Failed Startup Post-Mortems • Hacker News Board

Re: Failed Startup Post-Mortems

#31

Post by dublinben » Wed, Oct 08, 2014, 1:13 AM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #13

nostrademons wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They didn't - my previous startup (Diffle) is on the list, and I was never notified. Nor did cbinsights.com, which has a comment here complaining about how this post ripped off their original compilation of stories. I'm not all that ruffled - I figure that once you put something on the web it will take on a life of its own regardless of what you want - but it would've been a nice courtesy to the folks who sweated ove…

Let's hope everybody whose story got lifted is as laid back about it as you are. The obvious solution would be to simply publish a list of links and to then approach the authors to ask for permission for the sake of consistency in the presentation.

>The obvious solution

It would be even better if authors who are going to say yes to a request like that would make it clear, by using a Creative Commons license in the first place.

Re: Failed Startup Post-Mortems

#32

Post by thmorton » Wed, Oct 08, 2014, 1:14 AM UTC

trhway wrote: post #18

FiatLuxDave wrote: post #5

There are some interesting stories in here (check out the condom key-chain one), but it would be nice if they were broken down by industry, or at least didn't have quite so many service-offered-over-web/new-blogging-service stories. Maybe its just that there are so many of those these days? It makes me wonder if anyone reading this has some information breaking down startup failure rates by industry or sector... perh…

the key-chain one is hilarious. That sets the tone from the start: "Though I had a Stanford MBA and regularly consulted on multimillion-dollar projects, I didn't know the first thing about starting a business. When I asked a successful classmate how to invoice a customer, he suggested I go to one of the large business-supply warehouses. "They sell 'Business in a Box,' " he told me. "It's got everything you need." I d…

Link: http://3things.gitbooks.io/77-failed-startup-post-mortems/co...

Re: Failed Startup Post-Mortems

#33

Post by stephengoodwin » Wed, Oct 08, 2014, 1:34 AM UTC

I applaud any startup founder who has the courage to do a write up post-mortem.

It's a hard thing to talk about the failure of your baby.

Re: Failed Startup Post-Mortems

#34

Post by menriquez » Wed, Oct 08, 2014, 1:39 AM UTC

as someone who had a failed startup back in 1988 (we wrote multi-user BBS software pre-mosaic/www days) in straight C and btree tables (REAL no-sql), what I would find more interesting in this collection is a "what-am-I-doing-now" section, where the individuals who wrote these essays now talk about their lives.

trust me...failure bites but often you come back much better, wiser, and stronger than before, and those stories are often more interesting than the failure ones.

Re: Failed Startup Post-Mortems

#35

Post by jonkelly » Wed, Oct 08, 2014, 2:16 AM UTC

asanwal wrote: post #30

pud wrote: post #19

Here's a book I wrote that covers 150 failed internet startups from the late 90's. http://amazon.com/FD-Companies-Spectacular-Dot-com-Flameouts... I think many of them could be successful if relaunched today.

Pud - bring back FuckedCompany. Based on all of our data, it's about that time.

Please don't. Lots of horrible things were said there behind a wall of anonymity. Think Secret + 4chan for failed startups. For those of us that tried to do the right thing by our employees, it was very hurtful.

Re: Failed Startup Post-Mortems

#36

Post by morgante » Wed, Oct 08, 2014, 2:18 AM UTC

Maybe I'm in the minority here, but it's really not cool to copy people's writing wholesale into a book. It's really a terrible way to pay back people who were willing to publicly share their startup failures (in a format they controlled).

Also, the "I'm not profiting, looking to profit from these collected works" disclaimer is almost as bad as "no copyright infringement intended" on YouTube videos. Regardless of your profit, it is still copyright infringement to copy people's content without their consent.

It's especially egregious that the original source is only listed at the end of articles, where there's no reason to bother clicking through (since you've already read it). Plus, in many cases the original sources had relevant and interesting images which are omitted here.

Re: Failed Startup Post-Mortems

#37

Post by nostrademons » Wed, Oct 08, 2014, 2:21 AM UTC

dublinben wrote: post #31

jacquesm wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's hope everybody whose story got lifted is as laid back about it as you are. The obvious solution would be to simply publish a list of links and to then approach the authors to ask for permission for the sake of consistency in the presentation.

>The obvious solution It would be even better if authors who are going to say yes to a request like that would make it clear, by using a Creative Commons license in the first place.

That eliminates the possibility of saying yes on a case-by-case basis, though. I'm generally okay with stuff I write on the Internet appearing in compilations, reblogs, commentary, articles, etc. - but I have declined if, for example, the journalist seems to be writing a piece with a particular slant that I feel misrepresents what I was trying to say.

Re: Failed Startup Post-Mortems

#38

Post by pud » Wed, Oct 08, 2014, 2:55 AM UTC

asanwal wrote: post #30

pud wrote: post #19

Here's a book I wrote that covers 150 failed internet startups from the late 90's. http://amazon.com/FD-Companies-Spectacular-Dot-com-Flameouts... I think many of them could be successful if relaunched today.

Pud - bring back FuckedCompany. Based on all of our data, it's about that time.

People ask me all the time to bring it back. Was fun when it was happening and I tried to be funny and good-spirited, but now I have more of an appreciation for entrepreneurs and how hard it is to build a business... so I won't bring it back.

Also won't bring it back because of onwards and upwards.. and so on.

Thanks for asking though :) Still makes me happy when people tell me they like my work.

Re: Failed Startup Post-Mortems

#39

Post by mts_ » Wed, Oct 08, 2014, 3:52 AM UTC

It seems the book has been taken down now, returns a 404.

Re: Failed Startup Post-Mortems

#40

Post by kqland » Wed, Oct 08, 2014, 4:12 AM UTC

mts_ wrote: post #39

It seems the book has been taken down now, returns a 404.

Yeah, there are some suckers in this post who do nothing better than complain. Author did not copy anyone's content rather simply linked and compiled the list. By that logic you should also complain about Google because all they do is show results for query and link to other people's content.

Does anyone have link to cached version ?