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Y Combinator Failed Startups

failory.com

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Re: Y Combinator Failed Startups

#2

Post by troughway »

With the eye-raping callout (dark background -> white background switch) half-way through the article on wanting an email address (three callouts within the article in total), I'm shocked you didn't finish the job and put a big fucking modal popup smack dab in the middle as I was scrolling and ask once more.

Re: Y Combinator Failed Startups

#3

Post by stevewodil »

troughway wrote: post #2

With the eye-raping callout (dark background -> white background switch) half-way through the article on wanting an email address (three callouts within the article in total), I'm shocked you didn't finish the job and put a big fucking modal popup smack dab in the middle as I was scrolling and ask once more.

Personally I find the call to actions rather tasteful on that site

Re: Y Combinator Failed Startups

#4

Post by ganoushoreilly »

troughway wrote: post #2

With the eye-raping callout (dark background -> white background switch) half-way through the article on wanting an email address (three callouts within the article in total), I'm shocked you didn't finish the job and put a big fucking modal popup smack dab in the middle as I was scrolling and ask once more.

You seem bitter, which startup was yours?

Re: Y Combinator Failed Startups

#5

Post by quartz »

Interesting that two of these (three if you count Unicorn Rides which is a note within Boosted) are hardware companies and both were a result of the recent tariff war with China.

I've always known startups are hard but it seems that hardware startups, even when they appear to be on a rocketship trajectory, are nigh impossible.

Re: Y Combinator Failed Startups

#6

Post by nimacainn »

Missing from that list is Grin Scooters / Grow Mobility (e-scooters for LATAM) which is probably one of the biggest failures out of all YC companies in terms of investment money raised.

They raised $70M as Grin and then $150M after the merger with Yellow. I think at Demo Day they were trying to raise at a $100M cap with just an idea / pre-launch. After raising an insane amount of money in a matter of moths, they expanded extremely quickly to dozens of cities in several countries in LATAM while having bad unit economics ("land-grab"). There are likely interesting learning lessons there.

Re: Y Combinator Failed Startups

#9

Post by AndrewKemendo »

"The Trump administration’s trade war with China resulted in a failed funding round led by a Chinese investor, which put the company in dire straits financially. "

Trump is a convenient scapegoat here but in no way related to why they failed. Meta was headed to guardianship not long after the Meta2 was released.

Overall Meta was just a poor experience with basically zero traction. They changed their hardware approach from the Meta1 to the 2 and it created a completely different experience while on the side the Hololens was blowing everyone out of the water and they weren't in any position to compete. Add to that the complete collapse of Magic Leap and the bubble burst for AR this round.

Reinforcing again - Augmented Reality is probably the hardest market/technology to succeed or even just stay alive in.

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