Ask HN: Examples of startups that failed due to moving slowly?

Circa 1995, many companies tried online retailing, but none of them could match the speed of Amazon, and so Amazon slowly won out over all of them.

MySpace lost to Facebook, partly by not matching what became popular features on Facebook, such as "The Wall".

And it's not just startups that fail due to moving slowly. The USA auto companies have been losing market share since 1960, partly due to their slow adoption of new techniques.

Toyota in the 1950s was a super nova of new ideas. They invented kanban and "just in time". Oddly, they got some of their best ideas from an American who could not get an audience in the USA:

"Interestingly, important elements of the Japanese production system were enhanced by the work of W. Edwards Deming, an American who developed a system of statistical quality control for the U.S. war effort during World War II. After the war, he was assigned to General McArthur’s staff overseeing civilian transition of Japanese industry, and introduced his system of quality control throughout Japanese industry, but especially in the automobile sector. Largely ignored in the United States after his return, his methods were only adopted by U.S. manufacturers after 1981 when he was recognized by Japan for his contribution to the country’s economic revival."

http://www.mbca.org/star-article/july-august-2013/putting-it...

Our company bootstrapped for the first 2.5 years before raising an angel round. This raises eyebrows. Some investors assume there is a problem if you are looking for a small round after so much time has passed. It's a rare stance to encounter, but something to be aware of.

(Personally, I'm proud of what we were able to accomplish before taking outside investment.)

That is a gross over simplification of why MySpace lost to facebook. One of the main reasons I think MySpace lost was that they never seemed to have a grand vision like Zuck and fb seemed to have developed around '06-07. Not to mention, MySpace was an offshoot of a super shady marketing company, not a technology company. That became more and more apparent as MySpace suffered constant performance and security issues.

Some startups forget that the first impression and cool factor still play a big role in creating a huge buzz about your app.