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.
1,395 solutions
- startupShut down2022
Show HN: Generate never-before-seen storyboards for Rick and Morty episodes
Rick and Mortify is a system we built for creating never-before-seen episodes of Rick and Morty by leveraging the state-of-the-art in generative AI. These days generative AI is so hot right now. It promises to revolutionize all aspects of creative work from copywriting and image creation, to video and audio synthesis. Given the rapid progress of AI, when will we see an AI system listed in the closing credits of your favorite feature-length film? Rick and Mortify is a tool we built to demonstrate that future is closer than you might think. Our tool uses the state-of-the-art in large vision and language models to create never-before-seen episodes of Rick and Morty with minimal human intervention. All the plot points, dialogue, and accompanying visuals are generated with machine learning. Why use Rick and Morty as a case-study? Because 1) given the show's complex narrative structure an
Why it failed: Rick and Mortify is a system we built for creating never-before-seen episodes of Rick and Morty by leveraging the state-of-the-art in generative AI. These days generative AI is so hot right now. It promises to revolutionize all aspects of creative work from copywriting and image
nutellalover
- startupShut down2022
Ask HN: How do you handle being assigned Ops tasks knowing you joined to do Dev?
Title is pretty much it. I joined Oracle a few months ago after applying to a dev position. As soon I joined, I was assigned Operations work which to be honest is not what I was hoping for. I was wondering if anyone else in the HN community experienced something like this before? Is this common in bigger companies where it's more "Closing Jira Tickets" than actual coding work? Is this gonna paint me as an Ops person from now on? I started seriously thinking about quitting and looking elsewhere. Thanks in advance for any feedback.
Why it failed: Title is pretty much it. I joined Oracle a few months ago after applying to a dev position. As soon I joined, I was assigned Operations work which to be honest is not what I was hoping for. I was wondering if anyone else in the HN community experienced something like this before?
ahil95
- startupShut down2022
Show HN: Postcard – Easy way to make a personal website
Today I'm launching Postcard! I started Postcard when I deleted most social media, but still wanted a way to keep in touch with friends and my network. When I worked at Webflow, it became clear to me that most website builders are way too complex for individual users. So, I drew inspiration from social media - where all you need is a couple photos and text fields to get a great site online. So, I think I’ve about achieved a site builder that even my Mom could use. The product seems simple, but there are many under-the-hood optimizations. There's caching, CDNs, custom domain support, TLS certificate issuance + management, dynamically-generated open graph images, image optimizations, email sending, full-text RSS feed, email reputations, and more. It also uses a couple new products to make the domain connection process easy. Let me know if you have any feedback or questions! PS -
Why it failed: Today I'm launching Postcard! I started Postcard when I deleted most social media, but still wanted a way to keep in touch with friends and my network. When I worked at Webflow, it became clear to me that most website builders are way too complex for individual users. So, I
philip1209
- startupShut down2022
Ask HN: Is anyone else genuinely scared that this is the start of WW3?
Russia has invaded Ukraine, and four days on I feel powerless to both do anything (in a country that is neither of those two!) and to look away from the news and social media coverage of it. It's an abhorrent waste of human life. News and reports today of Russian ICBMs and other nuclear forces being placed on high alert (and moved further towards the west of the country) [1] frankly scares me. While some observers think that this is "overplaying" his hand [2] I know that all of this is deeply concerning. The world does _not_ need another cuban missile crisis; it also does _not_ need to vanish in a pile of radioactive smoke. I live in Europe. My father sent me a message to essentially ask if I'd had a thought about where my nearest "shelter" would be -- and I had. My partner's family have too. It feels awful, but I can't concentrate effectively -- I
Why it failed: Russia has invaded Ukraine, and four days on I feel powerless to both do anything (in a country that is neither of those two!) and to look away from the news and social media coverage of it. It's an abhorrent waste of human life. News and reports today of Russian ICBMs and o
azalemeth
- startupShut down2022
Ask HN: Why doesn't archive.today get shut down?
So far as I can tell you can use archive.ph to bypass paywalls on most news sites. Scientific journal publishers have gotten crackdowns on sites like sci-hub, music companies got Napster shut down, there has been a continuous game of whac-a-mole against torrent sites like the Pirate Bay. archive.ph never seems to be the focus of a controversy, I never hear about anytbody trying to shut them down, they don't even seem to be struggling with technical countermeasures against their paywall bypass. Once in a while you see a crazy rant like https://www.vice.com/en/article/ypw5mj/dear-gamergate-please-stop-stealing-our-shit but there is no real movement against this site. How do they get away with it?
Why it failed: So far as I can tell you can use archive.ph to bypass paywalls on most news sites. Scientific journal publishers have gotten crackdowns on sites like sci-hub, music companies got Napster shut down, there has been a continuous game of whac-a-mole against torrent sites like the Pir
PaulHoule
- startupShut down2021
Extremely burnt out at 25. Considering quitting job and taking an extended break
By all reasonable metrics my life is absolutely fantastic. I'm a dev (which I love, or, well, loved), have worked at a FAANG company, and another at the FAANG level, and now work at essentially my dream job at a growing and successful startup. I'm married and have a large amount of savings. I'm only 3 years out of college, but I have ~10 years of actual dev experience, and supposedly am one of the best performers in the places I've worked. I absolutely detest my life and find no joy in anything. Video games that would be enjoyable now are just the easiest way to distract myself from feeling terrible, but I don't actually _enjoy_ the time spent. For the most part, I don't do anything outside of work; I largely just sit around. I would occasionally go on bike rides or walks, but I've never been a very outdoorsy person. Life became a very dull cycle of wak
Why it failed: By all reasonable metrics my life is absolutely fantastic. I'm a dev (which I love, or, well, loved), have worked at a FAANG company, and another at the FAANG level, and now work at essentially my dream job at a growing and successful startup. I'm married and have a lar
adepressedthrow
- startupShut down2021
Thanks HN: You helped save a company that now helps thousands make a living
Dear HN, I’m feeling a deep sense of gratitude this morning, and wanted to share it with you all. On this day in 2013, the Webflow co-founders were huddled around our usual desk that we claimed every early morning at the Hacker Dojo (a co-working space) in Mountain View, working like hell into the evenings to get something off the ground. We had quit our jobs about 6 months prior, and totally underestimated how long it would take to build even a beta. I had personally convinced my wife that we’d only have to be income-less for 3 months – the amount of savings we had in the bank – but that time had now doubled, and those savings were long gone. The Kickstarter campaign we had poured all of our savings into producing had fallen through, never even making it live because we hadn’t read the Terms of Service to learn that they didn’t allow SaaS subscriptions to be funded. We had high hopes ab
Why it failed: Dear HN, I’m feeling a deep sense of gratitude this morning, and wanted to share it with you all. On this day in 2013, the Webflow co-founders were huddled around our usual desk that we claimed every early morning at the Hacker Dojo (a co-working space) in Mountain View, working
callmevlad
- startupShut down2021
Ask HN: What if Stack Overflow suddenly decides to shut down?
As the title says, what would happen if Stack Overflow decides to interrupt the service? Realistically speaking how much damage could that do to everyday work?
Why it failed: As the title says, what would happen if Stack Overflow decides to interrupt the service? Realistically speaking how much damage could that do to everyday work?
syx
- startupShut down2021
Launch HN: Eduflow (YC S17) – Async Social Learning
David here, CEO and co-founder of Eduflow ( https://www.eduflow.com ). Eduflow is a learning management system that lets you build and run learning experiences where participants can interact, participate actively and can do so asynchronously. Learning needs to be active to be effective. For example, the best way to learn to code is to write a lot of code. Online learning still struggles with this. Mostly you get a playlist of videos to consume and a quiz at the end, or you’re required to participate in live video calls. Our product lets you build active and social learning experiences that work async. We went through YC in 2017 with Peergrade ( https://www.peergrade.io ), a tool for online peer reviews. We got to a decent size, but ran into challenges. When we landed a deal with a company or a university, we would be a small part of the experience. We’d only get used
Why it failed: David here, CEO and co-founder of Eduflow ( https://www.eduflow.com ). Eduflow is a learning management system that lets you build and run learning experiences where participants can interact, participate actively and can do so asynchronously. Learning needs to be activ
utdiscant
- startupShut down2021
Launch HN: Milk Video (YC W21) – Edit online event recordings quickly
Hello HN gang! Lenny and Ross here, working on Milk Video ( https://milkvideo.com/ ), a browser-based tool to turn long videos into watchable clips. We speed up the workflow for marketers editing long, boring Zoom recordings and webinars into visually engaging clips with quality templates and styled captions. Ross and I met 8 years ago in Shanghai, where we worked at an education startup and organized tech and design events. When we realized Covid was creating a tsunami of webinars, Ross noticed the growing cost of editing all the new content as B2B companies replaced their in-person marketing channels with online events. Most registrants to online events don't end up attending. They may be interested in the content, but they won’t take time to watch an entire webinar recording. Webinar content has a short shelf life unless it is reworked into a friendlier format. Doi
Why it failed: Hello HN gang! Lenny and Ross here, working on Milk Video ( https://milkvideo.com/ ), a browser-based tool to turn long videos into watchable clips. We speed up the workflow for marketers editing long, boring Zoom recordings and webinars into visually engaging clip
rememberlenny
- startupShut down2021
Ask HN: Founders of failed startups, what are you doing now?
Did you go back to a regular job? What was the transition like? Did you feel like your time was wasted or was your experience as a founder still valuable for what came after?
Why it failed: Did you go back to a regular job? What was the transition like? Did you feel like your time was wasted or was your experience as a founder still valuable for what came after?
tac0_
- startupShut down2021
Ask HN: Where would you start looking for development clients?
Disclaimer: This is not a sales pitch, I'm not trying to finds clients here. After years of freelancing / contracting, during the last few projects a nice fellowship of 2-3 (mostly frontend) developers has formed around me. We have worked on some rather serious projects, I am confident regarding what we can offer. I see all the "who's hiring" posts, but our biggest project is soon coming to an end and I'm almos clueless regarding where I should start looking for companies who would want to contract a small company for custom development services. We are too small and our projects are usually too long for us to hire a dedicated salesperson. What are some common ways you've found to work to find new clients?
Why it failed: Disclaimer: This is not a sales pitch, I'm not trying to finds clients here. After years of freelancing / contracting, during the last few projects a nice fellowship of 2-3 (mostly frontend) developers has formed around me. We have worked on some rather serious projects
holistio
- startupShut down2021
Tell HN: Coming soon – “Meet the Batch” threads for parallel Launch HNs
Each YC startup gets one chance to do a Launch HN thread that gets placed on HN's front page [1]. This is one of the three things that HN gives back to YC in exchange for funding it [2]. We started doing these in 2017 and they've worked out pretty well over the years [3], I think mostly because they're more interesting than job ads. However, they have to be written in a special way for that to work (more on this below). Problem: HN's front page can only accommodate a fixed number of startups while YC keeps funding more (700+ a year and growing). We do two Launch HNs a day during the stampede before each Demo Day, but I think we overdid that in W21, and even 2 per day all year, which is out of the question, still wouldn't be enough. Other problem: I work with the startups to edit their launch texts into a form that HN is more likely to find interesting. Mostly thi
Why it failed: Each YC startup gets one chance to do a Launch HN thread that gets placed on HN's front page [1]. This is one of the three things that HN gives back to YC in exchange for funding it [2]. We started doing these in 2017 and they've worked out pretty well over the years [3
dang
- startupShut down2021
Ask HN: Where to find contract work as a developer?
Either here or on reddit I've seen plenty of people mention the option of working as a contractor as a viable option. I have been working as a developer for 12 years. For the first six years of my career I wrote C++ / Python for a finance-adjacent firm. The second half of my career has been the typical full-stack developer stuff. Django / Pyramid / SQLAlchemy backend and several different front-end frameworks like Vue and React. It's enough to say that I'm a generalist and a decent enough programmer. I'd love the ability to work a contract for 6 months to a year and then take a few months off between gigs. But when I search for contract opportunities they seem somewhat rare. Additionally, the contract gigs I find seem to be seeking people who would prefer full-time employment but would settle for the contract as a sort of 'probationary' measur
Why it failed: Either here or on reddit I've seen plenty of people mention the option of working as a contractor as a viable option. I have been working as a developer for 12 years. For the first six years of my career I wrote C++ / Python for a finance-adjacent firm. The second half
wayne_skylar
- startupShut down2021
Ask HN: Should I sell my house to fund my startup? Anyone with the same story?
Everyone says the market is frothy and startups raise unreal sums of money they don't even need at high valuations, yet I'm failling to. I never attended Stanford, didn't work at FAANG and I'm not even from the US, so I don't have relationships with founders/investors. I'm technical, yet need engineers to launch. I built an mvp, pivoted, did customer development etc. I'm full time for over a year, and I'm 25. The market is fairly new and many don't understand it, but I've been working in this space for 8 years, been working with biggest companies. I have multiple ideas I'm confident about if this one will fail. If you had a similar story - please tell it, especially if you failed. So should I sell my house to fund my startup to some milestone? I don't need cars nor houses, I only care about building stuff and learning, only
Why it failed: Everyone says the market is frothy and startups raise unreal sums of money they don't even need at high valuations, yet I'm failling to. I never attended Stanford, didn't work at FAANG and I'm not even from the US, so I don't have relationships with found
Throwey12
- startupShut down2021
Aaron Swartz Rememberance Day This Monday
For the general public he was seen as just another hacktivist along with various hacktivist groups that were active around the time like lulzsec and anonymous. But for the wider internet community, he represents something much much more, especially post 2020 where we are all questioning many aspect of governance that we take for granted as the normal state of the world. In November the eight of 1986 Aaron Swartz was born. While his early childhood was like any other kid, he showed early spark of someone who would be very consequential to internet culture. One of his first website to be recognized by the public is "The Info Network" a user generated encyclopedia, created at the age of 12 years old which won the ArsDigita Prize. But later on he was accepted into Y Combinator's founder program on a startup called infogami. While infogami failed to get further funding, his con
Why it failed: For the general public he was seen as just another hacktivist along with various hacktivist groups that were active around the time like lulzsec and anonymous. But for the wider internet community, he represents something much much more, especially post 2020 where we are all ques
mofosyne
- startupShut down2021
Tell HN: My five year old is convinced Siri is a real person
From time to time, we have had the discussions here about whether actually naming these assistive agents makes any sense. And there are pros and cons either way when you compare OK Google to Siri. When I showed this particular five-year-old OK Google, she was interested, but didn't really do much with it. Then she discovered Siri. Since that time she has used Siri nonstop. Asking all kinds of crazy things, and series doing a pretty fair job on those conversations. Some of which are frankly hilarious! I thought it might make for some interesting discussion. My observation is that her ability to address it in the same way she addresses other people has proven very compelling. The skills she already has she can use and get something meaningful. Identifying with Siri as a person seems to map right over in her mind, and she thinks she's getting a real person, the kind of attention a
Why it failed: From time to time, we have had the discussions here about whether actually naming these assistive agents makes any sense. And there are pros and cons either way when you compare OK Google to Siri. When I showed this particular five-year-old OK Google, she was interested, but didn
ddingus
- startupShut down2021
Ask HN: What things has tech made worse in your life?
Growing up I always enjoyed tech and was excited for all the problems tech can solve and all the improvements it can make and has made in my life. However, recently I had to check-in into a doctors office using a 3rd party software and the process is incredibly worse for the patient. Normally, I walk in, tell them my name and sit down. Now on my phone, I have to enter my DOB, answer a few questions, "Accept" some consent forms every time. They will not see me if I don't use the system. Then, at the end I am greeted with an advertisement for a medication. Another one, recently had to call comcast as they were charging my parents $70 for what they are offering for $20, I play the call of "i want to cancel it is too expensive, AT&T cheaper". They recently "improved" their phone bot and added some "amazing" features. I am saying I want to canc
Why it failed: Growing up I always enjoyed tech and was excited for all the problems tech can solve and all the improvements it can make and has made in my life. However, recently I had to check-in into a doctors office using a 3rd party software and the process is incredibly worse for the pati
avgDev
- startupShut down2021
Ask HN: Anybody Started a Research Institute?
Hello community, I am looking to connect with HNers who have successfully started a research institute / campus or were among the first joiners. I am seeking to offer housing and a stipend to researchers, as I am currently acquiring some real estate that I want to put to good use in Germany. I will myself take time off from regular work and focus on research in a vein similar to Steve Grand's investigations into artificial life (not expecting to reach his level, but one needs a quest with lofty goals). Not seeking a particular piece of advice, more looking for somebody to have a conversation with regarding experiences, what worked really well, how to get the ball rolling, essential infrastructure required... End goal as of now: assemble a few great minds, give them the space to work rent-free in a region with good academic infrastructure, ideally let them collaborate, watch the
Why it failed: Hello community, I am looking to connect with HNers who have successfully started a research institute / campus or were among the first joiners. I am seeking to offer housing and a stipend to researchers, as I am currently acquiring some real estate that I want to put to goo
akhann
- startupShut down2021
Launch HN: Chatwoot (YC W21) – Open-Source Alternative to Intercom, Zendesk
Hello everyone, We are a 3 founder team. Myself Pranav. Sojan and Nithin are my co-founders. We are building Chatwoot ( https://www.chatwoot.com , https://github.com/chatwoot/chatwoot ). With Chatwoot, businesses can connect channels like website live chat, email, Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp etc and talk to the customers from one place. Chatwoot is an open-source alternative to Intercom, Zendesk etc. We help companies in regulated industries to manage customer data without sharing it with third-party providers. Since the software is open-source, it is easier to build custom workflows that suit your business on top of Chatwoot. We started building Chatwoot as proprietary software in 2017, but the startup failed. Seeing the data privacy regulations and people taking interest in self-hosted alternatives, we open-sourced the product in 2019, we got a lot of love
Why it failed: Hello everyone, We are a 3 founder team. Myself Pranav. Sojan and Nithin are my co-founders. We are building Chatwoot ( https://www.chatwoot.com , https://github.com/chatwoot/chatwoot ). With Chatwoot, businesses can connect channels like website liv
pranav_rajs
- startupShut down2021
Show HN: Unattach – free up your Google storage by removing Gmail attachments
Hello HackerNews! I have a full-time job, but love building productivity tools in my spare time. Some time ago, my dad told me that his Gmail account was full and asked whether I could help. I built a simple app for him, and later decided to make it into a product. With the recent news that Google is discontinuing free storage for photos, more and more people are facing a similar problem. Unattach (https://unattach.app) is a desktop app for downloading and/or removing Gmail attachments from many emails at once. You can use it to free up your Google storage, which is shared between Gmail, Photos and other Google apps. For most people, using Unattach is cheaper than buying more Google storage; for tech-savvy users, it’s free. The hardest thing about Unattach has been balancing user trust and commercial potential. The app requires edit permissions to the user’s Gmail account
Why it failed: Hello HackerNews! I have a full-time job, but love building productivity tools in my spare time. Some time ago, my dad told me that his Gmail account was full and asked whether I could help. I built a simple app for him, and later decided to make it into a product. With the recen
strnisa
- startupShut down2021
Ask HN: Advice for moving on from a failed startup?
Hello HN, I am in a bit of dilemma. I started a enterprise software startup with a bunch of friends in college, we got a bit of funding and I dropped out. We did couple hundred k in revenue and raised a bit more but eventually we couldn't make it work. For past 2 years feels like I have been in a zombie startup and want to move on. For people who have been in the same boat, what did you end up doing? As for getting ready to be in the job market again, what kind of positions did you end up applying for? I am thinking either: 1) Join a seed/series a startup as a developer and grow with them. Pros of this are this is what I know how to do best and love working in small teams 2) Join a more established bigger co. Pros are a more stable position but not sure it will be an environment i will be able to do well in
Why it failed: Hello HN, I am in a bit of dilemma. I started a enterprise software startup with a bunch of friends in college, we got a bit of funding and I dropped out. We did couple hundred k in revenue and raised a bit more but eventually we couldn't make it work. For past 2 years feels
throwaway9838
- startupShut down2021
Ask HN: What's the best way to secure your workstation?
Here's a very plausible threat: Some developer with a left-pad package, some dependency-of-a-dependency, injects malware into their library. A developer (who is broadly trustworthy) updates their package's dependencies without auditing them properly, and the malware ends up in a VSCode plugin that you use. You open VSCode, your system is infected. We know this sort of malware is making its way onto package repositories [1]. We know people are falling for these attacks. How do we protect ourselves against this family of threats? [1]: https://www.theregister.com/2021/07/21/npm_malware_password/ We could trust nothing beyond our base system and our browser, and refuse to use any code we don't fully audit, but this would be an impossibly austere way to live. I expect most of us, when pressed, would admit that we're trusting much more cod
Why it failed: Here's a very plausible threat: Some developer with a left-pad package, some dependency-of-a-dependency, injects malware into their library. A developer (who is broadly trustworthy) updates their package's dependencies without auditing them properly, and the malware end
bccdee
- startupShut down2021
Launch HN: Svix (YC W21) – Webhooks as a Service
Hey everyone, my name is Tom, and I'm the founder of Svix ( https://www.svix.com ) - previously known as Diahook. Svix makes it easy for developers to send webhooks from their service using a simple API. Think Twilio or SendGrid but for webhooks. Webhooks are how servers notify each other of events, so they are a key component of many APIs such as Stripe, Shopify, Slack, Dropbox and Github. They look easy to implement (just a POST request), but they come with a variety of challenges. For example, customer endpoints fail or hang much more often than you would think, so you would need to implement retries. You need to make sure such failures don't clog your send queue or the rest of your system. The webhook system is an additional system separate from your normal web server that needs to be scaled and monitored separately. There are also a variety of security implicatio
Why it failed: Hey everyone, my name is Tom, and I'm the founder of Svix ( https://www.svix.com ) - previously known as Diahook. Svix makes it easy for developers to send webhooks from their service using a simple API. Think Twilio or SendGrid but for webhooks. Webhooks are how s
tasn