Ask HN: Is there a market for reviving dead VC-backed ideas?

[KennyFromIT]

There are a ton of companies that don't achieve venture scale and end up going away. Often times this leaves a void in the marketplace where value was once provided.

What are your thoughts on taking old, VC tested/failed ideas and trying them again? The only difference in this new scenario is that instead of taking outside funding, bootstrap the company and grow at a sustainable pace.

[mindcrime]

I think ideas come along all the time, which have merit, but ultimately fail in their current for for various reasons. One reason could be that the idea is just too early, or ... well, you can insert any number of reasons here. "Taking VC money" could even be one of them, as taking VC money forces you into an artificial timeline that may not match what the market will work with.

Given that, yeah, I think "failed" ideas are a gold-mine of potential. The big question, of course, is "can you identify the ones that are fundamentally good, and just need a little polish or maybe a tweak to the business model, from the ones that are just plain wrong?" And if so, can you come up with the little extra mojo that would allow that idea to be brought back, and become successful? If so, then you are probably onto something.

FWIW, I spend a fair amount of time looking at old ideas (not specifically ones involving failed VC backed companies though), always thinking in terms of "is there something here that can be re-invented, re-mixed, re-purposed, etc?" I can't claim any major successes yet, but I have a few things "in my hip pocket" that I hope to get too eventually.

Anyway, I say "go for it."

[CyberFonic]

There are several facets to answering your question:

Some ideas don't get traction because they are before their time, i.e. technology might not have been up to scratch. For example some apps might be better suited to mobile than desktop. Or need current generation browser capabilities rather than those of 3-5 years ago. A good example is apps that relied on Flash or Java applets can now be implemented using HTML5 + CSS3 + ES6.

Another common issue is needing more internet bandwidth or lower latency than was available at the time. There still are many areas where internet speeds are far lower than those in major cities or suffer slowdowns when congestion increases, e.g. evenings.

Then some ideas didn't get off the ground because the market wasn't / isn't there. Those ideas might still be a very bad bet.

And ... considering your bootstrapping ideas, many ideas just don't scale to 100's of millions, but can result in a 100's of thousands or even a couple of lazy millions. Markets of that size simple do not appeal to VCs.

[owens99]

Whether an idea is a dead VC-backed one or not doesn't matter. You should try applying Lean Startup method to validate an idea with customers, test the market channels, pricing, etc. and that will tell you about the potential it has more than anything else.

[itronitron]

You might want to consider specifically excluding any ideas that have had VC-backing from consideration because there will probably be competition in that space.