, I'm F'ING STOKED to get th
netmau5
- startupShut down2011
Failed entrepreneur, broke, unemployed, now taking care of aging parents. Help.
TL;DR - My startup failed, I'm now broke and unemployed, I have no idea who I am anymore professionally, and had to move back to the middle of nowhere to take care of my aging parents. I don't want to get stuck living this life. How do I fix all this? =========== Hello HN, As a long-time reader of HN I would greatly appreciate some advice and/or suggestions of how some of you would deal with this situation. I'd like to believe that as an entrepreneur that I can find solutions to problems but at this point I have to admit I'm a bit shaken. What would you do if this were your situation? 1) I'm a failed startup entrepreneur fighting my way back out of depression, spiritless-ness, and massive debt. I've also been unemployed for over 1.5 years now due to a loss of identity and overall purpose. I have no life savings left to try and squeeze my out of this situation. 2) Concurrently, I had to m
Why it failed: TL;DR - My startup failed, I'm now broke and unemployed, I have no idea who I am anymore professionally, and had to move back to the middle of nowhere to take care of my aging parents. I don't want to get stuck living this life. How do I fix all this? =========== Hello HN, As a l
mattman