What it is the best idea you've seen fail? Why do you think it failed?
LONDON JACKSON
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Vinod Iyengar@vinodiyengar
Pocket LLM
Folks may not remember, but Google Wave's launch was one of the most avidly watched one and it was way ahead of it's times. It looked like the future of email, but unfortunately the product didn't succeed due to various reasons including a bit of Google being Google Thankfully a lot of the capabilities have lived on through other products in the Google suite
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Prismatic was the best new aggregator that I have ever used. They tried to monetize it in a really weird way from what I remember and ultimately shut it down. The founder ended up going and working at Facebook afterward.
google reader. It failed because it took away revenue from googles cash cow 🐮💸. The ad business. So google nixed it 😂 people still want it to come back. 10-15 years later 😅
@sentry_co Agree! Google Reader was a masterpiece! They could easily show ads somewhere instead of ruining it.
Norway tried to make an electric car called buddy. It was before Tesla. Right when they were about to scale the business the financial crisis hit. I worked in an agency that saw their pitch for what to come. It was pretty cool. Fast forward to today and they now make electric bikes instead. Which is pretty cool. So all was not lost I guess.
Product Hunt
I know it has been 10 years since being killed, but I'm still salty about Google Reader. The Verge recently wrote an article about why it happened: https://www.theverge.com/2377825...
@product_at_producthunt a bit before my time, just the article. crazy.
One of my first summer jobs, 15 years ago, was with Microsoft. We went into Best Buy and were demoing the 'Microsoft Smart Watch.' This was before wearables were cool.
I think the main reason why it failed was timing.
The average consumer wasn't ready for a wearable electronic. Fast forward to now, wearables are everywhere.
Amazely
Evernote Food is an embodiment of the term "Good product, wrong market". It was launched by Evernote and gained momentum, the product idea is fresh and innovative too but it completely goes against the product market fit of the mother company - Evernote. Can read it more here: https://nira.com/evernote-food/
'm not entirely certain if we should label it as a 'failure,' but I believe Clubhouse significantly declined after Twitter introduced 'Twitter Spaces.' The initial hype and FOMO surrounding the product were strong. Similar parallels can be drawn with Orkut, where Facebook emerged and Orkut eventually vanished.
Dezan.cc
A decentralised blockchain?
@gagandt @londonothecity If every blockchain product would disappear tomorrow. What would be the impact on the world?
Amazely
@gagandt From my point of view, blockchain is still a breakthrough technology for networking and security. But the products built on blockchain at this time do not have "much" impact on society. Most are gambling apps or financial apps. But in the next 5 to 10 years, I bet it brings a lot of computing power to the digital era.
Dezan.cc
Following up on my comment, An ideal blockchain should be decentralised, secure and and scalable.
And we're yet to see something that facilitates all three.
Mentor.AI
One of the best ideas I've seen fail in the edtech industry was a gamified learning platform for math. Despite its engaging interface and interactive features, the platform struggled to gain traction. The primary reason for its failure was the lack of personalized learning content and adaptive assessments, which resulted in limited customization for students with varying skill levels. Additionally, the platform faced challenges in user acquisition and retention due to insufficient marketing strategies and a competitive landscape. Ultimately, the failure highlights the importance of combining engaging design with effective educational content and comprehensive user support to succeed in the edtech market.
WeWork came to my mind. Even though it didn't fail completely, it was on the edge. Because every product needs to be managed in the right way, you can't rely only on your guts all the time🤌
I have seen a couple of brilliant ideas with good execution fail because the market wasn't ready for them yet. They also failed to create a market for them
Despite its revolutionary approach to social media, Google+ was a promising idea that failed due to poor implementation, a complex user interface, and a failure to differentiate itself substantially from existing platforms like Facebook and Twitter, thus demonstrating that even a brilliant idea needs strategic execution to be successful
Online delivery of medicines in India.
The problem was buying medicines is a hyperlocal business in India where people usually trust their nearby pharmacy much more than an e-commerce conglomerate.
@kaustumbh7 So interesting -- I wonder if this will change with time?
@londonothecity Not sure about that. But one thing I see can help build towards this is, winning the trust of customers rather than burning VC money to offer deep discounts.
PocketGuard
One of the biggest mistakes I keep seeing everywhere is wasting months on launching (or integrating) a new feature with the wrong business model pre-calculation. As a result, people waste time and money on development and finally get negative profit which is bad for investors.
P.S. think slow, resolve fast.
Folderr
I think failure is itself an opportunity to learn more.
Afforai
All the ideas people didn’t have the opportunity to pursue fully.