Top 7 Good Ideas That Didn't Work: Why Startups Fail

Not all startups with amazing prospects survive. Some projects have good ideas but fail, reports Forbes.

Photo: IStock

“Having been involved in web development and digital marketing since the mid-1990s, I've seen countless failed ideas,” says Lee Egstrom, founder of Quora.

There are many examples of good and in some cases even great ideas that have failed. In many cases, there are several complexities that may have led these startups to their demise.

Below are examples of a few ideas that had very successful and profitable results for the time that seem to be unsuccessful compared to the market success of their contemporary counterparts.

“It's important to note that while some of these ideas failed, I would by no means call the founders of the teams behind them failures,” Egström says.

The main idea is that the pioneers are killed, and the settlers finish what they started.

pets.com

It would be remiss if we did not mention this startup from the late nineties. Pets.com has become the epitome of dot-com cautionary tales.

Launched in August 1998, the idea was simple and straightforward: imagine an Amazon for pet owners. Save money by shopping online and paying less for a variety of pet products.

With a cute, albeit clumsy, catchy sock puppy logo and a big marketing budget at launch, the site quickly raised $80 million in funding. Within a short time, the puppy mascot was seen everywhere from the Super Bowl to Conan, Regis and Katie Lee.

In late 2000, the startup collapsed after spending $300 million in about twenty-three months. More than XNUMX people were fired after the site closed.

“I would suggest that it was a great idea for its time. A trend that was shared by many of the dot-com darlings in the late nineties, just before the bubble burst,” says Egström.

WebVan.com

Webvan is another well-known brainchild of the dot-com bubble that burst at the beginning of the millennium.

On the subject: More than half of American billionaire startups are founded by immigrants: why it is not easy for visitors to build a business in the USA

Imagine shopping at an online grocery store with Vons selection, Trader Joe's quality, and Walmart prices. And on top of all these benefits, groceries and household items are delivered right to your door!

Didn't Bezos make billions on the same idea and become the third richest person alive, allowing him to follow Elon Musk into space?

Before Amazon, there was Borders, one of the largest pre-Internet music and book retailers. Founded by Louis Borders, a man ahead of his time. Necessity was the mother of invention, and Louis didn't need a magic ball to see the Internet eat up his lunch. P2P tools like Napster were invading music sales, and while Bezos' fledgling startup was not yet profitable, book sales began to decline.

Louis was a real trailblazer and even had a partner named Clark. Kimberly-Clark brings her experience in marketing and branding to the table. But, as they say, "pioneers are killed, but settlers prosper."

WebVan faced the dot-com collapse.

In an interesting twist of events, many of the bright minds that launched WebVan were instrumental at Amazon, driving Jeff's success. Doug Herrington, Peter Ham, Mick Mounttz, and Mark Mastandrea are former members of the WebVan team who went on to become Amazon's top executives and thought leaders.

Louis Borders founded a new home delivery service called HDS. And while it's not exactly a new school, it's taking a different path to success this time around.

While most startups these days are turning to a venture capital firm like Consumer Equity Partners and bringing in people like Tom Furphy (a former WebVan exec) for the first round, Louis is ignoring the traditional path, forging a new path and funding his own. the latest venture through partnerships with companies such as Toyota, who are delighted to be first in line to license new technology Borders is developing at his new facility.

six degrees

Have you ever played Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon? The premise is that everyone is no more than six points of contact from any other person. In the game, you try to link the actors to Kevin by listing the movies in a chain until you manage to link them. If it takes more than six films, you will lose.

Well, in 1997, SixDegrees.com was founded on the same premise: we are all connected and should post and interact online with our social connections. Considered by many to be the original social network, Six Degrees was followed by Friendster and MySpace with honorable mentions.

Calling Six Degrees a flop would be a bit of an overstatement, however, as its $125 million sale by founder Andrew Weinreich helped launch a long line of successful ventures.

Ask jeeves

Imagine you go to a website and type in any question you can think of. In a few seconds, you get a list of answers and links to websites.

Ask Jeeves was one of the first natural language search engines.

In 1996, David Worthen created natural language technology and partnered with Garret Gruner. During the year, the site gained popularity and expanded exponentially. Many of Ask Jeeves' other ideas were brilliant. As a father, I especially like the AJKids version. A safe search engine especially for children!

The site was bought by IAC in 2005 and the name was changed to Ask.com.

Ten years after David and Garrett met, the new owners of IAC fired their butler, Jeeves. In 2007, the site was declared a failure by none other than the characters in South Park, who quipped that no one in the world uses Ask Jeeves.

WebTV

WebTV was one of the most exciting developments of 1996. Imagine a world where you can connect to the Internet and view content and email without the need for a personal computer. Blasphemy!

WebTV was the first widely available consumer device that promised to connect TVs to the Internet.

These devices were the forerunners of the ChromeBook and other modern single-function devices.

The company was founded by Steve Perlman, a true pioneer and visionary in every sense. Working as chief scientist with Jobs and Woz, as well as president of the Gates and Allen division, he is a game-changer. Perlman's biography and long list of accomplishments are worthy of both a Google search and a closer look.

“In 1995, I was a young programmer and had been developing websites for about a year. There were about 20 websites on the Internet. Home computers were expensive and had not yet become the widespread must-have devices they would become, says Egström. — WebTV delivered on the promise of inexpensive web browsing without the need for a full PC. Bringing new users online by the thousands, content creators of yesteryear welcomed the device with open arms.”

Perlman introduced coding standards for web TV formatting, effectively introducing the idea of ​​responsive websites twenty years before today's smartphones.

WebTV successfully launched the Internet TV category and became a recognized proof of concept.

The founders exited with a $425 million sale to Microsoft. In a vacuum, this would seem like a huge win. However, looking at the plethora of internet-connected devices and smart TVs, it's safe to assume they've lost out.

In 2001, Microsoft renamed WebTV to MSN TV and hastily integrated messenger and Hotmail. A few years ago, some features were taken over by the highly successful Microsoft Xbox console.
Microsoft closed the service in August 2013 following the release of the following statement:

“Web TV (later called MSN TV) began in 1996 with the goal of bringing new people online and providing those who are already online with an easy and convenient way to access the Internet from the comfort of their homes. MSN TV 2 was later released with much more features. Since then, the web has continued to evolve at a breathtaking pace, and there have been many new ways to access the Internet. Accordingly, we have made the difficult decision to close the MSN TV service on September 30, 2013….”

Color

Color quickly raised $41 million in its first funding round, largely thanks to the previous successes of its two co-founders: Nguyen, who founded Lala, an online music service that was sold to Apple for $80 million, and Peter Pham, former CEO of BillShrink.

Color was an innovative photo-sharing app that promised to use social and geographic data. With such a simple idea, startup news sites quickly began to ridicule the app and criticize a massive funding round that many assumed was based more on the co-founders than the merits of the concept.

Color was launched in May 2011 to little fanfare. Just six months later, the site changed and was relaunched as Facebook's video streaming service.

While the site was at one point garnering 400 monthly active users, less funded apps like Instagram were getting 000 million daily users.

In 2012, about a year after launch, rumors began to surface that Color was shutting down. The co-founders initially denied the rumors. While it's possible they were still holding on at the time, the app closed after a month.

Apple acquired the company for $7 million, which is a significant drop from the $41 million they raised in the first round.

The fact that they raised such a large sum so quickly from some of the smartest VCs in the valley, and that Apple acquired the core technology and team, is evidence that on some level this was a good idea.

IndexMedical

Think Yelp for Pharmaceuticals! Launched in June 2000, IndexMedical was a search engine and review site dedicated to the pharmaceutical/medical device vertical.

The premise was brilliant. Allow people to search for medical products, view images, and read reviews.

As described on the home page of the website: “Get the latest information on the medical devices and supplies you need. Manufacturers and distributors post full catalogs of their products for free. Information is updated constantly, in real time. a place where you can find the information you need.”

The brain behind this dot-com was eighty-five years old. One of the greatest medical minds of our time, Dr. Gottschalk, was the inventor of the Nasostat device, which is used daily in emergency rooms around the world to save countless lives.

You may be interested in: top New York news, stories of our immigrants, and helpful tips about life in the Big Apple - read it all on ForumDaily New York.

Gottschalk's first exposure to the Internet came when he bought a home computer. He spent decades searching outdated paper catalogs of medical devices for his patients. The inspiration came and he decided to create a web portal that would contain a searchable database of new medical equipment.

In May 2000, after about two years of development, the company hosted a lavish launch party at one of the most exclusive country clubs in the Los Angeles area. The event was covered by Los Angels Times.

Gottschalk's free website, which he hoped would be supported by advertising, was supposed to feature more than 150 medical products.

The site URL is now for sale.

You can spend hours wandering down the lanes of memory and talking about great or even brilliant ideas that failed for a variety of reasons.

There's an old saying in technology: “An early idea is worse than a bad idea”.

This is largely due to the fact that smart founders and brilliant venture capitalists are quick to test bad ideas and avoid them easily. A good idea before the time is right can become a death trap, draining the resources of the pioneers and wasting time fertilizing the soil for the settlers who will come later and thrive.

Read also on ForumDaily:

Top 10 jobs with good pay and low stress

IRS publishes deductions and limits for next tax season: inflation hit numbers hard

Top 14 Websites with Free Online Courses to Learn a New Career or Hobby

Do you want more important and interesting news about life in the USA and immigration to America? — support us donate! Also subscribe to our page Facebook. Select the “Priority in display” option and read us first. Also, don't forget to subscribe to our РєР ° РЅР ° Р »РІ Telegram  and Instagram- there is a lot of interesting things there. And join thousands of readers ForumDaily New York — there you will find a lot of interesting and positive information about life in the metropolis.