Alternatives
Products that do what The Final Days of a Failed Startup does
http://lookingbackaretrospective.posterous.com I've posted this before while it was still in progress, but the final chapter has been added, and so I wanted to submit it one final time, for people to be able to read the work in it's entirety. This is the true story of one developers life while he worked for a start-up that never got more than a few feet off of the ground before a pitiful crash and burn. It spans nearly 4 years, and focuses mainly on the people and events that helped to define the work. It's very much a personal memoir, and not at all a dive into what kind of role our stack…
- 1TR
http://lookingbackaretrospective.posterous.com The ongoing true story of a startup destined for failure, as seen through the eyes of one developer. It's currently in reverse chronological order, so start at the bottom and work your way up, if you would. All questions, comments, and criticisms welcome
2011
- 22G
4 months ago sucked. Our technical co-founder quit after 6 months and we still had no product. My co-founder and I had been 'working' on our startup for 8 months. I say 'working' because as the "business people" - there wasn't a whole lot we could do except philosophize. We had gotten really awesome intros to some of the top VCs and entrepreneurs, but had nothing to show. And now we felt stranded. Had we wasted 8 months of our lives? Identity crisis? Check. So we did what any rational person would do - we ran to the mountains. Literally. In Boone, NC - we talked about why we started Knowit,…
2012
- 3
- 4SS
2017 · startuperlife.xyz
- 5
- 6IL
Please check it out. I spent all of 2012 learning to code to launch what would eventually become Uncover. I'm super excited to announce that we're finally live. Here's a blog post I wrote on how we got there and a little story behind the startup: http://spencerfry.com/introducing-uncover
2013 · uncover.com
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
The real story of what it takes to go for broke
2016
- 11
How we went from 0 launches in 5 years to 9 in the last 2
2016
- 12KO
My co-founder and I saved up enough money to quit our jobs 6 months ago and go full-time. We began working on, while bootstrapping, a photo sharing startup. Unfortunately, after many iterations, it wasn't working well enough and we decided to kill it. However, through that process, we conducted a lot of user tests and interviews, and realized that finding users to test is a pretty hard problem. That's why we made Gemba, Japanese for "the real place", which is a service that connects companies to testers on demand for in-person interviews. URL: http://gemba.me Would love your…
2013
- 13DC
2012 · devsigh.com
- 14FP
A little background. For the last 1.5 years I lost what could be considered an embarrassing amount of money hiring other people to work on a project that I thought had potential, I got some important people involved, had some great coders, but couldn't launch. The failure was depressing, rejection by YC didn't help.. I had to take a job, I didn't enjoy and I had a girlfriend who stood by me despite going into debt. But bouncing back over the last 45 days I've taught myself Rails some Jquery, and Javascript and built this www.hangout.io. It's empowering to build something myself because I'm…
2011
- 15
I’m done. I’m bowing out of the startup rat race.
2017
- 16RO
I wrote up a retrospective on my time working as a founder at DirectAI (https://directai.io). We learned a lot and I wanted to share some things I wish I had known ~18 months ago.
2024 · brooks.team
- 17IM
I am a non-hacker "idea guy" with zero discernible talent. Like most, the story starts with me doing things the hard way. I dreamt of a tool that would save me countless hours. Like most of my ideas, it was supposed to die in a couple of hours, but this one had some legs.... "If I needed this, surely others did too" kept looping in my head. Could I get this built? Could I build it myself? Nah...too lazy to learn how, but before I did anything, I had to promise myself one thing: No more ideas! If ideas were sit-ups, I would have a six pack instead of this tire. It was a constant mental…
2012
- 18MF
I quit my job a month ago and have been heads down working on my startup. It's my first time working with Ruby or web development at all. I launched on the 7th - http://www.onefatpig.com Now I'm done with the easy part (code) and working on the substantially harder part (getting users). Any advice?
2011
- 19IV
Hey my name is Ivo and I'm a developer and a startup entusiast. My girlfriend was out of the coutry for the weekend and I decided to do something cool like building a startup. I've done a few startups over the years but that's the first I actually released, I would love to hear your feedback on it.
2024 · craftlynow.com
- 20
- 21SA
Hello HN, My name is Deepak. I've created this platform (https://stackcrunch.io) where developers can share their experiences in form of short stories linked to real-world practical solutions on Q&A platforms. This project is currently in early access mode, where you can check out the platform & start writing your stories. Also, please do check out the launch article and how to create a story at https://stackcrunch.io/posts I'd love to hear back from the community. Warm Regards, Deepak
2018
- 22M4
Hello HN, Later today I'll be shutting down the servers and moving on. This is my 5th startup and the 4th failure. The reason is very simple: I understimated the cost of user acquisition. This is the second time this happened. The dozens of users actually love the software and are using it on a daily basis. I'm ruthless when it comes to coding and money. So, if you are building a startup: do not ignore how much money you will have to spend to get a user. If you are not able to find that number, something could be wrong with your model. Maybe someone smarter than me could write something…
2012
- 23IB
Hi HN, I've been working on this for a while and it was hard to decide when to stop, either on the way information is presented or when to stop with adding entries. It's not meant as a blog, but rather as a reference that keeps growing. Link: https://thehardparts.dev Currently I've created 4 main section: - Failure Modes: ways project go wrong - Red Flags: early signals that are worth taking seriously - Tech Decisions: common and not so common trade-offs for hard choices - Playbooks - guided approach for situations that repeat I've also focused on creating links between them to…
Apr 2026 · thehardparts.dev
- 24OI
I'm trying to get the motivation up to actually finish building out a "real" product, and I found myself needing a "win" to keep my momentum up. So, I hacked out a little one sentence journal app last night. I experimented with a few UI things (e.g.., the autosaving of the sentence for today and so on), so it was a good learning experience also. You can check it out at: http://osod.im
2012
Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Refine with a description →