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.
2,800 solutions
- startupShut down2022
Tell HN: Worst AWS service and support team experience
Its been about 10 hours now that our core business operations is down because AWS security system decided that our account has unauthorized service usage and place a restriction on some part of services we can have access to. One of them is obviously AWS Lambda. Two weeks ago we started processing large volume of transactions (We provide wallet and digital assets infrastructure for businesses) and needed to increase our services performance from request time out to memory to even our RDS instance to be able to accommodate the kind of requests we are currently processing. However yesterday (29th of July) at around 5:04PM we got an email from AWS about unautorized service charges due to some unauthorized activity and could be a potential account hack or compromise. My heart first sank because I was just waking up from a nap after reviewing the new lambda functions the teams worked on and p
Why it failed: Its been about 10 hours now that our core business operations is down because AWS security system decided that our account has unauthorized service usage and place a restriction on some part of services we can have access to. One of them is obviously AWS Lambda. Two weeks ago we
citguru
- startupShut down2022
Remote workers, how do you stop thinking about work?
It’s the end of your work day. You close your laptop. You step away from your desk. Your head is hurting from eye strain. You’re telling yourself to chill out but your mind keeps going back to work. You’re thinking, did I rub people the wrong way with my presentation? How am I going to solve this problem that seems so hard to solve? What if I fail? What do you do to stop ruminating about work and get on with your life outside of work?
Why it failed: It’s the end of your work day. You close your laptop. You step away from your desk. Your head is hurting from eye strain. You’re telling yourself to chill out but your mind keeps going back to work. You’re thinking, did I rub people the wrong way with my presentation? How am I go
ampham
- startupShut down2022
Show HN: Download Twitter data without API keys
In April last year I started thinking about using Twitter in a smarter way. I wanted to do analytics on my tweets and find out more about people following me on Twitter. What kinds of things do people who follow me like and retweet? I decided to dig into the data and find out. When I went to try and download Twitter data in raw form I found I quickly got bogged down writing API wrangling code and fiddling with API keys. I just wanted to crunch some data but here I was wrangling Twitter's API. This was such a frustrating experience it suddenly looked like an opportunity to me. Was there room for a product here? A product which does one simple thing: help people extract Twitter data painlessly without writing any code. I did some research and discovered some tools that purported to do this, but none of them worked well for my use-case and all were badly designed and/or expensive.
Why it failed: In April last year I started thinking about using Twitter in a smarter way. I wanted to do analytics on my tweets and find out more about people following me on Twitter. What kinds of things do people who follow me like and retweet? I decided to dig into the data and find out. Wh
chr15m
- startupShut down2022
Ask HN: How do you create learning plans for skills development
In this dynamic world and specially tech space, there are numerous things coming up and evolving. To stay competitive, we have to improving our skills on technical, business, and other soft skills. As there is a wide variety of things to learn, how do you create learning plans (specific path towards a direction)? Also how do you avoid participating in the sessions which offer beginner-friendly content? How do you find good quality in learning materials? I find most of them offering just basic introductory lessons. But I find them overly repetitive, and want to focus on practical use cases more than theoritical aspects.
Why it failed: In this dynamic world and specially tech space, there are numerous things coming up and evolving. To stay competitive, we have to improving our skills on technical, business, and other soft skills. As there is a wide variety of things to learn, how do you create learning plans (s
adityam582y
- startupShut down2022
Ask HN: Is RSS dying? Or coming back?
Is RSS still actively developed as a protocol? If not, why not? Are there any viable alternatives on the horizon? I find it really troubling that we seem to have resigned ourselves to web content discovery and distribution belonging to corporations like Google and Meta. Also grateful for any reading recommendations on this subject, both on RSS specifically and on the question of web content discovery/distribution broadly. (I’ve read through most of the stories/posts pronouncing RSS dead or resurrecting it and I’m not convinced either way.)
Why it failed: Is RSS still actively developed as a protocol? If not, why not? Are there any viable alternatives on the horizon? I find it really troubling that we seem to have resigned ourselves to web content discovery and distribution belonging to corporations like Google and Meta. Also grat
bundleunbundle
- startupShut down2022
Ask HN: Food Addiction
I'm very obsessive and it makes me very susceptible to addictions. I have very poor moderation but I've got strong will power. I was able to stopped smoking, drinking alcohol and playing video games by just getting rid of all the "paraphernalia" and quitting cold turkey. After a good year or so of complete abstinence, I was able to introduce those things back in my life and exercise moderation. I could drink socially and play video games without harming my work productivity, etc. Now I'm struggling with food addiction, which ended up being my escape valve and receiving all my obsession after I quit everything else. I've tried fasting and I was able to do 18h fasts daily with no problem and even go over a week without eating, just on water and herbal tea. But that completely messed up my habits, metabolism and relationship with food, and I'm now struggli
Why it failed: I'm very obsessive and it makes me very susceptible to addictions. I have very poor moderation but I've got strong will power. I was able to stopped smoking, drinking alcohol and playing video games by just getting rid of all the "paraphernalia" and quitting c
magusd
- startupShut down2022
Ask HN: How do a prepare mentally for war?
I've seen some posts here about preparing for a nuclear attack, but I don't think I'm prepared mentally for war of any kind. I grew up in the UK during the 90s so I've obviously had a very sheltered life. The two most difficult things I've ever gone through is losing a job and having my heart broken. If nuclear war happened, assuming I survived I'm not sure I'd be able to cope with the real suffering that would follow. I'm also not sure how I'd cope if I was drafted into a more conventional war. The idea of being cold, dump, tried and hungry for weeks on end seems unbearable to me. I also have no idea how I'd cope without seeing my partner for what could be months not knowing if she's safe, or even still alive. I'm terrified that the world I was raised for will not be my future. I am scared and I've not been able to focus o
Why it failed: I've seen some posts here about preparing for a nuclear attack, but I don't think I'm prepared mentally for war of any kind. I grew up in the UK during the 90s so I've obviously had a very sheltered life. The two most difficult things I've ever gone throu
kypro
- startupShut down2022
Ask HN: Anyone else is tired of all the corporate bs?
I'm working as a data analyst/scientist for two years and I'm already tired. In theory everything is amazing, the math, the algorithms, until u get a job. Useless and endless meetings, useless requests, arbitrary and weird decisions to make the boss and customers happy. We end working 40+ hours/week but the job could be easily done in 30 or less, that is another thing that kills me inside. We all could be living our lives in those hours that we pretend we're doing something. I know it sounds like I'm depressed and all that but I love life, my problem is with the state of things in the corporate environment, the faking and pretending that all is perfect in the way it is, and in the job but in the end everyone is unhappy and feeling like shit and waiting for friday. I just dont know what to do because it sounds to me that every company is the same. Does anyone
Why it failed: I'm working as a data analyst/scientist for two years and I'm already tired. In theory everything is amazing, the math, the algorithms, until u get a job. Useless and endless meetings, useless requests, arbitrary and weird decisions to make the boss and customers h
boredemployee
- startupShut down2022
I am done. I give up
I'm writing this post because I'm done. I can't do this anymore. After three failed attempts at building a successful startup and spending time institutionalized, I'm giving up on my entrepreneurship dreams. I tried everything - building an audience, making sure my product actually solved a problem, getting paying customers, and writing high-quality content and contributing to the community. But no matter what I did, I couldn't seem to get anywhere. My efforts were fruitless and I'm tired of trying. I barely had 20 followers, my substack and product blogs didn't get any signups, and while I did get a few upvotes (8) on Product Hunt once, I never had a paid customer. It was as if the world was against me and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't make any progress. I remember trying to interact and hype up my fellow indiehackers on Twitter, regularl
Why it failed: I'm writing this post because I'm done. I can't do this anymore. After three failed attempts at building a successful startup and spending time institutionalized, I'm giving up on my entrepreneurship dreams. I tried everything - building an audience, making su
wakana
- startupShut down2022
Ask HN: Has GitHub stars become a gamed metric?
It seems that FOSS and “open core” has become a hard requirement to gain street cred, especially for dev tools. Businesses and VC-backed projects are doing it, but they need to monetize, somehow. For established businesses, they have lots of resources and sharing a wide range of tools that are orthogonal to their core business, and low risk. For startups, they go with the open core model for their flagship product. I’ve noticed some VC backed startups having thousands of GitHub stars but very little online presence, sometimes with zero references on HackerNews. Also, merge requests go abandoned or closed when you dig deeper. Has fraud detection proof bots for GitHub become more prevalent and accessible?
Why it failed: It seems that FOSS and “open core” has become a hard requirement to gain street cred, especially for dev tools. Businesses and VC-backed projects are doing it, but they need to monetize, somehow. For established businesses, they have lots of resources and sharing a wide range of
diceduckmonk
- startupShut down2022
Ask HN: How do you deal with the powerlessness feeling of coding?
I've been a developer for 7 years. I'm just a random web developer doing random application for random companies. But I have a recurrent powerlessness feeling every time I code. I often get blocked on issue that are not made by me. The last few years I was a front end developer and as you know everything is complicated in the javascript world and everything always change. For example it was recurrent to have issue with webpack or the ES6 compiler. It was the kind of hard issue, the manager doesn't care and doesn't understand, he just wants the new form to work but here I am, just another day and nothing work for no reason because of external issue (webpack here for the example). The problem is this, I don't know how to resolve the issue, (and only a few people on earth know because webpack is so hard to understand), and I don't have the skill to resolve the
Why it failed: I've been a developer for 7 years. I'm just a random web developer doing random application for random companies. But I have a recurrent powerlessness feeling every time I code. I often get blocked on issue that are not made by me. The last few years I was a front end d
BoumTAC
- startupShut down2022
Ask HN: Burnt-out, directionless but want to turn it around
I've been programming on and off since the age of 16. Unfortunately, I have never been a rockstar programmer. I've always pieced code together from multiple sources to create programs but I've always failed to come up with a solution from scratch of my own and provide any value. I've always wondered how other smart people are able to come up with libraries, services and various solutions from scratch. I've devised countless ideas only to never execute them for various reasons or get started with them only to never fully complete them and see it all the way through. I've already wasted my entire teens and 20s, current 28 years old, working as a software engineer (Full-Stack) at a startup for ~4 years. I've been feeling like a loser and not good enough for this career even though I am a sole developer for Mobile and Web platforms at this startup in a very
Why it failed: I've been programming on and off since the age of 16. Unfortunately, I have never been a rockstar programmer. I've always pieced code together from multiple sources to create programs but I've always failed to come up with a solution from scratch of my own and prov
RoseBuckler
- startupShut down2022
Ask HN: Only person assigned to certain task, and I'm alone and tired
I've been tasked with creating marketing videos for my B2C corp on YouTube, since - I'm the only one who knows how to make videos - No one else is interested The videos include content like: - How-tos - Comedy sketches - Interviews with biz partners Here are the issues I face: - Alone This assignment placed me in a single-person department (myself only), and I've been churning out videos ever since. However, since there's no one to bounce around ideas with (or get inspired by), I find myself alone in a tedium. Working alone puts me in a creative rut, so I've been asking for new ideas from my colleagues, but they don't contribute. They still enjoy watching my new video whenever it comes out. Their reaction makes me both happy and leeched. - No collaborators when needed Furthermore, I produce comedy sketches at the request of my boss, who likes SNL and thinks
Why it failed: I've been tasked with creating marketing videos for my B2C corp on YouTube, since - I'm the only one who knows how to make videos - No one else is interested The videos include content like: - How-tos - Comedy sketches - Interviews with biz partners Here are the issues
tiredthrowaway
- startupShut down2022
Tell HN: I was tired of being a perfectionist so I built an app within 24 hours
Like probably many of you, I'm kind of a perfectionist coder/creator. Recently I'd been bookmarking interesting dark mode sites just because I liked their aesthetic, and because for some of the SaaS I want to make, I wanted to make it dark mode first rather than light mode like most sites, so I was looking for inspiration. I'd amassed around 20-30 and I told my friends about these cool sites yesterday. They mentioned that me linking to each one was kind of annoying and they wanted to see all of them at once, similar to how Awwwards and other web design inspiration directories worked. I thought a making a dark mode directory was a great idea as I could just link one site to my friends rather than bombarding them with links. I'd previously worked on other projects but I always spent too long nitpicking every detail. It always took so long that I lost interest after
Why it failed: Like probably many of you, I'm kind of a perfectionist coder/creator. Recently I'd been bookmarking interesting dark mode sites just because I liked their aesthetic, and because for some of the SaaS I want to make, I wanted to make it dark mode first rather than li
satvikpendem
- startupShut down2022
Show HN: Circumflex, browse HN in your terminal
Some two years ago, I found myself spending a lot of time in the terminal between learning vim and discovering new command line tools. I was surprised to see that the niche of HN clis was (relatively) small, and so I decided to write my own command line tool for browsing HN called `circumflex`(`clx`). `clx` is written in Go using Bubble Tea[1]. You can read the comment section or the linked article in reader mode in the pager `less`. Using `lesskey` to add custom keybindings, the replies can be collapsed and expanded in real-time (but not individual replies, only all replies at once). Behind the scenes I am appending invisible unicode characters to each line so that I can use the custom keybindings to filter them out. The same technique is used to allow for jumping between top-level comments. I spent a lot of time thinking about syntax highlighting and finding relevant bits to highlight
Why it failed: Some two years ago, I found myself spending a lot of time in the terminal between learning vim and discovering new command line tools. I was surprised to see that the niche of HN clis was (relatively) small, and so I decided to write my own command line tool for browsing HN calle
bensadeh
- startupShut down2022
Tell HN: Living without electricity in Kyiv
So, rolling power cuts probably begin today, power company says four hours or less. The attacks on power generation are awkward. To my eye, if Putin can keep up the attacks and inflict damage more quickly than it can be repaired, Ukraine ends up with increasingly long blackouts each day, and then maybe days of blackouts. Cities do not work without power, in ways we can hardly imagine - for example, you can’t buy anything, because the tills no longer work. You could in theory use cash, with the shops keeping a pile of ready cash at each till for this, but how do you as a customer get cash when the ATMs are not working because the power is out? The metro shuts down, of course. So do the traffic lights. How do you get into the city, or from A to B? you can walk, but only so far, and when you get to your destination, if it’s an office block, or condo, the elevators are not working. I live on
Why it failed: So, rolling power cuts probably begin today, power company says four hours or less. The attacks on power generation are awkward. To my eye, if Putin can keep up the attacks and inflict damage more quickly than it can be repaired, Ukraine ends up with increasingly long blackouts e
Max-Ganz-II
- startupShut down2022
Ask HN: How common is a 4-day work week in our industry?
So, for the last 8 or 9 years, I've offered prospective employers a 20% discount on salary if I can work 4 days a week instead of 5. I usually go with start-ups because they're under pressure to hire top-talent but skimp on costs (i.e. they want to offer below-market costs but have trouble justifying why), and they're usually flexible enough to not have a HR policy etched in stone against this kind of flexibility. It also usually takes some sort of warming-up to the idea and a whole pitching and easing process to get it (so I'll work 5 days for the first few months), but it usually works out in the end. I make everything sound like it's economics while discussing it, but I actually get 1000x more enjoyment out of my work and non-work lives under this time-split. There's some stigma around 'lazy' and 'work ethic' that I usually have to get
Why it failed: So, for the last 8 or 9 years, I've offered prospective employers a 20% discount on salary if I can work 4 days a week instead of 5. I usually go with start-ups because they're under pressure to hire top-talent but skimp on costs (i.e. they want to offer below-market co
i_dont_know_
- startupShut down2022
Tell HN: I'm Afraid We're Shutting Down
So it’s with deep professional and personal sadness that I must announce my plans to shut down 70 Million Resources, Inc., the parent company of 70 Million Jobs (the 1st national, for-profit employment platform for people with criminal records) and Commissary Club (the first mobile social network for this population). When I launched 70MR in 2016, I was motivated to build a company that could short circuit the pernicious cycles of recidivism in this country--cycles that destroy lives, tear apart families and decimate communities. I sought to disrupt the sleepy reentry industry by applying technology, focusing on data, employing an aggressive, accountable team, and moving with some urgency. And for the first time, approaching the challenge as a national, for-profit venture. This approach, which I named “RaaS,” (Reentry as a Service), turned out to be wildly effective, and by the beginning
Why it failed: So it’s with deep professional and personal sadness that I must announce my plans to shut down 70 Million Resources, Inc., the parent company of 70 Million Jobs (the 1st national, for-profit employment platform for people with criminal records) and Commissary Club (the first mobi
RBBronson123
- 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 down2022
Tell HN: iOS Signal eats your disk space
Signal on iOS will not free up any disk space when you delete chats or media. You cannot see or clear usage in the app or in iOS settings. There’s a potential security problem where your data is not actually being deleted when you delete chats. We are having no luck getting the Signal team to acknowledge the issue. The ticket was automatically closed despite activity. https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-iOS/issues/4916 1. Be aware that a large portion of your storage space might be stolen by Signal. 2. Be aware that this might be a significant security flaw. 3. If anyone can get Signal to pay attention rather than closing repeated tickets as stale, that would be great.
Why it failed: Signal on iOS will not free up any disk space when you delete chats or media. You cannot see or clear usage in the app or in iOS settings. There’s a potential security problem where your data is not actually being deleted when you delete chats. We are having no luck getting the S
Waterluvian
- startupShut down2022
Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?
Saying the following feels like heresy and whenever I say it, fellow software engineers look at me as if I just asked them if there are GOTOs in Javascript. I used to love going to the office. Discussing our team's latest Python problems over a coffee. Looking over at their screen and then asking them why they look like they want to beat someone over the head with their keyboard repeatedly. Guessing people's emotions in a heated Retro from their body language. Grabbing dinner with a few colleagues after a long workshop meeting in the evening and then realizing that, aside from all the differences we might have about static typing in programming languages, we all like the same exotic progressive metal bands. Many of these things that made my job much more than slaving at a digital conveyor belt seem to be gone these days. And the worst thing for me is that I feel few people rela
Why it failed: Saying the following feels like heresy and whenever I say it, fellow software engineers look at me as if I just asked them if there are GOTOs in Javascript. I used to love going to the office. Discussing our team's latest Python problems over a coffee. Looking over at their
samuel_backend
- 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
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
Clara.io Shutting Down
Received this email today: Hi Clara User, This is a notice that we are retiring the Clara product and services on December 31, 2022. If you have files that you would like to continue using, please download that content before December 31, 2022 because it will not be available after. We apologize for any inconvenience and thank you for using Clara. Sincerely, Clara Admin Team
Why it failed: Received this email today: Hi Clara User, This is a notice that we are retiring the Clara product and services on December 31, 2022. If you have files that you would like to continue using, please download that content before December 31, 2022 because it will not be available aft
tarr11