108 Failed Web App Startups & Analyses on Why they Failed
Countless startups are being launched every day.
Many fail because they did not learn from the success of other companies who've managed to rise above.
We just published this list of 108 web app startups with analyses on why they shut down, and interviews with their founders.
108 Failed Web App Startups
1) Admazely
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.
2) Alikolo
Alikolo was an eMarketplace company. The founder didn't have a clear vision and didn't know the reasons why customers purchased at his rivals.
Details of the startup:
- Founders: Danny Taniwan
- Country: Indonesia
- Industry: e-Commerce
- Started in: 2014
- Closed in: 2015
- Nº of employees: 1-10
- Funding Amount: < $1M
- Specific cause of failure: Lack of Experience
You can read more about their failure here.
3) Appiterate
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.
4) Argyle Social
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.
5) Auctionata
Auctionata was an online auction platform for art and luxury. Their issues originated from unethical behavior, lack of transparency, and lies by the CEO.
Details of the startup:
- Founders: Alexander Gilkes, Alexander Zacke, Georg Untersalmberger, Susanne Zacke
- Country: Germany
- Industry: e-Commerce
- Started in: 2012
- Closed in: 2017
- Nº of employees: 250-500
- Funding Amount: > $50M
- Specific cause of failure: Legal Challenges
You can read more about their failure here.
6) Beepi
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.
7) BitPass
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.
8) Brisk
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.
9) ChaCha
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.
10) CircleBack Lending
CircleBack Lending was a loan marketplace. Due to problems with profitability and issues with the industry, the startup was forced to cease its operations.
Details of the startup:
- Founders: Manoj Ramnani & Patrick Questembert
- Country: United States
- Industry: Finances
- Started in: 2012
- Closed in: 2016
- Nº of employees: 10-50
- Funding Amount: $10M-$50M
- Specific cause of failure: Bad Business Model
You can read more about their failure here.
11) Crowdmix
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.
12) Delicious
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
- Specific cause of failure: Acquisition Flu
You can read more about their failure here.
13) Design Inc.
Design Inc. linked clients to talented designers. They reached market saturation and the startup could not make enough revenue to cover operation costs.
Details of the startup:
- Founders: Bjoern Zinssmeister, Marc Hemeon
- Country: United States
- Industry: Design
- Started in: 2016
- Closed in: 2017
- Nº of employees: 1-10
- Funding Amount: $1M-$10M
- Specific cause of failure: Bad Business Model
You can read more about their failure here.
14) Digg
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.
15) Dinner Lab
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.
16) Dinnr
Dinnr allowed to select a recipe and order pre-measured ingredients accompanied with instructions. However, there wasn’t a market need for the business.
Details of the startup:
- Founders: Adil Mohammed, Michal Bohanes
- Country: United Kingdom
- Industry: Food & Beverage
- Started in: 2012
- Closed in: 2014
- Nº of employees: 1-10
- Funding Amount: < $1M
- Specific cause of failure: No Market Need
You can read more about their failure here.
17) Dopplr
Dopplr was a social travel network service. In 2009, Nokia acquired it for $20 million and the number of Dopplr users fell since then until shutting down.
Details of the startup:
- Founders: Dan Gillmor, Lisa Sounio, Marko Ahtisaari, Matt Jones, Taneli Tikka
- Country: United States
- Industry: Travel
- Started in: 2007
- Closed in: Active
- Nº of employees: 1-10
- Specific cause of failure: Acquisition Flu
You can read more about their failure here.
18) DotCloud
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.
19) Flud
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.
20) Formspring
Formspring was an anonymous Q&A forum that grew to 1 million users in 2 months. This brought lots of cyberbullying on the site. They shut down after 4 years.
Details of the startup:
- Founders: Ade Olonoh, John Wechsler
- Country: United States
- Industry: Social Media
- Started in: 2009
- Closed in: 2013
- Nº of employees: 10-50
- Funding Amount: $10M-$50M
- Specific cause of failure: Legal Challenges
You can read more about their failure here.
21) Frankly
Frankly.me was a Q&A social platform that wasn’t able to raise the necessary round of funding. That is why the CEO of Frankly decided to shut it down.
Details of the startup:
- Founders: Abhishek Gupta, Nikunj Jain
- Country: India
- Industry: Social Media
- Started in: 2014
- Closed in: 2016
- Nº of employees: 50-100
- Funding Amount: < $1M
- Specific cause of failure: Lack of PMF
You can read more about their failure here.
22) Friendster
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.
23) Gowalla
Gowalla was a location-based social platform that allowed users to share their location. It tried to do many things at once, and shut down after 5 years.
Details of the startup:
- Founders: Josh Williams, Scott Raymond
- Country: United States
- Industry: Social Media
- Started in: 2007
- Closed in: 2013
- Nº of employees: 10-50
- Funding Amount: $10M-$50M
- Specific cause of failure: Competition
You can read more about their failure here.
24) Grooveshark
Grooveshark was a streaming music platform. Its major weakness was that it illegally streamed music. They were sued multiples times and had to shut down.
Details of the startup:
- Founders: Andres Barreto, Josh Greenberg, Sam Tarantino
- Country: United States
- Industry: Music
- Started in: 2006
- Closed in: 2015
- Nº of employees: 50-100
- Funding Amount: $1M-$10M
- Specific cause of failure: Legal Challenges
You can read more about their failure here.
25) HiGear
HiGear was a peer-to-peer online company that listed luxury cars for rent. A criminal gang stole four cars worth $400k. They opted to shut down operations.
Details of the startup:
- Founders: Ali Moiz, Murtaza Hussain
- Country: United States
- Industry: Transportation
- Started in: 2011
- Closed in: 2011
- Nº of employees: 1-10
- Funding Amount: $1M-$10M
- Specific cause of failure: Legal Challenges
You can read more about their failure here.
26) HitMeUp
HitMeUp was a web-based business commercial center. The founder had no tech background, and after launching 3 versions, they decided to shut down.
Details of the startup:
- Founders: Charlie Pool
- Country: United Kingdom
- Industry: e-Commerce
- Started in: 2011
- Closed in: 2015
- Nº of employees: 1-10
- Funding Amount: < $1M
- Specific cause of failure: Lack of Experience
You can read more about their failure here.
27) HotelsAroundYou
HotelsAroundYou was an India service centered on last-minute and short stay bookings. They weren't capable of raising more money and had to shut down.
Details of the startup:
- Founders: Animesh Chaudhary, Harsha Nallur, Mohsin Dingankar
- Country: India
- Industry: Travel
- Started in: 2013
- Closed in: 2017
- Nº of employees: 1-10
- Funding Amount: < $1M
- Specific cause of failure: Competition
You can read more about their failure here.
28) HubHaus
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.
29) Kiko
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.
30) Kitchit
Kitchit brought local chefs to your home. They had to compete with other big food providers in the same market, which provoked their failure.
Details of the startup:
- Founders: Brendan Marshall, Ian Ferguson
- 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: Competition
You can read more about their failure here.
31) Koinex
Koinex was a cryptocurrency exchange platform. India's laws got harsh against cryptocurrencies and the obstacles and little profits led to its shut down.
Details of the startup:
- Founders: Aditya Naik, Rahul Raj, Rakesh Yadav
- Country: India
- Industry: Finances
- Started in: 2017
- Closed in: 2019
- Nº of employees: 50-100
- Specific cause of failure: Legal Challenges
You can read more about their failure here.
32) LayerVault
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.
33) Mailbox
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.
34) Maple
Maple prepared and delivered meals in NY. They were losing money on each meal and it only began making a profit from 2016, just before they shut down.
Details of the startup:
- Founders: Akshay Navle, Caleb Merkl
- Country: United States
- Industry: Food & Beverage
- Started in: 2014
- Closed in: 2017
- Nº of employees: 100-250
- Funding Amount: $10M-$50M
- Specific cause of failure: Bad Business Model
You can read more about their failure here.
35) Monitor110
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.
36) Moped
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.
37) MySpace
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.
38) Netscape
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
- Specific cause of failure: Poor Product
You can read more about their failure here.
39) OpTier
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.
40) Poliana
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.
41) Radar Radio
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.
42) Rdio
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.
43) Reach.ly
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.
44) ScaleFactor
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.
45) SchoolGennie
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.
46) SellanApp
SellanApp connected people who had an idea for an app with app developers that could materialize it. It failed due to an unhealthy co-founder partnership.
Details of the startup:
- Founders: Aernoud Dekker, Milan van den Bovenkamp
- Country: The Netherlands
- Industry: Finances
- Started in: 2012
- Closed in: 2015
- Nº of employees: 1-10
- Funding Amount: < $1M
- Specific cause of failure: Failure to Pivot
You can read more about their failure here.
47) Selltag
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.
48) Sharingear
Sharinger was a marketplace for musicians to rent their instruments. They focused on a market that was too small and the business model was unsustainable.
Details of the startup:
- Founders: Mircea Gabriel Eftemie
- Country: Denmark
- Industry: Music
- Started in: 2014
- 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.
49) SpoonRocket
SpoonRocket was a food delivery service making healthy meals each day. When their financial situation declined, they failed to fundraise to stay afloat.
Details of the startup:
- Founders: Anson Tsui, Steven Hsiao
- Country: United States
- Industry: Food & Beverage
- Started in: 2013
- Closed in: 2016
- Nº of employees: 10-50
- Funding Amount: $10M-$50M
- Specific cause of failure: Competition
You can read more about their failure here.
50) Sprig
Sprig delivered meals to customers who were looking for healthy choices. Sprig found the process time-consuming and expensive, and decided to shut down.
Details of the startup:
- Founders: Gagan Biyani, Matt Kent, Morgan Springer, Neeraj Berry
- Country: United States
- Industry: Food & Beverage
- Started in: 2013
- Closed in: 2017
- Nº of employees: 50-100
- Funding Amount: > $50M
- Specific cause of failure: Competition
You can read more about their failure here.
51) Stayzilla
Stayzilla, once a thriving homestay network with $33.5M in funding, closed due to unsustainable operational costs and consistent financial losses.
Details of the startup:
- Founders: Rupal Yogendra, Sachit Singhi, Sachit Singhi, Yogendra Vasupal
- Country: India
- Industry: Travel
- Started in: 2005
- Closed in: 2017
- Nº of employees: 250-500
- Funding Amount: $10M-$50M
- Specific cause of failure: Lack of Focus
You can read more about their failure here.
52) Stereomood
Stereomood was a music platform that provided mood-based song listings. The company was acquired but they weren’t able to make a profit.
Details of the startup:
- Founders: Daniele Novaga, Eleonora Viviani, Giovanni Ferron, Maurizio Pratici
- Country: Italy
- Industry: Music
- Started in: 2009
- Closed in: 2015
- Nº of employees: 10-50
- Specific cause of failure: Acquisition Flu
You can read more about their failure here.
53) Sunrise
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.
54) TeeBeeDee
TeeBeeDee was a social network aimed at people over 40 to share their experiences. They weren’t able to grow their user base fast enough to survive.
Details of the startup:
- Founders: David Markus, Jon Brandt, Robin Wolaner, Todd Basche
- Country: United States
- Industry: Social Media
- Started in: 2007
- Closed in: 2009
- Nº of employees: 10-50
- Funding Amount: $1M-$10M
- Specific cause of failure: Bad Business Model
You can read more about their failure here.
55) Transpose
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.
56) Turntable.fm
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.
57) Tutorspree
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.
58) Utrip
Utrip was a travel planning startup that used AI to create personalized itineraries. Keeping the recommendation engine alive was too much for them.
Details of the startup:
- Founders: Gilad Berenstein, Yair Berenstein
- Country: United States
- Industry: Travel
- Started in: 2012
- Closed in: 2019
- Nº of employees: 10-50
- Funding Amount: $1M-$10M
- Specific cause of failure: Mismanagement of Funds
You can read more about their failure here.
59) Vine
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
- Specific cause of failure: Multiple Reasons
You can read more about their failure here.
60) Wesabe
Wesabe is a former Personal Finance Management system that helped clients make better financial decisions. Having better competitors made Wesabe fail.
Details of the startup:
- Founders: Jason Knight, Marc Hedlund
- Country: United States
- Industry: Finances
- Started in: 2005
- Closed in: 2010
- Nº of employees: 10-50
- Funding Amount: $1M-$10M
- Specific cause of failure: Bad Management
You can read more about their failure here.
61) Zirtual
Zirtual was a virtual assistant marketplace for busy entrepreneurs. Its management and the high burn rate brought the firm on the verge of bankruptcy.
Details of the startup:
- Founders: Collin Vine, Erik Jensen, Maren Kate Donovan
- Country: United States
- Industry: Software & Hardware
- Started in: 2011
- Closed in: 2015
- Nº of employees: 100-250
- Funding Amount: $1M-$10M
- Specific cause of failure: Mismanagement of Funds
You can read more about their failure here.
62) Zoomo
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.
63) ABBY
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
- Specific cause of failure: No Market Need
You can read more about their failure here.
64) Addressbin
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
- Specific cause of failure: Bad Marketing
You can read more about their failure here.
65) Adproval
Matthew founded Adproval, a marketplace to connect blogging and social media influencers with brands. Raised around $300k in funds and made $200/mo from their self-service software for bloggers. In the end, they made over $200k in revenue from consulting services but it wasn't enough.
Details of the startup:
- Founder: Matthew Anderson
- Country: United States
- Industry: Marketing
- Started in: 2011
- Closed in: 2017
- Specific cause of failure: Bad Business Model
You can read more about their failure here.
66) Ansaro
Sam was one of the co-founders of Ansaro, a SaaS that aimed to revolutionize the recruiting industry through the use of technologies like AI. They raised $2.25M from institutional investors and $750K from friends and family, grew the team to 6 members and earned in total $100k. But with expenses of $70k/month and no product-market fit, they had to shut down 2 years later.
Details of the startup:
- Founder: Sam Stone
- Country: United States
- Industry: Software & Hardware
- Started in: 2016
- Closed in: 2018
- Specific cause of failure: Bad Market Fit
You can read more about their failure here.
67) AskTina
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
- Specific cause of failure: Bad Market Fit
You can read more about their failure here.
68) Birdy
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
- Specific cause of failure: Lack of Funds
You can read more about their failure here.
69) Boston Apartment Hub
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
- Specific cause of failure: Bad Market Fit
You can read more about their failure here.
70) Botnim
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
- Specific cause of failure: Bad Market Fit
You can read more about their failure here.
71) Brisk
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
- Specific cause of failure: Lack of Focus
You can read more about their failure here.
72) Creator Growth Lab
Andrew Kamphey has started several projects related to creators and influencer marketing. One of them was Creator Growth Lab, a tool to help Instagram creators grow by themselves. He invested $5,000, never made a penny, and realized there was no need for that product.
Details of the startup:
- Founder: Andrew Kamphey
- Country: Indonesia
- Industry: Analytics
- Started in: 2018
- Closed in: 2019
- Specific cause of failure: Dependence on Others
You can read more about their failure here.
73) Delite
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
- Specific cause of failure: No Market Need
You can read more about their failure here.
74) Eventloot
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
- Specific cause of failure: No Market Need
You can read more about their failure here.
75) ExploreVR
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
- Specific cause of failure: Lack of Experience
You can read more about their failure here.
76) Fantastic House Buyers
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
- Specific cause of failure: No Market Need
You can read more about their failure here.
77) Formatically
Duncan Hamra has been building businesses with his best friend Tyler since they were in high school. They built Formatically, an instant citation tool that didn't take off. We'll discuss what went wrong with this project, and how those learnings helped him start Memberstack.
Details of the startup:
- Founder: Duncan Hamra
- Country: United States
- Industry: Education
- Started in: 2014
- Closed in: 2018
- Specific cause of failure: Bad Business Model
You can read more about their failure here.
78) Gymlisted
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
- Specific cause of failure: No Market Need
You can read more about their failure here.
79) Hashtag Pirate
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
- Specific cause of failure: Dependence on Others
You can read more about their failure here.
80) Hello Tyro
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
- Specific cause of failure: No Market Need
You can read more about their failure here.
81) Hot Barber
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
- Specific cause of failure: Bad Business Model
You can read more about their failure here.
82) Hubrif
Tobi Ogunwande is a Nigerian filmmaker who tried to build the Netflix for African short films as a result of his frustration to find great African movies. He partnered with a technical co-founder and soon after launching, they were seeing an average of 1,000 views on their films. However, they soon realized the market niche was too small and there wasn’t a clear business model. Eventually, they run out of money and shut down.
Details of the startup:
- Founder: Tobi Ogunwande
- Country: Nigeria
- Industry: Entertainment
- Started in: 2015
- Closed in: 2016
- Specific cause of failure: Bad Business Model
You can read more about their failure here.
83) Ink
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
- Specific cause of failure: Lack of Focus
You can read more about their failure here.
84) Jobridge
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
- Specific cause of failure: Bad Business Model
You can read more about their failure here.
85) KnowNet
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
- Specific cause of failure: Competition
You can read more about their failure here.
86) Legaats
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
- Specific cause of failure: Bad Business Model
You can read more about their failure here.
87) Muun
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
- Specific cause of failure: Bad Marketing
You can read more about their failure here.
88) MyCity
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
- Specific cause of failure: No Market Need
You can read more about their failure here.
89) Onepagetrip
Onepagetrip was a travel itinerary sharing community. Not having a plan to make money from the beginning was a stupid rookie mistake.
Details of the startup:
- Founder: Ana Santos
- Country: Australia
- Industry: Travel
- Started in: 2014
- Closed in: 2015
- Specific cause of failure: Bad Business Model
You can read more about their failure here.
90) Pactero
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
- Specific cause of failure: No Market Need
You can read more about their failure here.
91) Patron.ai
Ömer launched patron.ai, a gamification platform for developer teams. After promoting it on Twitter and Product Hunt without getting much traction, he decided to shut down the project. That decision was mainly due to a lack of product-market fit and not talking enough to users that signed up.
Details of the startup:
- Founder: Ömer Taban
- Country: Turkey
- Industry: Productivity
- Started in: 2018
- Closed in: 2020
- Specific cause of failure: Bad Market Fit
You can read more about their failure here.
92) Phez
Shanti is a 38-year-old software developer and entrepreneur who, using Ruby on Rails, built Phez, a Reddit clone that rewarded users with Bitcoin. After a few months, however, Phez failed due to its poor business model. If Shanti would have sold the BTC he used as rewards at BTC peak, he would have made $29,014!
Details of the startup:
- Founder: Shanti Braford
- Country: United States
- Industry: Social Media
- Started in: 2015
- Closed in: 2016
- Specific cause of failure: Bad Business Model
You can read more about their failure here.
93) Phoenix
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
- Specific cause of failure: No Market Need
You can read more about their failure here.
94) QuickHaggle
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
- Specific cause of failure: Lack of Funds
You can read more about their failure here.
95) Raw Gains
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
- Specific cause of failure: Lack of Experience
You can read more about their failure here.
96) Readership
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
- Specific cause of failure: No Market Need
You can read more about their failure here.
97) Reality Hunt
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
- Specific cause of failure: No Market Need
You can read more about their failure here.
98) REPitchbook
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
- Specific cause of failure: Poor Product
You can read more about their failure here.
99) Swipes
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
- Specific cause of failure: Bad Market Fit
You can read more about their failure here.
100) Tailor
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
- Specific cause of failure: Bad Marketing
You can read more about their failure here.
101) Taleship
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
- Specific cause of failure: Lack of Focus
You can read more about their failure here.
102) Tali
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
- Specific cause of failure: Bad Market Fit
You can read more about their failure here.
103) Teacher Finder
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
- Specific cause of failure: Competition
You can read more about their failure here.
104) Team Voice
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
- Specific cause of failure: No Market Need
You can read more about their failure here.
105) Toki
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
- Specific cause of failure: Lack of Experience
You can read more about their failure here.
106) Vacation Bird
Gene founded VacationBird, a marketplace for finding your vacation rental. It was an early version of Airbnb and a VRBO competitor. Having a misalignment of incentives between co-founders and poor planning were the main causes to shut it down in 2012.
Details of the startup:
- Founder: Gene Maryushenko
- Country: United States
- Industry: Travel
- Started in: 2011
- Closed in: 2012
- Specific cause of failure: Lack of Experience
You can read more about their failure here.
107) WantRemoteJob
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
- Specific cause of failure: Bad Market Fit
You can read more about their failure here.
108) WURA
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
- Specific cause of failure: Lack of Funds
You can read more about their failure here.
