Shopwisely.org. This was a site that donated affiliate link revenue to charity when you shopped online. Absolutely zero people used this. This site made me lust for anything that at least one person would use.
Like.fm, the original version. The MVP was an applescript that published your iTunes play history to a web page. It got users by itself as soon as I put it online. There weren't many users, but greater than the zero from my last project. I took this, rather naively, as the sign of the next Facebook. My ultimate goal became to create a marginally superior version of Last.fm. To my surprise, I got accepted into YC with this idea, and from that high I ran with it.
However over time I lost confidence in and motivation towards the idea as no one saw it as novel enough (not necessarily users, but people I met in the Valley), and everyone told me to stop doing something related to music because it's too tough (personally I think all startups are tough). Because of all this I never polished or completed Like.fm enough to be even on par with Last.fm. I had slow to zero growth, and no clear exciting future for the site. Probably at least these factors left me unable to raise an additional seed round after Demo Day. Being a single founder didn't help with any of this either.
After these failures I've stopped focusing on raising money or even making money. My primary focus is on making something that people love to use that's also novel and innovative, retains users, and successfully delivers long-term value to peoples' lives.
I've never stopped experimenting on Like.fm after the failure though, and I've been gearing up for the next big launch!
Actually they were a "dating" site in that they explicitly said that, but they seem to have pivoted (slightly, at least) as they describe themselves as "find people nearby" now.
I personally wouldn't make a dating site be explicit about that.
Like.fm, the original version. The MVP was an applescript that published your iTunes play history to a web page. It got users by itself as soon as I put it online. There weren't many users, but greater than the zero from my last project. I took this, rather naively, as the sign of the next Facebook. My ultimate goal became to create a marginally superior version of Last.fm. To my surprise, I got accepted into YC with this idea, and from that high I ran with it.
However over time I lost confidence in and motivation towards the idea as no one saw it as novel enough (not necessarily users, but people I met in the Valley), and everyone told me to stop doing something related to music because it's too tough (personally I think all startups are tough). Because of all this I never polished or completed Like.fm enough to be even on par with Last.fm. I had slow to zero growth, and no clear exciting future for the site. Probably at least these factors left me unable to raise an additional seed round after Demo Day. Being a single founder didn't help with any of this either.
After these failures I've stopped focusing on raising money or even making money. My primary focus is on making something that people love to use that's also novel and innovative, retains users, and successfully delivers long-term value to peoples' lives.
I've never stopped experimenting on Like.fm after the failure though, and I've been gearing up for the next big launch!