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Ask HN: Show your failed projects and share a lesson you learned

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Re: Ask HN: Show your failed projects and share a lesson you learned

#221

Post by nso95 »

lisper wrote: post #169

I've launched six failed startups. FlowNet (early 90s), a high-speed (500 Mb/s) local area network designed to compete with FDDI, Fast Ethernet, and mainly ATM which was supposed to be the Next Big Thing. Offered QoS guarantees back when that was a big deal. Died because gigabit ethernet happened instead. IndieBuyer (2003-2006) - a marketplace for independent movies on DVD. The angle was that we would provide recomme…

You think the company failed because you didn't require black cars? Seems unlikely...

Re: Ask HN: Show your failed projects and share a lesson you learned

#223

Post by yrgulation »

et1337 wrote: post #57

I worked solo for three years on a 3D cyberpunk shooter all in a custom C++ engine. It was a hybrid single/multiplayer idea, where you would progress through the campaign and encounter other players at the same time. The twist was, in keeping with the cyberpunk theme, once you got to the end it would be revealed that all the players were actually bots the whole time. At first I was going to commit 100% to the decepti…

Why not slap a vr camera and make it available as a vr game? It looks good and i think it may become a hit.

Re: Ask HN: Show your failed projects and share a lesson you learned

#224

Post by et1337 »

fttx_ wrote: post #188
et1337 wrote: post #57

I worked solo for three years on a 3D cyberpunk shooter all in a custom C++ engine. It was a hybrid single/multiplayer idea, where you would progress through the campaign and encounter other players at the same time. The twist was, in keeping with the cyberpunk theme, once you got to the end it would be revealed that all the players were actually bots the whole time. At first I was going to commit 100% to the decepti…

I love the visual style you achieved - really awesome work. I hope one day you or someone else can pick up the code and make something from it.

Thanks! That would be cool.

Re: Ask HN: Show your failed projects and share a lesson you learned

#225

Post by totemandtoken »

I made a newsbetting app.

Basically the idea was to create an app where you would get an article stripped of its title, author, source info, etc. Then you would place a bet on whether the article was from a right- or left-affiliated news source. The goal was to provide an alternative business model for journalists/news orgs, ease the polarization in this country, and have a non-advertising basis for social media.

It failed because it never got users, it was my first project so there were quite a bit of missing features, and I really don't know jack about running... well, anything.

But it was a good programming experience.

Re: Ask HN: Show your failed projects and share a lesson you learned

#226

Post by rootsudo »

davidmurdoch wrote: post #24
mysterydip wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"perfect is the enemy of good enough" I learned a few years ago. Thanks for sharing, this is really interesting as I'm working a multiplayer project right now. What was your marketing budget like? How did you get those 4000 people? Do you have a postmortem or dev log from the time?

To get the list of people: We went to a lot of indie meetups/presentations, posted all over Reddit at every opportunity (got on the front page of many gaming subreddits a bunch of times), constantly spammed our friends (there were 5 of us working on it), got involved with faculty and students at Full Sail University, anything we could. We were all very passionate about it and it pretty much consumed every waking hour…

Is Fullsail university a good place, or a diploma mill? Their commercial spots of a decade ago made it seem 1:1 to places like Everest University or ITT Tech.

Re: Ask HN: Show your failed projects and share a lesson you learned

#227

Post by wbc »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #202
andrewstuart wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please tell me your Dr Pepper consumption could not be measured "cans per hour".

Well to be fair it was Diet (so not the load on the spleen that a sugar load would be) but alas, I could easily consume several cans per hour. One engineer at NetApp joked they knew how long the meeting I was attending was going to be by the number of cans I brought with me. Not a regimen I recommend but as vices go it was relatively benign. A couple of years ago I stopped all consumption, and then when started dieti…

I thought it wasn't just the sugar but the carbonated water negatively impacts digestion.

Do you ever get weird stomach aches?

Re: Ask HN: Show your failed projects and share a lesson you learned

#228

Post by ackbar03 »

tacon wrote: post #101
sdflhasjd wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A game where bots turned out to be real players would have been fascinating though.

So these games are versions of the book "Ender's Game"[0]? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ender%27s_Game

and next thing you know you've committed genocide. Whoopsies

Re: Ask HN: Show your failed projects and share a lesson you learned

#229

Post by oxd »

I developed browser based Java applets demonstrating products in 3D with full animation and interactivity - these worked really well (better than some modern webgl) for some products (think mobiles and car manufacturers in the mid 00s) but my niche was the bifold door market… illustrating the combinations the products could be manufactured and operated. I got on board with a developer of CAM software and created presentations we could adapt quickly to each company which they loved… think Flash on 3D rendered steroids… just as ever green browsers and active x acceptance became mandatory… “Are you sure you want to…” My lesson was that you never know what big change is around the corner. It felt like hero to Zero overnight at 23…

Re: Ask HN: Show your failed projects and share a lesson you learned

#230

Post by davidmurdoch »

rootsudo wrote: post #226
davidmurdoch wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To get the list of people: We went to a lot of indie meetups/presentations, posted all over Reddit at every opportunity (got on the front page of many gaming subreddits a bunch of times), constantly spammed our friends (there were 5 of us working on it), got involved with faculty and students at Full Sail University, anything we could. We were all very passionate about it and it pretty much consumed every waking hour…

Is Fullsail university a good place, or a diploma mill? Their commercial spots of a decade ago made it seem 1:1 to places like Everest University or ITT Tech.

I don't know. We thought it was the best graphics school in central Florida (where I live) and we had an in with a professor there. We paid some students there for most of the 3d modeling work we needed.
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