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This free Notion document contains the best 100+ resources you need for building a successful startup, divided in 4 categories: Fundraising, People, Product, and Growth.
There are a lot of things to consider when building a new startup - where to get funding, how to validate your idea, and what features should the product have.
One of the challenges is finding a market that is willing to pay for your solution without even knowing what it is yet.
However, 90% of startups will fail and shut down.
In this article, you can find 140 failed Software & Hardware startups as well as analyses on why they closed down.
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Information about the industries, countries, and cities they generally invest in.
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Information about their valuation, HQ's location, founded year, name of founders, funding amount and number of employees.
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List of startup investors in the FinTech industry, along with their Twitter, LinkedIn, and email addresses.
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List of startup investors in the BioTech, Health, and Medicine industries, along with their Twitter, LinkedIn, and email addresses.
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List of 250 startup investors in the AI and Machine Learning industries, along with their Twitter, LinkedIn, and email addresses.
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37Coins developed a new Bitcoin platform. In 2014, they announced that providing Bitcoin transfer across different regions proved to be impossible.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Johann Barbie, Jonathan Zobro, Songyi Lee
Country:
United States
Industry:
Finances
Started in:
2014
Closed in:
2015
Nº of employees:
1-10
Funding Amount:
< $1M
Specific cause of failure:
Lack of Funds
You can read more about their failure here.
Admazely offered retargeting tools for businesses. They shut down in 2013 when they ran short on financing and didn't figure out how to secure more cash.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
David Björklund, Peter Vilsholm Therkildsen, Sylwia Erhardt-Bednarska, Søren Holbech Nielsen
Country:
Denmark
Industry:
Marketing
Started in:
2011
Closed in:
2013
Nº of employees:
1-10
Funding Amount:
< $1M
Specific cause of failure:
Lack of Funds
You can read more about their failure here.
Anki aimed to intergrate robotics and IoT with kids' toys and games but shut down in April 2019 after failure to raise funding.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Boris Sofman, Hanns Tappeiner, Mark Palatucci
Country:
United States
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2010
Closed in:
2019
Nº of employees:
100-250
Funding Amount:
> $50M
Specific cause of failure:
Lack of Funds
You can read more about their failure here.
Appiterate was a mobile marketing company that was acquired by Flipkart, India’s largest e-commerce company. It was closed 2 years after launching.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Anuj Bhargava, Mayank Kumar, Tanuj Mendiratta, Varun Sharma
Country:
United States
Industry:
Marketing
Started in:
2013
Closed in:
2015
Nº of employees:
1-10
Funding Amount:
< $1M
Specific cause of failure:
Acquisition Flu
You can read more about their failure here.
The Argyle Social was a social media marketing tool. The leading social media platforms change their APIs every time, which led to their shut down.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Adam Covati
Country:
United States
Industry:
Marketing
Started in:
2010
Closed in:
2014
Nº of employees:
10-50
Funding Amount:
$1M-$10M
Specific cause of failure:
Competition
You can read more about their failure here.
Aria Insights developed highly advanced drones. After some pivots, the company couldn't find out the correct business model and had to shut down.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Helen Greiner
Country:
United States
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2008
Closed in:
2019
Nº of employees:
10-50
Funding Amount:
$10M-$50M
Specific cause of failure:
Multiple Reasons
You can read more about their failure here.
ArsDigita was a Web Development Company established in 1997. Their decline was ascribed to an inexperienced external CEO and had to shut down in 2001.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Philip Greenspun, Tracy Adams, Ben Adida, Eve Andersson, Olin Shivers, Aurelius Prochazka, Jin Choi
Country:
United States
Industry:
e-Commerce
Started in:
1997
Closed in:
2002
Nº of employees:
50-100
Funding Amount:
$10M-$50M
Specific cause of failure:
Lack of Experience
You can read more about their failure here.
Beepi was a marketplace for used cars. They ran out of cash to operate and tried to sell to potential buyers, but didn't achieve to close the operation.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Ale Resnik, Owen Savir
Country:
United States
Industry:
Transportation
Started in:
2013
Closed in:
2016
Nº of employees:
100-250
Funding Amount:
> $50M
Specific cause of failure:
Mismanagement of Funds
You can read more about their failure here.
Berg was a cloud platform on which Little Printer, an IoT device, worked. They had loyal supporters, but couldn't convert it into a sustainable business.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Matt Webb
Country:
United Kingdom
Industry:
Design
Started in:
2005
Closed in:
2014
Nº of employees:
10-50
Funding Amount:
$1M-$10M
Specific cause of failure:
No Market Need
You can read more about their failure here.
Bitpass was a company that gave people a platform to make micropayments online. The main reason for its closure was competition, even after raising $12M.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Kurt Huang
Country:
United States
Industry:
Finances
Started in:
2002
Closed in:
2007
Nº of employees:
50-100
Funding Amount:
$10M-$50M
Specific cause of failure:
Competition
You can read more about their failure here.
Brisk was a sales and marketing platform founded in 2012. They started to offer customization to paying customers, but this became costly in the long term.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Alfred Beckman, Andreas Pålsson, Hampus Jakobsson, Mikael Tellhed
Country:
Sweden
Industry:
Marketing
Started in:
2012
Closed in:
2016
Nº of employees:
10-50
Funding Amount:
< $1M
Specific cause of failure:
Lack of Focus
You can read more about their failure here.
Call9 was a health startup targeted at patients who needed to speak with a doctor. The founder's inability to achieve growth, led to its shut down in 2019.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Celina Tenev, Timothy Peck, XiaoSong Mu
Country:
United States
Industry:
Health
Started in:
2015
Closed in:
2019
Nº of employees:
100-250
Funding Amount:
$10M-$50M
Specific cause of failure:
Bad Business Model
You can read more about their failure here.
ChaCha was a search engine where you interacted with a human being. However, the startup got stiff competition when Google released its Panda algorithm.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Brad Bostic & Scott Jones
Country:
United States
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2005
Closed in:
2016
Nº of employees:
50-100
Funding Amount:
> $50M
Specific cause of failure:
Competition
You can read more about their failure here.
Crowdmix was a music streaming platform where people could listen and talk about their favorite bands. They spent £14M before having a working product.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Gareth Ingham, Ian Roberts
Country:
United Kingdom
Industry:
Music
Started in:
2013
Closed in:
2016
Nº of employees:
100-250
Funding Amount:
$10M-$50M
Specific cause of failure:
Mismanagement of Funds
You can read more about their failure here.
Delicious was a pioneer in social bookmarking tools until it was overtaken by rivals and ultimately acquired by Pinboard at a reduced price.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Joshua Schachter
Country:
United States
Industry:
Productivity
Started in:
2003
Closed in:
2017
Nº of employees:
50-100
Funding Amount:
No Data
Specific cause of failure:
Acquisition Flu
You can read more about their failure here.
Digg had the mission of "democratizing" the content and news that people saw. However, it missed lots of opportunities to become a thriving social network.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Kevin Rose
Country:
United States
Industry:
Social Media
Started in:
2004
Closed in:
Active
Nº of employees:
50-100
Funding Amount:
$10M-$50M
Specific cause of failure:
Competition
You can read more about their failure here.
Dinner Lab offered a culinary experience with a group of strangers in an unusual place. They faced several problems, including the diner's timing.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Brian Bordainick, Francisco Robert, Zach Kupperman
Country:
United States
Industry:
Food & Beverage
Started in:
2011
Closed in:
2016
Nº of employees:
10-50
Funding Amount:
$1M-$10M
Specific cause of failure:
Bad Business Model
You can read more about their failure here.
dotCloud was a PaaS for developers that enabled them to host, assemble and run their applications. They could not sustain operation costs by themselves.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Solomon Hykes
Country:
United States
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2008
Closed in:
2016
Nº of employees:
250-500
Funding Amount:
$10M-$50M
Specific cause of failure:
Mismanagement of Funds
You can read more about their failure here.
Flowtab was an app that solved the problem of long queues in bars. They tried several business models but never found a profitable one, so they shut down.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Mike Townsend
Country:
United States
Industry:
Food & Beverage
Started in:
2011
Closed in:
2013
Nº of employees:
50-100
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
Bad Business Model
You can read more about their failure here.
Flud was a social news reader platform. They were unable to raise additional funding for their operations and eventually ran out of cash.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Bobby Ghoshal, Matthew Ausonio
Country:
United States
Industry:
Productivity
Started in:
2010
Closed in:
2013
Nº of employees:
10-50
Funding Amount:
$1M-$10M
Specific cause of failure:
Multiple Reasons
You can read more about their failure here.
FoundationDB is a NoSQL scalable layered database that worked faster and needed less hardware than other services of its kind. Apple acquired it in 2015.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Dave Rosenthal, Dave Scherer, Nick Lavezzo
Country:
United States
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2009
Closed in:
2015
Nº of employees:
10-50
Funding Amount:
$10M-$50M
Specific cause of failure:
Acquisition Flu
You can read more about their failure here.
Friendster was a social gaming site widely popular in Asia. It never put emphasis on the social news feed feature, leading to poor usage and registrations.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Jonathan Abrams
Country:
Philippines
Industry:
Social Media
Started in:
2001
Closed in:
2015
Nº of employees:
10-50
Funding Amount:
$10M-$50M
Specific cause of failure:
Lack of PMF
You can read more about their failure here.
Fuhu was a seller of cloud-served software. After reaching Top 1 on Inc 500, the company amassed an enormous amount of debt and had a very high burn rate.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
John Hui, Robb Fujioka, Steve Hui
Country:
United States
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2006
Closed in:
2015
Nº of employees:
500-1,000
Funding Amount:
> $50M
Specific cause of failure:
Mismanagement of Funds
You can read more about their failure here.
Hubhaus offered an online platform to rent a house and find people willing to live with you. They even achieved PMF, but COVID came and they shut down.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Kerry Jones, Shruti Merchant, Sloane Yu
Country:
United States
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2016
Closed in:
2020
Nº of employees:
10-50
Funding Amount:
$10M-$50M
Specific cause of failure:
Bad Timing
You can read more about their failure here.
Juicero was a juice company that packed fresh organic fruits. They claimed their juicer was innovative, until customers found out the machine was useless.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Doug Evans
Country:
United States
Industry:
Food & Beverage
Started in:
2013
Closed in:
2017
Nº of employees:
100-250
Funding Amount:
> $50M
Specific cause of failure:
Bad Business Model
You can read more about their failure here.
Kiko was a calendar app offering API integrations with other tools. The team worked on various ideas and plans at the same time, which led to its failure.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Emmett Shear, Justin Kan
Country:
United States
Industry:
Productivity
Started in:
2003
Closed in:
2008
Nº of employees:
10-50
Funding Amount:
< $1M
Specific cause of failure:
Bad Management
You can read more about their failure here.
Kno introduced double paneled e-textbooks. Despite raising $80M, the company saw its chances of scaling up diminish once Apple introduced its iconic iPad.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Babur Habib, Osman Rashid
Country:
United States
Industry:
Education
Started in:
2009
Closed in:
2013
Nº of employees:
+10,000
Funding Amount:
> $50M
Specific cause of failure:
Competition
You can read more about their failure here.
LayerVault helped you store, track, review, and deliver design work. However, they were unable to secure additional capital to sustain their services.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Allan Grinshtein, Kelly Sutton
Country:
United States
Industry:
Design
Started in:
2011
Closed in:
2014
Nº of employees:
10-50
Funding Amount:
< $1M
Specific cause of failure:
Lack of Funds
You can read more about their failure here.
Lumos provided the ultimate smart switching tech. After the shutdown, the founders recognized they were not the right team to build a hardware company.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Pritesh Sankhe, Tarkeshwar Singh, Yash Kotak
Country:
India
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2014
Closed in:
2015
Nº of employees:
1-10
Funding Amount:
No Data
Specific cause of failure:
Lack of Experience
You can read more about their failure here.
Mailbox made your inbox more manageable and efficient. They didn't find a way to monetize the app. After being acquired by Dropbox, Mailbox shut down.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Gentry Underwood, Scott Cannon
Country:
United States
Industry:
Productivity
Started in:
2011
Closed in:
2015
Nº of employees:
500-1,000
Funding Amount:
$1M-$10M
Specific cause of failure:
Bad Business Model
You can read more about their failure here.
MatterFab had the goal of making metal-based manufacturing affordable. However, the business never found a profitable business model and pricing strategy.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Matthew Burris
Country:
United States
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2013
Closed in:
2019
Nº of employees:
1-10
Funding Amount:
$10M-$50M
Specific cause of failure:
Bad Business Model
You can read more about their failure here.
Monitor110 offered real-time monitoring services for Wall Street. They lost the edge they had by not validating the product and shut down in 2008.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Roger Ehrenberg
Country:
United States
Industry:
Analytics
Started in:
2003
Closed in:
2008
Nº of employees:
1-10
Funding Amount:
$10M-$50M
Specific cause of failure:
Multiple Reasons
You can read more about their failure here.
Moped was a free social app. It had not enough entertaining and fast-growing content that could attract a broad mass of users. It closed after 16 years.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Schuyler Deerman
Country:
Germany
Industry:
Social Media
Started in:
1998
Closed in:
2014
Nº of employees:
10-50
Funding Amount:
$1M-$10M
Specific cause of failure:
No Market Need
You can read more about their failure here.
MySpace became the most popular social networking site before Facebook. After competing with them, they decided to repurpose it as a platform for artists.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Aber Whitcomb, Brad Greenspan, Chris DeWolfe, Colin Digiaro, Josh Berman, Michael Addicott, Tom Anderson
Country:
United States
Industry:
Social Media
Started in:
2003
Closed in:
Active
Nº of employees:
250-500
Funding Amount:
$10M-$50M
Specific cause of failure:
Multiple Reasons
You can read more about their failure here.
Navdy provided a display that projected GPS in the cars' front. They failed due to a saturated market and a device that didn't satisfy customer needs.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Doug Simpson, Karl Guttag
Country:
United States
Industry:
Transportation
Started in:
2013
Closed in:
2018
Nº of employees:
50-100
Funding Amount:
$10M-$50M
Specific cause of failure:
Multiple Reasons
You can read more about their failure here.
Netscape was one of the most significant internet applications in history. Despite its early success, they couldn't beat Microsoft's Internet Explorer.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
James Clark, Jon Mittelhauser, Marc Andreessen
Country:
United States
Industry:
Productivity
Started in:
1994
Closed in:
2008
Nº of employees:
5,000-10,000
Funding Amount:
No Data
Specific cause of failure:
Poor Product
You can read more about their failure here.
OpTier provided customers with a business transaction monitoring platform. Little market share, revenue, and investment led to OpTier's failure.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Amir Alon, Motti Tal
Country:
United States
Industry:
Analytics
Started in:
2002
Closed in:
2014
Nº of employees:
50-100
Funding Amount:
> $50M
Specific cause of failure:
Lack of PMF
You can read more about their failure here.
Parse offered a platform for mobile app devs with tools to let them build, run and test applications. Facebook bought Parse and shut it down in 2017.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Ilya Sukhar, James Yu, Kevin Lacker, Tikhon Bernstam
Country:
United States
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2011
Closed in:
2016
Nº of employees:
10-50
Funding Amount:
$1M-$10M
Specific cause of failure:
Acquisition Flu
You can read more about their failure here.
Pixate wanted to make prototyping and designing apps more accessible and effortless. It was acquired by Google in 2015, and after a year, it was shut down.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Kevin Lindsey, Paul Colton
Country:
United States
Industry:
Design
Started in:
2012
Closed in:
2016
Nº of employees:
10-50
Funding Amount:
$1M-$10M
Specific cause of failure:
Acquisition Flu
You can read more about their failure here.
Poliana's aim was to bring order to the USA political system. They had low market demand and ran out of funds even after implementing 3 business models.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Grayson Carroll, Patrick Cason, Seth Whiting, Shawn Whiting
Country:
United States
Industry:
Analytics
Started in:
2013
Closed in:
2015
Nº of employees:
1-10
Funding Amount:
< $1M
Specific cause of failure:
Bad Business Model
You can read more about their failure here.
PoliMobile provided political campaigns with a strategic way to reach their supporters. No one wanted to pay for such a service and they had to shut down.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Curt Prins
Country:
United States
Industry:
Marketing
Started in:
2011
Closed in:
2015
Nº of employees:
1-10
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
No Market Need
You can read more about their failure here.
PostRocket was a Facebook marketing platform co-founded in October 2010. Many technical issues and depending on FB affected the quality of their service.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Murry Ivanoff, Tim Chae
Country:
United States
Industry:
Analytics
Started in:
2010
Closed in:
2013
Nº of employees:
1-10
Funding Amount:
< $1M
Specific cause of failure:
Poor Product
You can read more about their failure here.
QBotix offered solar panels that tracked solar light. Their competitors' efficiency improved, making QBotix's innovative solar panels less cost-effective.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Wasiq Bokhari
Country:
United States
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2010
Closed in:
2015
Nº of employees:
10-50
Funding Amount:
$10M-$50M
Specific cause of failure:
Competition
You can read more about their failure here.
Radar Radio, a hub for emerging music talent online, ceased operations amidst a debt of £3.6M. Here's their story.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Ollie Ashley
Country:
United Kingdom
Industry:
Entertainment
Started in:
2008
Closed in:
2018
Nº of employees:
10-50
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
Mismanagement of Funds
You can read more about their failure here.
Rafter was a course material provider for colleges. They had lots of competition and had to deal with logistical, financial, and market challenges.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Sara Leoni
Country:
United States
Industry:
Education
Started in:
2006
Closed in:
2016
Nº of employees:
50-100
Funding Amount:
> $50M
Specific cause of failure:
Competition
You can read more about their failure here.
Rdio, a music streaming platform, failed due to poor marketing and distribution, ultimately folding to competition from Spotify and closing down.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Carter Adamson, Janus Friis, Niklas Zennström
Country:
United States
Industry:
Music
Started in:
2008
Closed in:
2015
Nº of employees:
50-100
Funding Amount:
> $50M
Specific cause of failure:
Competition
You can read more about their failure here.
Reach.ly was an analytics tool for e-commerce sites providing customer behavior patterns. Lack of proper market feedback made the company shut down.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Ernests Štāls
Country:
Latvia
Industry:
Analytics
Started in:
2011
Closed in:
2015
Nº of employees:
1-10
Funding Amount:
< $1M
Specific cause of failure:
Multiple Reasons
You can read more about their failure here.
RethinkDB is a distributed and scalable NoSQL database. Choosing the wrong market was mentioned by the founder as one of their major mistakes.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Michael Glukhovsky, Slava Akhmechet
Country:
United States
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2009
Closed in:
2016
Nº of employees:
10-50
Funding Amount:
$10M-$50M
Specific cause of failure:
Lack of PMF
You can read more about their failure here.
RewardMe was a real-time intelligent CRM Platform for Local Commerce. They wanted to scale up the company prematurely, which lead to their shut down.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Jun Loayza, Stephen Johnson, Yu-kai Chou
Country:
United States
Industry:
Marketing
Started in:
2010
Closed in:
2015
Nº of employees:
10-50
Funding Amount:
$1M-$10M
Specific cause of failure:
Lack of Funds
You can read more about their failure here.
Salorix offered an engagement platform for brands. It closed down because of its inability to raise money after its investors stopped supporting it.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Santanu Bhattacharya
Country:
United States
Industry:
Analytics
Started in:
2009
Closed in:
2014
Nº of employees:
10-50
Funding Amount:
$1M-$10M
Specific cause of failure:
Bad Management
You can read more about their failure here.
ScaleFactor was a tech startup that claimed to automate SME bookkeeping and payroll thanks to an AI they were developing in-house, which wasn't the case.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Kurt Rathmann
Country:
United States
Industry:
Finances
Started in:
2014
Closed in:
2020
Nº of employees:
100-250
Funding Amount:
> $50M
Specific cause of failure:
Poor Product
You can read more about their failure here.
SchoolGennie provided solutions that saved time, reduced costs, and helped make better decisions on schools. But they didn’t test their product-market fit.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Amit Gupta, Pardeep Goyal
Country:
India
Industry:
Education
Started in:
2013
Closed in:
2014
Nº of employees:
1-10
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
Lack of Experience
You can read more about their failure here.
Selltag was a web-based buy & sell platform. The CEO realized their business model would not be sustainable in the long term and shut it down.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Javier Escribano, Ruben Colomer, Juan Luis Hortelano, Walter Kobylanski
Country:
Spain
Industry:
e-Commerce
Started in:
2014
Closed in:
2015
Nº of employees:
10-50
Funding Amount:
< $1M
Specific cause of failure:
Failure to Pivot
You can read more about their failure here.
Seven Dreamers Laboratory built a robot that washed, ironed and folded laundry. However, their product was expensive and couldn't match human's dexterity.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Shin Sakane
Country:
Japan
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2014
Closed in:
2019
Nº of employees:
100-250
Funding Amount:
> $50M
Specific cause of failure:
Poor Product
You can read more about their failure here.
Shipbeat was an API to help e-commerces. When Shipbeat expanded its logistic services in other market areas, they had some big difficulties and shut down.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Joachim Rørbøl, Kenneth Svenningse
Country:
Denmark
Industry:
e-Commerce
Started in:
2014
Closed in:
2016
Nº of employees:
10-50
Funding Amount:
$1M-$10M
Specific cause of failure:
Multiple Reasons
You can read more about their failure here.
ShipItWise was a way of booking shipping services. However, the transportation companies involved weren’t eager on jumping on this new technology.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Aleksander Gansen, Anna Medjanskaja, Olari Miiter, Ragmar Saksing & Sander Gansen
Country:
Estonia
Industry:
Transportation
Started in:
2016
Closed in:
2019
Nº of employees:
1-10
Funding Amount:
< $1M
Specific cause of failure:
No Market Need
You can read more about their failure here.
Sidecar was a transportation company. They had top-notch technology but no marketing strategy, and could only become useful in high-density cities.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Jahan Khanna, Sunil Paul
Country:
United States
Industry:
Transportation
Started in:
2011
Closed in:
2015
Nº of employees:
50-100
Funding Amount:
$10M-$50M
Specific cause of failure:
Competition
You can read more about their failure here.
Skully was a helmet targetting motorcycle riders. They had to close shops due to no fundings and couldn't complete the production of the pre-orders.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Marcus Weller, Mitch Weller
Country:
United States
Industry:
Transportation
Started in:
2013
Closed in:
2016
Nº of employees:
10-50
Funding Amount:
$10M-$50M
Specific cause of failure:
Mismanagement of Funds
You can read more about their failure here.
Springpad was designed to empower users to clip, organize, and interpret all types of web content. The company failed to develop a monetization strategy.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Jason Horman
Country:
United States
Industry:
Productivity
Started in:
2008
Closed in:
2014
Nº of employees:
10-50
Funding Amount:
$1M-$10M
Specific cause of failure:
Lack of Focus
You can read more about their failure here.
Sunrise was a calendar app for mobile and desktop. They had good reviews from users, but calendars are hard to monetize and they have a low entry barrier.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Jeremy Le Van, Pierre Valade
Country:
France
Industry:
Productivity
Started in:
2012
Closed in:
2016
Nº of employees:
10-50
Funding Amount:
$1M-$10M
Specific cause of failure:
Bad Business Model
You can read more about their failure here.
TakeEatEasy enabled restaurants to provide a reliable delivery service for their customers. Their margins were insufficient and closed doors after 3 years.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Adrien Roose, Chloé Roose, Jean-Christophe Libbrecht, Karim Slaoui
Country:
Belgium
Industry:
Food & Beverage
Started in:
2013
Closed in:
2016
Nº of employees:
100-250
Funding Amount:
$10M-$50M
Specific cause of failure:
Competition
You can read more about their failure here.
Teforia was a tea brewer that yielded the perfect cup of tea by combining tradition with smart technology. It had an absence of market fit and shut down.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Allen Han, Kris Efland
Country:
United States
Industry:
Food & Beverage
Started in:
2014
Closed in:
2017
Nº of employees:
10-50
Funding Amount:
$10M-$50M
Specific cause of failure:
No Market Need
You can read more about their failure here.
Theranos was a way to predict diseases with small blood samples. They raised $1.4B but legal investigations pointed out it was a fraud and shut down.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Elizabeth Holmes
Country:
United States
Industry:
Health
Started in:
2003
Closed in:
2018
Nº of employees:
10-50
Funding Amount:
> $50M
Specific cause of failure:
Legal Challenges
You can read more about their failure here.
Transpose was a comprehensive information management platform. Operated for two years before shutting down due to the inability to generate enough revenue.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Hussein Ahmed, Matt Goyer, Samah Gad, Skyler Johnson-Wagner
Country:
United States
Industry:
Productivity
Started in:
2015
Closed in:
2015
Nº of employees:
10-50
Funding Amount:
$1M-$10M
Specific cause of failure:
Bad Business Model
You can read more about their failure here.
Turntable.fm was a platform on which DJ and fans were brought together. The cost of running it proved to be too expensive and they had to shut down.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Billy Chasen
Country:
United States
Industry:
Music
Started in:
2011
Closed in:
2013
Nº of employees:
1-10
Funding Amount:
$1M-$10M
Specific cause of failure:
Bad Business Model
You can read more about their failure here.
Tutorspree wanted to enhance tutoring. Their vision of pairing up tutors and students to meet up in person was not practical, which made it shut down.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Aaron Harris, Josh Abrams, Ryan Bednar
Country:
United States
Industry:
Education
Started in:
2010
Closed in:
2013
Nº of employees:
50-100
Funding Amount:
$1M-$10M
Specific cause of failure:
Bad Marketing
You can read more about their failure here.
Verelo was a Canadian startup that offered web monitoring services from multiple locations. Not enough traction made the company shut down in 2012.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
McGrath, Michael Curry
Country:
Canada
Industry:
Analytics
Started in:
2012
Closed in:
2012
Nº of employees:
1-10
Funding Amount:
No Data
Specific cause of failure:
Lack of Funds
You can read more about their failure here.
What happened to Vine? Why did Vine shut down? When? Does TikTok face the same risk? Here's our detailed analysis.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Colin Kroll, Dom Hofmann, Rus Yusupov
Country:
United States
Industry:
Social Media
Started in:
2012
Closed in:
2017
Nº of employees:
50-100
Funding Amount:
No Data
Specific cause of failure:
Multiple Reasons
You can read more about their failure here.
Vreal was a virtual reality startup that enabled users to interact with content creators. They were ahead of their time in a market not fully developed.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Todd Hooper
Country:
United States
Industry:
Entertainment
Started in:
2015
Closed in:
Active
Nº of employees:
10-50
Funding Amount:
$10M-$50M
Specific cause of failure:
Bad Timing
You can read more about their failure here.
Wattage was a platform with an ambitious goal: to break the entry barrier for hardware design. They weren't able to validate market interest.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Brett Hagman, Jeremy Bell, Peter Nitsch
Country:
Canada
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2014
Closed in:
2015
Nº of employees:
50-100
Funding Amount:
< $1M
Specific cause of failure:
No Market Need
You can read more about their failure here.
Zoomo's goal was to build trust in the Indian used cars market. The buy-and-sell vehicle market was relatively young in India and decided to shut down.
Details of the startup:
Founders:
Arnav Kumar, Himangshu Hazarika
Country:
India
Industry:
Transportation
Started in:
2014
Closed in:
2016
Nº of employees:
10-50
Funding Amount:
$1M-$10M
Specific cause of failure:
Bad Business Model
You can read more about their failure here.
101 Studios was a producer of video games that taught users things while they played. They went with a “business to professor” business model, but despite professors like the idea, they wouldn’t implement it in their classes. The startup could never reach product-market fit and shut down months later.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Matt “GundayMonday” Sever
Country:
United States
Industry:
Education
Started in:
Closed in:
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
Bad Market Fit
You can read more about their failure here.
ABBY was a documentation service for A/B tests. To make such a service successful, Andy would have needed to educate the users, and that was not possible.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Andy Goldschmidt
Country:
Germany
Industry:
Analytics
Started in:
2015
Closed in:
2016
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
No Market Need
You can read more about their failure here.
Addressbin was an easy way to collect email addresses. Bad marketing and big competitors where the problems that dug its grave.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Adam Bard
Country:
Canada
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2013
Closed in:
2018
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
Bad Marketing
You can read more about their failure here.
AskTina was a live video chat widget for experts to install on their blogs. They did not spend enough time validating the idea through customer interviews before investing in building the MVP.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Tom Hunt
Country:
United Kingdom
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2016
Closed in:
2017
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
Bad Market Fit
You can read more about their failure here.
James is a IT professional who decided to start a business on a “IT-manager-for-hire” type model. He built the company with really few resources and tools and started looking for clients. At peak, he was earning £2,500, but after some years, he had to shut down as he realized his business model was completely broken.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
James Cort
Country:
United Kingdom
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2011
Closed in:
2014
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
Bad Business Model
You can read more about their failure here.
BeehiveID was a startup on the dating market, that identified online accounts created for fraudulent use. Techstars and RightSide Capital decided to invest $70K on their business. However, after some months BeehiveID closed their doors. Being too dependent on Facebook data killed their startup.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Mary Haskett
Country:
United States
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2013
Closed in:
2015
Funding Amount:
< $100K
Specific cause of failure:
Dependence on Others
You can read more about their failure here.
The Birdy was a simple app to track spending habits. Corey never figured out how to monetize it which also caused scaling issues.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Corey Maass
Country:
United States
Industry:
Finances
Started in:
2009
Closed in:
2015
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
Lack of Funds
You can read more about their failure here.
Boston Apartment Hub was an apartment listing site for the Boston area. The idea was probably too ahead of its time.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Jon Sherman
Country:
United States
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2006
Closed in:
2007
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
Bad Market Fit
You can read more about their failure here.
Botnim was a web application that provided near dishes and their nutritional values. Read now the story of the 2 co-founders with a failed startup.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Shaked Klein Orbach & Gilad Peled
Country:
Israel
Industry:
Food & Beverage
Started in:
2017
Closed in:
2017
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
Bad Market Fit
You can read more about their failure here.
Brisk was a prescriptive intelligence company which suffered from lack of focus. Being dependant on Salesforce was a fatal mistake.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Hampus Jakobsson
Country:
Sweden
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2012
Closed in:
2016
Funding Amount:
$1M-$5M
Specific cause of failure:
Lack of Focus
You can read more about their failure here.
Dane built Cam.ly, a wifi camera that would stream and store video in the cloud. They competed with Google Nest's predecessor but failed to build a polished product before convincing investors to fund it.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Dane Jensen
Country:
United States
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2009
Closed in:
2010
Funding Amount:
< $100K
Specific cause of failure:
Poor Product
You can read more about their failure here.
Delite was a SaaS platform for B2B wholesale orders. It didn’t satisfy any necessity of customers. Just that thing in life you keep putting off.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Patrick Walls
Country:
United States
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2016
Closed in:
2017
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
No Market Need
You can read more about their failure here.
Eloquis was all about bringing personalization to mobile apps. The problem? Early in the market and targeted the wrong customer segment.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Rohit Nallapeta
Country:
United States
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2010
Closed in:
2011
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
No Market Need
You can read more about their failure here.
Justin Anyanwu is a maker who a few years ago built Eventloot, a SaaS platform for wedding planning professionals. He hired some designers and developers and got the SaaS working. But after a few months of running Facebook Ads and sending cold emails, they decided to shut it down. They hadn’t built a platform that solved the problems wedding planners had.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Justin Anyanwu
Country:
United States
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2014
Closed in:
2017
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
No Market Need
You can read more about their failure here.
Andrey Norin is a budding entrepreneur, responsible for all the successes and the failures of ExploreVR. This was a directory site focused 100% on virtual reality. He started it in 2017 and shut down a few months later. His lack of experience in creating a business from scratch was the main cause of failure.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Andrey Norin
Country:
United States
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2017
Closed in:
2017
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
Lack of Experience
You can read more about their failure here.
Fantastic House Buyers was an online service designed to improve the expensive and stressful experience of buying a house in the UK. Alan built it himself and start trying a lot of different marketing strategies. However, after a few months, he realized he had built something that no-one wanted.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Alan Murray
Country:
United Kingdom
Industry:
Services
Started in:
2017
Closed in:
2018
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
No Market Need
You can read more about their failure here.
Flux was a modular multi messaging client. They raised a small angel round of 70K € and invested another 15K €. A combination of many issues led to their failure.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Jan Johannes
Country:
Germany
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2011
Closed in:
2016
Funding Amount:
< $100K
Specific cause of failure:
Bad Management
You can read more about their failure here.
Justin Hunter had the courage to challenge Google Docs, all because he was scared of losing all his writing saved in the cloud. So he created Graphite Docs, a privacy-focused alternative to Google Docs powered by blockchain, that assured users that their saved files were indeed safe. And the effort paid off; he started gaining traction from individual users. However, he decided to focus on the B2B model, rather than B2C, and this decision cost him the business. Why? Read on to find it out.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Justin Hunter
Country:
United States
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2017
Closed in:
2020
Funding Amount:
$100K-$500K
Specific cause of failure:
Bad Business Model
You can read more about their failure here.
Jeff Orr and two friends in college started Gulp- an app to pay bar cover. Gulp was meant to replace the inconvenience of having to go an ATM to pay for a bar’s cover fee, but with the lack of affiliate marketing knowledge and some bad unit economics, the friends quickly ran out of money.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Jeff Orr
Country:
United States
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2014
Closed in:
2015
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
Bad Business Model
You can read more about their failure here.
Gymlisted was a website for finding the right private gym. Every day, Tom would go home from his day job and code up features for Gymlisted until midnight. Once launched, they started with their marketing efforts. But they soon realized there was pretty much no demand for what they were offering.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Tom Zaragoza
Country:
Canada
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2017
Closed in:
2018
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
No Market Need
You can read more about their failure here.
Holger Sindbaek is the founder of Habitual, a habit-tracking app that was initially created since Holger could not find an app that could suit his habit-tracking needs after reading Atomic Habits book. With other successful apps under his belt like a Solitaire card game played by 3M people per month, it seems like he has the knack of making startups fly. So what went wrong with Habitual? Discover it in this interview.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Holger Sindbaek
Country:
Denmark
Industry:
Productivity
Started in:
2019
Closed in:
2021
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
Bad Marketing
You can read more about their failure here.
In 2016, Nelson entered the drone business when trying to develop a solution for farmers who aimed to monitor their grass growth. Things were progressing well and they soon applied for a startup accelerator who provided him and his co-founder $20,000. But after working 10 months on the project, they couldn’t find a way to technically build the product and decided to shut down.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Nelson Shaw
Country:
New Zealand
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2016
Closed in:
2016
Funding Amount:
< $100K
Specific cause of failure:
Lack of Experience
You can read more about their failure here.
Nicolas is an IT support engineer who built Hashtag Pirate, an Instagram hashtag search engine. He hired a freelance developer and, once launched, he put a big focus on SEO. Things were going pretty well. However, in 2015 Instagram announced changes to its API and so Hashtag Pirates stopped working.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Nicolas Elec Attallah
Country:
Spain
Industry:
Social Media
Started in:
2015
Closed in:
2016
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
Dependence on Others
You can read more about their failure here.
Pierre co-founded Hello Tyro, a platform matching students with internship opportunities in Belgian startups. They raised €250k and reached €4k MRR at their top but didn't find Product-Market Fit. They ran out of cash and filed for bankruptcy in 2020.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Pierre Tillement
Country:
Belgium
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2017
Closed in:
2020
Funding Amount:
$100K-$500K
Specific cause of failure:
No Market Need
You can read more about their failure here.
HitroNaSplet was a hosting reseller company. They invested a lot of time in SEO and achieved the first page in Google, which let them start making some monthly revenue. However, after some months, they realized it didn't generate enough revenue to be worth the time invested, so they closed their doors.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Ales Krivec
Country:
Slovenia
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2008
Closed in:
2010
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
Lack of Funds
You can read more about their failure here.
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Hot Barber was a website that let hair stylists set up profiles and customers browse portfolios, but the founders couldn't find a way to monetize it!
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Julia Enthoven
Country:
United States
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2017
Closed in:
2018
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
Bad Business Model
You can read more about their failure here.
Andrew Askins, in partner with two of his best friends, started his company Krit in 2014. In 2015 they launched Ink, a tool that let freelancers create contracts and get them signed online. They got a couple thousand free users, but ultimately got burnt out before they could make the business model work. Now, they have been able to overcome this failure and build a successful consulting business.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Andrew Askins
Country:
United States
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2015
Closed in:
2015
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
Lack of Focus
You can read more about their failure here.
InoVVorX was an app development company that both worked for clients and built their own projects. The business did it well for some time, having a team of 25 people, making $300k from their services, and raising $100k. However, their plans on working on their own products (too many of them) meant they started burning all the money and eventually had to shut down.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Maxim Dsouza
Country:
India
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2010
Closed in:
2016
Funding Amount:
$100K-$500K
Specific cause of failure:
Lack of Funds
You can read more about their failure here.
Jasmeet is an Indian software engineer who a few years ago decided to build new revenue strategies for his business directory and decided to build a job board with a unique offline-online model. But their idea was too ahead to the time and, due to a bad business model, they had to shut down.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Jasmeet Singh
Country:
India
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2017
Closed in:
2017
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
Bad Business Model
You can read more about their failure here.
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KnowNet was a tutoring platform. A SWOT analysis saved Rik and Ari from lifting their name into the failure hall of fame.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Rik Ganguly
Country:
United States
Industry:
Education
Started in:
2014
Closed in:
2014
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
Competition
You can read more about their failure here.
In 2012, Ivo started a 3-year journey building a business that sold iPad racing wheels, which would suck up $50,000 in personal and investor funds. The hardware accelerator he went through wasn't able to help turn his business into a success, neither was the Kickstarter campaign successful. Learning from the experience, today Ivo runs $1M+ crowdfunding campaigns. Read below to learn about his journey.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Ivaylo Kalburdzhiev
Country:
Bulgaria
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2012
Closed in:
2015
Funding Amount:
< $100K
Specific cause of failure:
No Market Need
You can read more about their failure here.
After a decade of training and coaching, Andrew realized that stress was one of their clients’ main issues. That’s how he thought about creating a stress relief app. He partnered up with a dev company to build his idea while he took care of marketing. In few months, he got a great list of interested people, but COVID-19 changed things… the devs were no longer interested in building the app.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Andrew Laux
Country:
United States
Industry:
Health
Started in:
2019
Closed in:
2020
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
Dependence on Others
You can read more about their failure here.
Legaats was a web app where baby boomers and senior citizens could share their important life lessons. 5 were the causes of its failure.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Deepak Chhugani
Country:
United States
Industry:
Social Media
Started in:
2017
Closed in:
2017
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
Bad Business Model
You can read more about their failure here.
Lockpick Entertainment was a small game studio, that created Dreamlords, a famous MMORTS game. They did it well, making thousands per month. But they began to increase the scope, and after 6 years, they went out of business due to bankruptcy.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Jesper Bylund
Country:
Sweden
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2006
Closed in:
2012
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
Competition
You can read more about their failure here.
Mishra Motors was to be the premier electric sports bike in India. Time and capital were the causes of its collapse.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Naveen Mishra
Country:
India
Industry:
Transportation
Started in:
2014
Closed in:
2016
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
Lack of Funds
You can read more about their failure here.
Simple, WiFi-enabled, OBD-II vehicle data logger and cloud services creating a platform for custom software development, which couldn’t reach customers.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Joe Stech
Country:
United States
Industry:
Transportation
Started in:
2013
Closed in:
2013
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
Bad Marketing
You can read more about their failure here.
Eelco built Muun in his own, a SaaS that allowed co-working spaces owners to run their businesses effectively. He validated the idea and after weeks, he launched it. However, once in the market, Muun had to compete with really big competitors which had much more features and a better pricing. So, Eelco decided to shut it down.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Eelco
Country:
Netherlands
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2017
Closed in:
2018
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
Bad Marketing
You can read more about their failure here.
Stepa co-founded MyCity, a tool for local authorities to build relationships with their residents. After realizing they had created a product for a non-existing market, they decided to shut it down.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Stepa Mitaki
Country:
Russia
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2014
Closed in:
2016
Funding Amount:
< $100K
Specific cause of failure:
No Market Need
You can read more about their failure here.
Wes founded Pactero, a platform to simplify the process of managing income share agreements. He confused the initial launch hype with market validation, but it was vanity. The business made around $180 total after spending $55k.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Wes Wagner
Country:
United States
Industry:
Education
Started in:
2020
Closed in:
2021
Funding Amount:
$100K-$500K
Specific cause of failure:
No Market Need
You can read more about their failure here.
Phoenix was a SaaS app to send a last message to the people you love when you die. However, it was the app which died first.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Enrique Benitez
Country:
Mexico
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2017
Closed in:
2017
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
No Market Need
You can read more about their failure here.
Logan was the CEO and CTO of Playdate, an on-demand social networking app. In two years, the startup grew to a team of 7 at its peak and 5,000 monthly active users. However, a collection of causes made the startup uninvestable and they eventually run out of money.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Logan Rado
Country:
United States
Industry:
Social Media
Started in:
2016
Closed in:
2019
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
Lack of Funds
You can read more about their failure here.
Natagon is an entrepreneur from Bali who, trying to solve a problem he was struggling with in his development agency, built a SaaS that mixed a project management software with an accounting one. Using cold-emails, he was soon able to make it profitable, but lack of passion led to its shut down.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Natagon
Country:
Indonesia
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2018
Closed in:
2019
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
Lack of Focus
You can read more about their failure here.
QuickHaggle was a community in which online users could exchange their skills. However, just like in old age, with the barter system, it became really difficult to find people who were looking for your service, and in exchange, could carry out what you needed. After some months, Bilal decided to shut it down.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Bilal Ahmad
Country:
Pakistan
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2010
Closed in:
2011
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
Lack of Funds
You can read more about their failure here.
Jack Ellis quit his full-time job to pursue Raw Gains, a fitness app focused on bodybuilding & coaching. It was self-funded and worked alone on the project. After a meaningless launch, he expected people would “just turn up” and stopped working on it.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Jack Ellis
Country:
United Kingdom
Industry:
Health
Started in:
2013
Closed in:
2018
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
Lack of Experience
You can read more about their failure here.
Gregg Blanchard developed Readership from a fascination with Twitter API. While the visual analytics on Readership was appealing, it didn’t bring enough marketing value to get the buy-in needed to be a successful start-up.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Gregg Blanchard
Country:
United States
Industry:
Analytics
Started in:
2019
Closed in:
2019
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
No Market Need
You can read more about their failure here.
Toby founded two projects that gave him lots of valuable lessons for his current Startup Mill projects. They were RealityHunt and "I Voted Remain". He learned to build a simple landing page before committing to building it and to build processes that simplify your way of working.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Toby Allen
Country:
Belgium
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2016
Closed in:
2017
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
No Market Need
You can read more about their failure here.
Steven was co-founder at Rent Nest, an app that allowed users to collect and share information on houses to rent. They raised some money from friends and were soon accepted on a startup accelerator. Throughout two years, the startup grew to $12k/mo, but they were spending +$40k/mo, which led them to eventually running out of funds and shutting down.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Steven Glod
Country:
United States
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2012
Closed in:
2014
Funding Amount:
< $100K
Specific cause of failure:
Bad Business Model
You can read more about their failure here.
Charlie Reese is a Canadian software developer who came with (what he thought it was) a revolutionary idea for a SaaS business in the real estate industry. Using his knowledge in JavaScript, React, and SQL, he built a prototype in 6 weeks. But he failed to validate his idea and shut down.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Charlie Reese
Country:
Canada
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2017
Closed in:
2018
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
Poor Product
You can read more about their failure here.
Isaac Medeiros is a 23-year-old digital marketer that recently launched his first no-code SaaS project, a mass SMS marketing platform for streamers made with a bunch of no-code tools. We'll discuss how starting using no-code tools helped him realize that building an MVP is easier than ever.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Isaac Medeiros
Country:
Brazil
Industry:
Marketing
Started in:
2020
Closed in:
2020
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
Bad Market Fit
You can read more about their failure here.
Sharkius was a social games company. It grew too fast, too quickly. It reached $80k/month revenue within months and wasted it. Learn from their mistakes!
Details of the startup:
Founder:
David Kramaley
Country:
United Kingdom
Industry:
Entertainment
Started in:
2007
Closed in:
2012
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
Bad Marketing
You can read more about their failure here.
Hunt was a software engineer at a Silicon Valley company when he decided to build Singulution, a point of sale & business management solution for multi-location vendors. However, after 10 months of work and $30,000 spent, he couldn’t validate his idea and ran out of money. The company was eventually absorbed by another startup.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Hunt Burdick
Country:
United States
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2017
Closed in:
2018
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
Bad Market Fit
You can read more about their failure here.
With 2 partners, Stefan co-founded Swipes, a company that developed productivity tools. The startup went through all stages and experiences, even almost fundraising $1M. However, over the 6 years of running, they weren’t able to really find product-market fit and they eventually ran out of money.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Stefan Vladimirov
Country:
Bulgaria
Industry:
Productivity
Started in:
2013
Closed in:
2019
Funding Amount:
< $100K
Specific cause of failure:
Bad Market Fit
You can read more about their failure here.
Joe is a 25-year-old founder who, following Pieter Levels example, decided to build 12 startups in 12 months. Doing some A/B testing for his other projects, he found the existing tools had a lot of missing features and decided to spend 2 months full-time working on a new solution. But things didn't go well...
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Joe D’elia
Country:
United Kingdom
Industry:
Analytics
Started in:
2017
Closed in:
2017
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
Bad Marketing
You can read more about their failure here.
Sergio Mattei is an 18-year-old entrepreneur who built Taleship, a social writing application. He developed it himself when he was 16 and participated in a startup competition. Unfortunately, he didn’t win, but was able to get a lot of experience and knowledge that allowed him to grow it to +600 users. Hurricane Maria demotivated Sergio, who finally decided to shut down Taleship.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Sergio Mattei Diaz
Country:
Puerto Rico
Industry:
Social Media
Started in:
2016
Closed in:
2016
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
Lack of Focus
You can read more about their failure here.
Matt created Tali, a timekeeping solution for lawyers powered by voice technology like Amazon Alexa, and Google Assistant. Like many first start-ups, they encountered many mistakes while trying to build. He created Tali in the effort to help lawyers more effectively keep track of their time instead of using pen and paper. Ultimately, due to a lack of traction and a misfit product market they had to wind things down.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Matthew Volm
Country:
United States
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2017
Closed in:
2019
Funding Amount:
$500K-$1M
Specific cause of failure:
Bad Market Fit
You can read more about their failure here.
Andrew Davison is one of the automation kings. He is a Zapier Certified Expert and an Integromat Partner running Luhhu, a business automation agency. Before that, he built Teacher Finder, a marketplace for language teachers. It didn’t take off, but using Zapier each day helped him start his agency.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Andrew Davison
Country:
Hungary
Industry:
Education
Started in:
2015
Closed in:
2020
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
Competition
You can read more about their failure here.
Team Voice was a SaaS platform for HR professionals. The problem they were trying to solve turned out to be a human problem, not a technology one.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Kirill Vechtomov
Country:
Canada
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2015
Closed in:
2017
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
No Market Need
You can read more about their failure here.
When reading the Lean Startup book, Sergio came up with an idea he wanted to validate: a SaaS to help teams to perform at a higher level. The validation was done successfully, but since then, mistakes related to technology, founding team and listening to customers, meant its shut down 2 years later.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Sergio Schüler
Country:
Brazil
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2012
Closed in:
2013
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
No Market Need
You can read more about their failure here.
Inspired by the iOS app Launchpad, Miloslav Voloskov started drafting ideas to what eventually was called Thepresence. This aimed to provide a more modern and unconventional take on website builders. But this venture got shut down even before it was able to take off. A mental illness shutting down a business that could have changed the drag-and-drop website builder game? It’s more likely than you think.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Miloslav Voloskov
Country:
Russia
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2018
Closed in:
2018
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
Other
You can read more about their failure here.
Vladimir was the founder of Toki, a one-stop solution to finding trends and analytics on TikTok. It started as a side-project, but after launching on Product Hunt, they realized they didn't have a deep connection with the problem they were tackling and lost motivation to keep going.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Vladimir Esaulov
Country:
Russia
Industry:
Marketing
Started in:
2020
Closed in:
2020
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
Lack of Experience
You can read more about their failure here.
Tzelon and Ron are two developers who came with an idea: creating a tool that allowed Twitch streamers analyze their streams and creating short videos with the best moments. But they failed to build an audience around the product and couldn’t get any customers to keep going with the project.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Tzelon Machluf
Country:
Israel
Industry:
Entertainment
Started in:
2015
Closed in:
2015
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
Bad Marketing
You can read more about their failure here.
Vyacheslav is a software engineer who in 2017 decided to build a board for remote jobs on the IT industry. He built it using his programming knowledge and invite a list of contacts he knew to try the product. But he soon realized he couldn’t handle everything and that keeping up the project would require a lot of time and people. It wasn’t going to pay off, so he shut it down.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Vyacheslav Grzhybovsky
Country:
Latvia
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2017
Closed in:
2017
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
Bad Market Fit
You can read more about their failure here.
Waterproof Digital Camera was a blog earning $250/month. Primoz started to look for faster results and carried out Black Hat SEO strategies. It was the failure of his business.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Primoz Cigler
Country:
Slovenia
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2011
Closed in:
2013
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
Bad Marketing
You can read more about their failure here.
Watu was a temporary staffing app founded by José Pablo Fernández and his business partner. The business was very sticky; once a company started using the app, it was very unlikely for them to leave. So what could have gone wrong!? Read our interview with Pablo below to know more.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Pablo Fernández
Country:
United Kingdom
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2011
Closed in:
2015
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
Lack of Funds
You can read more about their failure here.
Tauras is a 30-year old entrepreneur from Lithuania. With the objective of digitizing the wedding planning process, he co-founded WedMap. They launched the tool within some months and carried out a vast number of marketing strategies, which led to a monthly revenue of $2k. However, different problems on team, resources, skills, and product meant WedMap’s failure.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Tauras Sinkus
Country:
Switzerland
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2015
Closed in:
2018
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
Lack of Funds
You can read more about their failure here.
WorldOS was a P2P infrastructure provider. Lucas tried to productize a buzzword, but was not solving the right problem.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Lucas Gonze
Country:
United States
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2005
Closed in:
2005
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
No Market Need
You can read more about their failure here.
WURA was an on-demand video platform for African and Nollywood movies. Mike hired a few developers to build it and spent $35,000 on Facebook marketing. The business grew fast and he was making $3,861 per month. However, YouTube competition and cash flow killed the startup.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Michael Ojo
Country:
United States
Industry:
Entertainment
Started in:
2013
Closed in:
2018
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
Lack of Funds
You can read more about their failure here.
Jon was one of the Yottio’s co-founders, a mobile-first tool that enabled video participation on broadcast television. The startup went through all experiences, including making $200k in revenue, spending $150k for operations, a co-founder leaving the business and a $20m acquisition offer. However, Yottio eventually ran out of cash and shut down.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Jon Lawrence
Country:
United States
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2013
Closed in:
2015
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
Lack of Funds
You can read more about their failure here.
When he was 16 years old, Mat wanted to help his family improve the standards of living. So, he started a business which imported consumer electronics and re-sold them at almost x10 the original price. Through affiliates, he was able to put his business on the track to 6 figures in the first year. However, one day he received a call from a law firm which forced him to shut down the startup.
Details of the startup:
Founder:
Mathew Carpenter
Country:
Australia
Industry:
Software & Hardware
Started in:
2008
Closed in:
2009
Funding Amount:
$0
Specific cause of failure:
Legal Challenges
You can read more about their failure here.
