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Ask HN: How Many Startups Failed?

8 points by _gd3l ↗ HN
Hey all, pretty straightforward question. I saw the question earlier about how much you were able to sell your stock for, and got thinking about the "startup scene" in general.

How many of you have started or been a part of a startup whose plans were to get acquired or to IPO, an failed? Were you a paid product company or a free web site? Explain the startup.

Just interested to see how many don't even get to the point where shares, equity, and all that nonsense comes into play.

6 comments

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mrrasputin
I was hired in april of 2011 for a startup company that was launching a website. A few months later I agreed to take a pay cut. A few months later i was working for free during my time off a part time job. Now it's December 2011 and I'm working a full time job and everyone has agree'd that old startup is gone.
_gd3l
Ouch that sucks. Care to share more about the startup itself? What was it? Was it VC funded? How was the founding team composed?
jnorthrop
Failure is a relative question. I've been part of 2 startups that still exist as profitable ventures, but in my opinion failed.

#1 - Market research company founded in 1989 (I joined in 1990) and it still exists today. I left in 1994 when it was 40 employees. It is presently at 18 employees. It still pays the owners bills but toils in obscurity with no growth.

#2 - Franchise services company founded in 2004 (I joined on at the founding) and it still exists today as well. I left in 2009 and it was 3 employees. It is still 3 employees and much like company #1 it has virtually no growth.

While both companies are profitable, barely, they both suffer from what I call "zombie mode syndrome." They make enough money to stay afloat but without any organic growth they can't fund expansion nor attract investors. And for that, I believe they are failures.

polyfractal
I think jnorthrop hits on a really important point. To him, the companies are failures because they never grew into more profitable companies.

For the owners, they may be wild successes because they pay the bills and allow them to do something they enjoy. Or travel, or whatever else they want to do with their lifestyle business.

Neither opinion is right or wrong, just depends on your perspective. The only "absolute" failures are arguably the ones that have gone completely out of business.

_gd3l
Yeah, I was talking about ones that went out of business.

And it is a fair observation. However, I wouldn't consider something "not growing" as a failure. Why does it have to grow? It might not be what you want it to be, but then it's only a failure to you and not an objectively failed business...

...an objectively failed biz simply is one that's not in business anymore. Thanks for the input though, interesting story about both businesses.

_gd3l
In this context, failure means you weren't able to keep the business running.