

Failed Startup Post-Mortems - dtlyst
http://3things.gitbooks.io/77-failed-startup-post-mortems/

======
pud
Here's a book I wrote that covers 150 failed internet startups from the late
90's.

[http://amazon.com/FD-Companies-Spectacular-Dot-com-
Flameouts...](http://amazon.com/FD-Companies-Spectacular-Dot-com-Flameouts-
ebook/dp/B000FC0OCW/)

I think many of them could be successful if relaunched today.

~~~
asanwal
Pud - bring back FuckedCompany. Based on all of our data, it's about that
time.

~~~
pud
People ask me all the time to bring it back. Was fun when it was happening and
I tried to be funny and good-spirited, but now I have more of an appreciation
for entrepreneurs and how hard it is to build a business... so I won't bring
it back.

Also won't bring it back because of onwards and upwards.. and so on.

Thanks for asking though :) Still makes me happy when people tell me they like
my work.

~~~
jacquesm
Fuckedcompany served an important role as a reality check on some of the more
idiotic aspects of the bubble. As an entrepreneur who was active at that very
time I really want to thank you for providing a bit of a backdrop against
which my strategy made some sense. I realized early on that 'go big or go
home' would probably translate into 'go bust or go home' and I felt that the
huge number of businesses that ended up in the 'go bust' bin versus the ones
that made it turned the whole art of running a business more into something
resembling a lottery.

So I agree fully with not bringing it back but if we ever get into another
out-of-control over-hyped dumb money situation then I really hope that you or
someone like you will do a re-run of fuckedcompany.com.

------
asanwal
Most of these, given the order, look to be from our original compilation of
startup failure post-mortems. We've compiled 101 to date which you can see
here.

[https://www.cbinsights.com/blog/startup-failure-post-
mortem/](https://www.cbinsights.com/blog/startup-failure-post-mortem/)

Perhaps more useful, we also sifted through and analyzed each post-mortem to
identify the top 20 reasons for startup failure. The biggest reasons founders
have cited has not been running out of money or the economy but building a
solution looking for a problem.

~~~
tieTYT
> Perhaps more useful, we also sifted through and analyzed each post-mortem to
> identify the top 20 reasons for startup failure.

"But you must provide an email to get access to that."

~~~
hywel
"And our email validator is totally broken"

~~~
asanwal
We use an ESP to send the emails and sometimes, the PDF goes instantly and
sometimes upto an hour. If you didn't receive for some reason, feel free to
ping me directly. Email in profile.

~~~
hywel
It doesn't get that far. I type in my email, press the button and "Please
enter a valid email address." appears. Not sure why I've been downvoted for
the previous comment, your validator really is broken.

6 alpha chars @ gmail.com, on Firefox and Chrome on OS X 10.9.5. Really should
work; doesn't. Console shows that you're passing an empty string to
getElementById at some point.

~~~
asanwal
If you want the pdf, feel free to send me an email, and I'll send it to you.
(email in profile)

Note: I didn't downvote you.

------
morgante
Maybe I'm in the minority here, but it's really not cool to copy people's
writing wholesale into a book. It's really a terrible way to pay back people
who were willing to publicly share their startup failures (in a format they
controlled).

Also, the "I'm not profiting, looking to profit from these collected works"
disclaimer is almost as bad as "no copyright infringement intended" on YouTube
videos. Regardless of your profit, it is still copyright infringement to copy
people's content without their consent.

It's especially egregious that the original source is only listed at the end
of articles, where there's no reason to bother clicking through (since you've
already read it). Plus, in many cases the original sources had relevant and
interesting images which are omitted here.

------
jacquesm
Did you obtain the permission of the authors to republish their content like
this?

And if so, did you leave out stories that may be of interest? Then I'd suggest
you link those on a separate list.

And if you did not obtain permission then you probably should!

~~~
nostrademons
They didn't - my previous startup (Diffle) is on the list, and I was never
notified. Nor did cbinsights.com, which has a comment here complaining about
how this post ripped off their original compilation of stories. I'm not all
that ruffled - I figure that once you put something on the web it will take on
a life of its own regardless of what you want - but it would've been a nice
courtesy to the folks who sweated over those startups.

~~~
asanwal
Hey Jonathan - Anand from CB Insights here. Thx for the comment and for
writing a great post-mortem.

One distinction - we didn't republish your post. We linked out to the original
post you'd written and quoted a few lines from it which we thought were
particularly telling about the reasons behind & process of shutting down.

That was the format we took throughout the post. Original link and a few line
excerpt.

Hope that makes sense.

~~~
jacquesm
I'm not sure I'm following you. When I look for instance at:

[http://3things.gitbooks.io/77-failed-startup-post-
mortems/wi...](http://3things.gitbooks.io/77-failed-startup-post-
mortems/wishberg/README.html)

And compare that with the linked article:

[http://blog.wishberg.com/post/92014031388/the-final-note-
tha...](http://blog.wishberg.com/post/92014031388/the-final-note-thanks-from-
team-wishberg)

It looks as if the whole post was copied without any commentary at all.

The diffle one is exactly like that, not quite a 'few sentences'.

~~~
asanwal
I'm commenting about post we did here -
[https://www.cbinsights.com/blog/startup-failure-post-
mortem/](https://www.cbinsights.com/blog/startup-failure-post-mortem/)

We're not affiliated with the book.

~~~
jacquesm
Ah ok, sorry I see how it goes together now. That was a reference to a partial
bit in the original comment.

------
FiatLuxDave
There are some interesting stories in here (check out the condom key-chain
one), but it would be nice if they were broken down by industry, or at least
didn't have quite so many service-offered-over-web/new-blogging-service
stories. Maybe its just that there are so many of those these days? It makes
me wonder if anyone reading this has some information breaking down startup
failure rates by industry or sector... perhaps with average capitalization and
length of operation before failure. It would make sense to me that the typical
cat-video-sharing startup might have a much higher failure rate, but lower
capital cost and years invested, than say, genomics startups or solar power
startups. It might be good to see how gift stores, enterprise software or
financial services fit in between those extremes.

Thanks for posting them here. This is great HN content.

~~~
trhway
the key-chain one is hilarious. That sets the tone from the start:

"Though I had a Stanford MBA and regularly consulted on multimillion-dollar
projects, I didn't know the first thing about starting a business. When I
asked a successful classmate how to invoice a customer, he suggested I go to
one of the large business-supply warehouses. "They sell 'Business in a Box,' "
he told me. "It's got everything you need." I didn't realize he was joking
until I asked a clerk for one at Office Depot."

~~~
thmorton
Link: [http://3things.gitbooks.io/77-failed-startup-post-
mortems/co...](http://3things.gitbooks.io/77-failed-startup-post-
mortems/condom_key_chains/README.html)

------
xrjn
It appears that the link is dead, giving a 404. Anyone have a copy up
somewhere (or that they can send me privately)?

------
oldspiceman
Great idea. Would be useful to have a summary of the business model at the top
of each article. For example #68 Overto I've got no idea what they did and I
want to know before reading about why they failed.

------
ilamont
I'm getting a 404, and the domain home says the user hasn't published a book
yet. Has it been taken down for good?

------
state
Could someone use this as training data to just generate them automatically?

~~~
arenaninja
This comment is comedy gold, assuming you're saying to automate failed
startups

~~~
state
It would be so great!

------
mts_
It seems the book has been taken down now, returns a 404.

~~~
kqland
Yeah, there are some suckers in this post who do nothing better than complain.
Author did not copy anyone's content rather simply linked and compiled the
list. By that logic you should also complain about Google because all they do
is show results for query and link to other people's content.

Does anyone have link to cached version ?

~~~
jacquesm
Presumably I'm one of the 'suckers' you refer to.

Author copied everybody's content verbatim without obtaining permission first,
what you are saying is simply not true.

I think this is a very worthwhile project but that doesn't mean the author
should trample over other people's rights.

So no, your 'logic' does not hold up for google because they _LINK_ to the
content rather than that they copy it and display it in their own environment
(incidentally, google images does do that and I think they ought to be slapped
for that).

~~~
kqland
Sorry .. I should not have phrased it that way. I apologize. I will try to be
more constructive in my comments.

------
United857
I'd also add Everpix as well:
[http://www.theverge.com/2013/11/5/5039216/everpix-life-
and-d...](http://www.theverge.com/2013/11/5/5039216/everpix-life-and-death-
inside-the-worlds-best-photo-startup)

------
bruceb
Twitpic is actually not dead
[http://www.theverge.com/2014/9/18/6445597/twitpic-says-it-
wo...](http://www.theverge.com/2014/9/18/6445597/twitpic-says-it-wont-be-
shutting-down-after-all)

------
badusername
This is an amazing resource. I just read a couple of them, it is gut-wrenching
to read the founders' stories, but a reminder to everyone else to learn and
not repeat them.

------
sogen
PDF here: [https://db.tt/Ag5evB1x](https://db.tt/Ag5evB1x)

(converted from the epub)

------
stephengoodwin
I applaud any startup founder who has the courage to do a write up post-
mortem.

It's a hard thing to talk about the failure of your baby.

------
yesimahuman
Amazing idea! Is it possible to export this to a PDF or Kindle format?

~~~
kumarm
Downloadable format seem to be available here:
[https://www.gitbook.io/book/3things/77-failed-startup-
post-m...](https://www.gitbook.io/book/3things/77-failed-startup-post-mortems)

(including Kindle & PDF)

~~~
lockhart
@kumarm - any chance you could put the PDF somewhere? The link has been taken
down. I was really looking forward to combing through that.

------
torbit
a while back I asked for something like this except for current startups,
successfull or not, and what they have learned. currently I'm following
Mediums startup section

------
swartkrans
Exec is in that list but it is still going strong. It's not a failure post
mortem, but a pivot.

~~~
minimaxir
They were acquired for a low amount:
[http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/15/handybook-sweeps-up-exec-
fo...](http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/15/handybook-sweeps-up-exec-for-
under-10m-to-expand-west-coast-footprint/)

