
Ask HN: Is there a repository of failed startups (re-usable startups idea)? - zeratul
I was wandering if someone keeps records of failed tech/internet startups and their codebase?<p>Maybe it's not a bad idea to go back and re-use some of the failed startups whether it's a codebase or just a business model. I found a lot of reason for failed startups but not many use cases - mostly scattered around the Internet.<p>If someone would built such a database would you contribute your failed business model and codebase?
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pud
I wrote a book that describes ~150 venture-backed internet startups that
failed in the late 90's.

Many of them had significant users and revenue, but were mismanaged and
failed.

I've often thought many of them could be successful today.

"F'd Companies: Spectacular Dot-com Startups"
<http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0743228626>

~~~
jpdoctor
There were many gems hidden in the rough on your original website. Whatever
happened to the db of posts?

It was practically a catalog of pathological behaviors during a company's end.

~~~
pud
I still have the database somewhere. Those days are behind me though so I
probably won't put it online.

The best ones really are in the book though.

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ChrisNorstrom
I own TheSunsetList.com domain and was planning on using it for this exact
purpose. To catalog what has been tried, what mistakes have been made so that
they're not made over and over.

If you guy(s) want to, we can team up and colaborate on this and make it
happen. Yes crunchbase exists but it describes only the biggest failures and
doesn't go into much detail as to why they fell and shut down.

~~~
aysar
Well tbh, the question is really how would you go on about knowing about
failed startups. Especially not the big ones, since typically no one covers a
failed startup that no one has heard about and they just go out without even a
puddle in the water.

~~~
ChrisNorstrom
I figured a few of us here would start by pitching in our own stories, giving
numbers, time spent, money lost, the nitty gritty details and in time when
others see how valuable that information is they'll feel comfortable enough to
share their stories too, adding on to the list. I mean entrepreneurship is all
about failure. For anyone to NOT want to talk about it is to reject the fact
that it's our failures that lead to successes. And there's plenty of
entrepreneurs on HN and plenty of failures. Definitely enough to put together
a few stories.

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zeratul
I was thinking about a database where (co-)founders would enter the data - a
drop-down menus, where possible, for data mining. Something like:

    
    
        1. Here is what I was trying to build
        2. Here is the source code (link to GitHub?)
        3. Here is a screenshot
        4. Here is how I wanted to make money
        5. Here are my competitors
        6. Here is how much I raised money
        7. Here are top 5 reasons why I failed
        8. ???
    

Yes, CrunchBase has some of the above and, yes, some founders will put it on
their blog. But wouldn't be it so much nicer to have a _centralized_ database
that could spit out some _analitycs/trends_ and give guidance to newcomers?
The volume of startups will grow. What if some failures are seasonal or can be
pick-up and fixed? I think we have a chance for a data driven approach but
only if _founders_ are willing to contribute.

EDIT: I suspected that CrunchBase will have some errors and missing info since
ANYONE can edit those entries. Maybe there was NO way to have founders enter
such data ...

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Maro
There's a _deadpooled_ tag on Crunchbase:

<http://www.crunchbase.com/companies?q=deadpooled>

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huhtenberg
Not sure about a dedicated site, but an entity like YC or TC would be a very
good fit for tracking this sort of info, because it is directly related to
what they do.

I could contribute a couple of entries, both of which are highly recyclable
and I was actually waiting for a way to let other people have a go at them.

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asanwal
Here's a compilation of 32 startup failure post-mortems which means 32 biz
models to take a look at.

<http://www.chubbybrain.com/blog/startup-failure-post-mortem/>

~~~
powertower
Submitted:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3438716>

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damian2000
There was an awesome site during the early 2000's dot com crash called
fuckedcompany.com - the company I worked for at the time was listed
("SmartWORLD" - it went bust on sept 12, 2001). The fuckedcompany.com site is
now inactive, but you can check out the list of snapshots on the wayback
machine here ...

[http://wayback.archive.org/web/20010101000000*/http:////////...](http://wayback.archive.org/web/20010101000000*/http:////////fuckedcompany.com)

<=== this is all the 2001 snapshots ... note lots of activity in the last 3
months of the year.

Here's the home page from Nov 30, 2001 for example.
[http://web.archive.org/web/20011130073049/http://www.fuckedc...](http://web.archive.org/web/20011130073049/http://www.fuckedcompany.com/)

The archive link on the home page works ok for some more write ups.

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steveplace
Better angle: compile a list of companies that have been acquired by
goog/msft/fbook and so on.

Luckily wikipedia has done the work for you:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_Google>
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_Microso...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_Microsoft)
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_Oracle>

And so on.

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ken
You might have trouble getting the codebase. I was employee #2 at a startup
that shut down after about 1.5 years, and at the end we sold off _everything_.

I don't specifically know what happened to the source code but last I heard
there were companies interested in it. Nobody that was going to do exactly
what we were trying to do, but companies who could make use of a decent
codebase if they could get it on the cheap. They would have gotten a few years
of work for significantly less money (and time) than it'd cost them to build
it themselves.

~~~
aysar
Do you know the process they went about in selling everything? I'm in a
startup and we may be thinking of this too, perhaps approaching competitors.
But still unsure about it.

~~~
ken
For all the physical pieces of the company, I know he sent an email to the
local tech-startup mailing list, at least. There's a pretty solid startup
community here. For the digital assets, I really don't know, sorry. I assume
it would be similar to seeking acquisition offers, but I'm definitely no
expert.

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adrianwaj
Good question. And it could lead to the possibility to resurrect a site: in
code, in name or in users.

I would crosscheck crunchbase against the underlying domains, and not rely on
the deadpool tag. Also, check the site stats the profiles show.

Take livekick for example: <http://www.crunchbase.com/company/livekick>
<http://livekick.com/>

You could also look at tweet activity: last to and last from. (and last blog
post)

You could call the site Life Support.

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kogir
I'd be very careful about trying to "resurrect" failed start-up ideas like
this.

Unless you're one of _very_ few people, you can't effectively solve a problem
you don't have personally. If you try and things start to look like they're
working, someone who actually has the problem and knows all the details can
pop up and wipe you out.

Also, the reasons why start-ups fail are not always obvious. In many cases,
what appears to be a good idea really isn't for reasons that only the prior
founders understand. Without exact knowledge of the past, you're very likely
to fall into the same trap that killed the previous start-up.

~~~
adrianwaj
I suppose there are two workarounds for this:

1) ex-founders can aim to work or advise for any take-2 startup: the site
helps them do that

2) reasons for failure are placed on the site, and possible solutions

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adamtmca
If I were you I would be more interested in companies that were started, got
some traction and sold out for low double digit millions only to be shut down
by their acquirer.

Fflick, for example, was a really interesting idea and seemed to be getting
some play - now it's gone. Dodgeball -> Foursquare, etc.

Edit: Whoops - I didn't read the OP closely. I thought you were only looking
for ideas/ business models, but obviously this would not work for codebases.

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DanBlake
I am working on something that addresses this need exactly. Should have a
product out very shortly, been working on it for a few months now as a side
project.

~~~
polychrome
Can you PM the OP and the other interested people? It would be great if we
could pool our resources and make this happen.

~~~
gbog
I wondered a bit. "Can you post meridiem the OP"? "Can you Prime minister the
OP"?

Oh, I got it: "Can you personal message the OP" (which lacks a verb).

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alexradu
For mobile apps, keep an eye out for Apptopia (<http://apptopia.com/>)

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nc
It would be nice if there was a site built ontop of CrunchBase to document
failures, reasons & any other insight.

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mijnpc
<http://www.crunchbase.com/company/reddit> ?

~~~
jitendra_
Launched in 2005, deadpooled on August 9, 1973 :O

~~~
timjahn
Am I missing the inside joke on this?

~~~
mkr-hn
It looks like someone edited the exit year for Reddit to 1973.

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rmorrison
You're probably better off going after proven, successful ideas than failed
ones. Friendster, MySpace, TiVo, Palm pilot, Blackberry, Alta vista, were all
up and dominated their markets when a new competitor took over.

The value is more in the execution than the idea.

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mahmud
FuckedCompany.com was the place to be. Also the chapter on the dotcom bubble
in A Random Walk Down Wallstreet has a nice selection ;-)

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kamakazizuru
try crunchbase? I know the German equivalent of crunchbase has a list of
"failed" startups as well.

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aen1
Sounds like a decent start-up idea

