

Lessons learned from 13 failed software products - hermitcrab
http://successfulsoftware.net/2010/05/27/learning-lessons-from-13-failed-software-products/

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jlgosse
This is a great article, but it would be much better if they highlighted
products that were either:

a) Not super-duper niche, or b) Somewhat interesting

In my opinion, a large percentage of these products were missing legs before
the developers even started. Be it the idea was ridiculously boring, or it had
zero opportunity to make any significant revenue.

I'd prefer to see failed software products which definitely should have taken
off, but didn't due to reason X or reason Y.

For example, Company A didn't look for funding for reason X, but then their
burn rate got the best of them and the company failed. Or, Amazing Product B
was growing really fast, but didn't learn to scale properly in time, so they
lost 90% of their customer base when all of their servers crashed for two
weeks.

Stories like that would be MUCH more memorable than a guy who failed to turn a
profit from chimney sweep software.

~~~
kenjackson
I really liked hearing about these niche software companies. I've always this
thought in the back of my mind that there might be money to be made building
niche software because... well no one writes it.

Although, I suspect thinking about it more, it might be developed by people
who are selling something else (like the furnance HW company making software
for gas power installation companies).

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sadiq
You know, i'd also be really interested in the reverse of this in pretty much
the same format, form successful products. Obviously, people could avoid
specifically naming their products and niche but a brief "How long I spent
working on it", "How I went about marketing it" and "Lessons I learned from
it" would be great.

~~~
myth_drannon
Bob Walsh/Micro-ISV from Vision to Reality (2006) - has a big chapter with
interviews of starting "niche" companies from just launched to very
successful(HubSpot/FogCreek). It was interesting to revisit their websites and
see how many of them survived. Some are dead, some had failed products but
they came up with new ones and became successful.

[http://www.amazon.com/Micro-ISV-Vision-Reality-Bob-
Walsh/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/Micro-ISV-Vision-Reality-Bob-
Walsh/dp/1590596013)

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quizbiz
Almost everyone cited inefficient market research as a cause for failure. So
my question is, how do I carry out market research?

~~~
samh
It's actually very simple. Hard to do but simple. There is no sophisticated
insight or knowledge or process you need to know. It's simple but hard.

Suppose you have an idea for some software for travel agents. Before opening
an idea or writing a single line of html you go to the phone book and find the
number of a travel agent. You call them and say :

"Hi can I speak to the manager please. Hi there, my name is Sam and I have an
idea for a computer software tool that might be useful for Travel agents, I'm
not selling anything but would you have 15 minutes available for me to talk to
you and get your feedback ?"

Do that 20 times. Talk to 10 different people. List any repeated phrases,
objections or suggestions. Ask each of them "Do you think this would be useful
to other travel agents ?".

Now if you have the guts to do this very simple but difficult thing enough
times that you actually talk to 10 different potential users you will know
whether there is a market and if there is you will already have real beta
testers lined up.

People may want to pick holes in this "what about..." "what if...". Yeah, you
can analyse on the internet all you want but the fact remains, if you do this
the chances of you building something people will buy goes up dramatically.

And the reason people don't do this is almost always fear.

(note: I was the Sam Howley in the article)

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regularfry
Awesome article. You hear a lot about getting feedback early being a good
idea, but this really highlights it.

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brc
I was going to contribute to the list when I saw the call go out. But I didn't
know I could make an anonymous contribution. Maybe I'm not yet read to admit
the failure is actually a failure all the while the lights are still on.

The main thing to take away is that the formula for success is pretty simple
but so many developers ignore it because they think they know better, or are
just attracted to the technical challenge like moths to a flame. But if you
want to make money with software, you've got to get everything right : the
market, the price, the functionality, the presentation, the features. If you
do get all this right, well, there's no easier way to make cash if all the
skills you have involve using a compiler.

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matrix
This is a nice validation of Steve Blank's customer-focused model for creating
start-ups. It's the kind of article I want to see more often on HN.

I would like to see more detail about what was done in terms of customer and
market research for the more successful efforts though. I'm sure there's some
valuable lessons to be drawn from that experience.

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edw519
Any regrets? No.

Wow! Almost every one said that.

Now that I think about it, it's not that surprising. I have had 2 failed
product businesses, and looking back, I did lose a lot of time and money. But
I learned a lot. Both technically and business. Stuff I could have never
learned in a regular job.

I have had quite a few good jobs since those days, and I've always done well,
both with the work and the rewards. I attribute my success to those failures.

Failing with a startup often teaches more than succeeding as an employee. You
may lose time and money, but the other dividends may make it all worthwhile
anyway.

~~~
myth_drannon
That's how our mind works, it's very difficult to admit complete failure. You
will always come with some reason to feel better , I guess it's for the better
:)

"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong
man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit
belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust
and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again
and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who
knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a
worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high
achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while
daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid
souls who knew neither victory nor defeat." \- Theodore Roosevelt

~~~
madebylaw
Great TED talk in the same vein:
[http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_gilbert_asks_why_are_we_happy.h...](http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_gilbert_asks_why_are_we_happy.html)

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d_r
Most of the founders in the article are quick to bash their creation, saying
"clearly there was no market need." I am not convinced, even for a very niche
product. Poor marketing efforts can be blamed here -- it seems likely of
hobbyist developers create a product and just sit there, waiting for someone
to come buy it.

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zeugma
This talk is about commercial failure, not technical failure. Some products
seems a bit too simple and/or reinventing a-square-wheel to me (a syntax
highlighter ?!)

~~~
Sujan
Actually, I could really use a program to _print_ highlighted code in an
optimized way for code review. But I couldn't find a good one that sufficed
for my needs (Windows, GUI).

~~~
mhartl
Pygments (<http://pygments.org/>) is a Python program that can highlight
almost any language, and outputs a bunch of different formats, including HTML
and LaTeX. You can see an example of the results at
<http://www.railstutorial.org/book> (HTML) and
<http://www.railstutorial.org/downloads/pdf?version=2.3.8> (PDF via LaTeX).

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Tarski
Lessons learned from 13 failed software products: - 1\. Give up.

~~~
hermitcrab
It wasn't the same person failing all 13 times.;0)

