Ask HN: What are your failed projects / ideas?

#1

Post by npguy » Mon, Sep 03, 2012, 4:18 AM UTC

No post body was provided.

Re: Ask HN: What are your failed projects / ideas?

#2

Post by npguy » Mon, Sep 03, 2012, 4:27 AM UTC

I'll start with one from my side: I started this project which was essentially a social networking site, but focused on Indian parents. Signed up some 500 plus users, but then realized that I had to keep getting content up, to keep the site interesting - I had some 5 users out of the 500 that contributed any content whatsoever. which did not make a lot of sense. The site is now offline.

Re: Ask HN: What are your failed projects / ideas?

#3

Post by consultutah » Mon, Sep 03, 2012, 4:39 AM UTC

My biggest failures have been:

1. A sms polling site that I ended up selling flippa for less than I'd like to admit.

2. A component that made authorize.net easy for .net developers. Over the years, I made quite a bit of money off of it, but stripe released, I decided to sell the site and component off to someone for about one month's revenue.

Re: Ask HN: What are your failed projects / ideas?

#4

Post by cup » Mon, Sep 03, 2012, 5:27 AM UTC

I had an idea that never reached conception, maybe someone can take it and succeed.

A while back I had to go into the city and didn't know how many coins I needed for parking. I thought I took enough until I saw it was $4.5 an hour. I considered creating a website/app package where users could see where they're going and the parking details associated i.e. ticket parking, free until 8pm, clearway zone etc.

I sadly lack the time and more importantly the technical know how to do it though.

Re: Ask HN: What are your failed projects / ideas?

#5

Post by npguy » Mon, Sep 03, 2012, 5:36 AM UTC

cup wrote: post #4

I had an idea that never reached conception, maybe someone can take it and succeed. A while back I had to go into the city and didn't know how many coins I needed for parking. I thought I took enough until I saw it was $4.5 an hour. I considered creating a website/app package where users could see where they're going and the parking details associated i.e. ticket parking, free until 8pm, clearway zone etc. I sadly la…

Parking is a clean opportunity space for such small, useful apps. I remember the app that helps you get back to yor car in large parking areas, for example.

Re: Ask HN: What are your failed projects / ideas?

#6

Post by garindra » Mon, Sep 03, 2012, 5:53 AM UTC

May be useful to add a secondary question to that about why you think the projects/ideas failed.

Re: Ask HN: What are your failed projects / ideas?

#7

Post by ddd1600 » Mon, Sep 03, 2012, 5:54 AM UTC

If you answer to yourself "none of them", there are two possibilities. No, three.

Third one first: you're young enough to not feel guilty about not taking enough risk. First one: you're not taking enough risk. Second one: you know who you are.

Re: Ask HN: What are your failed projects / ideas?

#8

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Sep 03, 2012, 5:57 AM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What are your failed projects / ideas?

#9

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Sep 03, 2012, 6:23 AM UTC

npguy wrote: post #2

I'll start with one from my side: I started this project which was essentially a social networking site, but focused on Indian parents. Signed up some 500 plus users, but then realized that I had to keep getting content up, to keep the site interesting - I had some 5 users out of the 500 that contributed any content whatsoever. which did not make a lot of sense. The site is now offline.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What are your failed projects / ideas?

#10

Post by dudeanon842 » Mon, Sep 03, 2012, 6:24 AM UTC

http://decisiverobot.com Looking at the stats it averages zero views per day. It was only a fun throwaway idea to experiment and extend my web development skills, but I thought it might least get some traffic.