World's Top 5 failed Startup ever
Top 5 failed Start-up
1. Wesabe
What it was: A web-based personal money management tool.
Funding: $4.7 million
Active Dates: December 2005 – July 2010
What happened: Competing personal money management tool Mint launched in September 2007 at the TechCrunch 40 conference with a better design and easier user experience. Two years later, Mint was acquired by Intuit for for $170 million.
What the experts say: According to Wesabe cofounder Marc Hedlund, Mint decided to use screen-scraping financial data aggregation service Yodlee while Wesabe decided to built its own financial data tool. It took too long for Wesabe to build it, and as a result Mint has a better, easier to use service.
2. COlOR
What it was: An ambient photo sharing app.
Funding: $41 million
Active Dates: 2010 – present
What happened: Early adopters were put off by both the confusing interface and the lack of privacy controls. In fact, all photos taken with Color were public, and anyone in the proximity of the original image poster could see them. Soon after the app’s debut, cofounder Peter Pham resigned. Color pivoted to allow users to broadcast live from their phones to facebook Currently, Color has under 4,000 followers on Twitter.
What the experts say: According to tech pundit Robert Scoble, Color failed because it had a bad launch. Scoble attributes this to: “bad UI, bad timing, and noise from funding level.” He also notes that the churn levels were very high because users couldn’t figure out how to operate the app effectively.
3. Pay By Touch
What it was: Pay By Touch allowed users to pay for goods and services with a swipe of their finger.
Funding: $340 million
Active Dates: 2002 – May 2008
What happened: Charismatic CEO of Pay By Touch John P. Rogers was accused of domestic abuse, drug possession, and spending company money extravagantly. By May 2007, the company was unable to make payroll. San Francisco investor Phillip Bright said that Rogers was “worse than a drunken sailor.” Pay By Touch shut down the following year.
What the experts say: Arthur Petrie, a member of Pay By Touch’s board noted that Rogers was “an extraordinary individual, but like all extraordinary individuals, he has certain flaws that overshadowed his abilities.”
4. SearchMe
What it was: A visual search engine.
Funding: $43.6 million
Active Dates: July 2005 – October 2009
What happened: SearchMe’s high burn rate and use of flash resulted in low visitor numbers. The company could not secure additional funding and had to shut down.
What the experts say: According to Jon Whittle, cofounder of SearchMe competitor Oolone, SearchMe failed because it raised too much money too fast. Taking on $25 million in venture capital meant that SearchMe had to perform fast, or suffer the consequences. Unfortunately, it suffered the latter.
5. Boo.com
What it was: A british-based company that sold branded fashion online.
Funding: $135 million
Active Dates: 1998 – May 2000
What happened: Boo.com exemplified the dot-com crash of the late 1990s by folding within two years and burning through $135 million in 18 months.
What experts say: Tech writer and pundit Tristan Louis worked for Boo.com for a short time and detailed its fallings in his writing. Strategic moves that contributed to the failure of the company ,according to Louis, include launching in multiple currencies on day one, launching in multiple languages, poor tax calculation, and the use of multiple fulfillment partners.
Key learn from them
1. Validate the product idea with customers. Entrepreneurs frequently fail to validate the idea of startup's product with customers. That was my big mistake as I launched my first startup, Just A Five. Nobody wanted what my company had to offer. I ended up wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars on building something that nobody wanted.
2. Understand the importance of co-founders, partners and team members. Every great entrepreneur understands that he or she can’t do everything. Certain tasks lie beyond a founder's capabilities. So it's vital to have the right partners and team members involved.
3. Be aggressive. Most everyone would probably admit a lack of fondness for pushy salespeople. But those who want their business to succeed will have to be extremely aggressive. They'll have to simply pick up the phone and dial customers.
4. Recognize that fundraising is time-consuming. while many founders of startups have their attention focused on helping customers solve a problem, money is still needed to make this all happen. Startups can’t operate or grow without revenue. Building a startup entails numerous expenses. And sometimes it's not possible to wait that long. Many business owners run out of money.
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