A Guide to Startup Accelerators and the Best 8 Ones in 2022

Startup accelerators are a great tool to raise funds, learn and make connections. In this article, we explain what accelerators are and rank the best 8 ones. | Continue reading


@failory.com | 2 years ago

Pre-selling a programming course and making $550k

Josh built CSS for JavaScript Developers, an online course to help you learn CSS. He opened pre-orders to validate the course and ended up selling $550k. | Continue reading


@failory.com | 2 years ago

What happened to ScaleFactor, the SME bookkeeping startup?

ScaleFactor was a tech startup that claimed to automate SME bookkeeping and payroll thanks to an AI they were developing in-house, which wasn't the case. | Continue reading


@failory.com | 2 years ago

Google Cemetery: Learn from Google's 100+ Failures

Learn from Google's +100 failures to build profitable businesses and scale acquired companies. | Continue reading


@failory.com | 2 years ago

Raising €250k to Build an HR Platform and Failing to Find Product-Market Fit

Pierre founded Hello Tyro, a platform matching students with internships in startups. Reached €4k MRR but didn't find Product-Market Fit and ran out of cash. | Continue reading


@failory.com | 3 years ago

How to Burn $55k by Confusing Market Validation with Market Hype

Wes founded Pactero, a platform to simplify the process of managing ISAs. After the launch hype, the business made around $180 total after spending $55k. | Continue reading


@failory.com | 3 years ago

Building a VRBO Competitor Without a Clear Value Proposition

Gene founded VacationBird, a marketplace for finding your vacation rental. A misalignment between co-founders and poor planning made it shut down in 2012. | Continue reading


@failory.com | 3 years ago

Growing a Waitlist to 50k Users after Pivoting during Covid

Julien founded Station, a unified search for teams. They pivoted from building a browser and now are in beta with 100 teams and +50k users on the waitlist. | Continue reading


@failory.com | 3 years ago

Creating Video Content for YC Companies and Achieving 1.2B Views

Michael founded Vidico, a video production agency that works with startups like Square, Spotify, and Uber. They've earned +1.2B views and are profitable. | Continue reading


@failory.com | 3 years ago

Show HN: Amazon Cemetery – +50 dead Amazon projects and why they shut down

Analyses on why has Amazon failed to build and profitably run +50 products, startups, and acquired businesses. | Continue reading


@failory.com | 3 years ago

Building and growing a crypto job board [audio]

Raman Shalupau (@ksaitor) is the founder of Crypto Jobs List, the #1 community to find and post crypto jobs. Raman’s entrepreneurship and interests in engineering stirred up at the young age of fourteen, which drove him to create a food delivery startup while at University. Soon … | Continue reading


@failory.com | 3 years ago

Biggest Shark Tank Failures

Shark Tank investors have committed mistakes, financing startups that later on closed and missing great investment opportunities. Here are their worst failures. | Continue reading


@failory.com | 3 years ago

Biggest Y Combinator Failed Startups

+400 YC-backed startups have closed their doors in the last 15 years. Here are some of their biggest failures, sorted by funding. | Continue reading


@failory.com | 3 years ago

I Took My Startup From $20k/month to 0

Justin Hunter created Graphite Docs, a privacy-focused alternative to Google Docs powered by blockchain. He soon started gaining traction from individual users. However, he decided to focus on the B2B model, rather than B2C, and this decision cost him the business. | Continue reading


@failory.com | 3 years ago

Watu had 0% churn rate and made $20k/mo – yet they failed

Watu was a temporary staffing app founded by José Pablo Fernández and his business partner. The business was very sticky; once a company started using the app, it was very unlikely for them to leave. So what could have gone wrong!? Read our interview with Pablo below to know more … | Continue reading


@failory.com | 3 years ago

Making $125,000/Month Selling Hacker TLDs (2019)

Mike Carson, a computer programmer, built park.io, a service that allows you to backorder top level domains that have expired and will be available for registration again soon. With almost none marketing, he was able to grow his little side project to a business generating +$125K … | Continue reading


@failory.com | 3 years ago

Startup mistakes: First-hand lessons from over eighty failed startups

We've analyzed why +80 startups have failed and identified some of their common mistakes. Here're our findings! | Continue reading


@failory.com | 3 years ago

Why Did Vine Fail?

What happened to Vine?! Why was it shut down? When? Does TikTok face the same risk? Here's our detailed analysis. | Continue reading


@failory.com | 3 years ago

Why Cuddli, a dating app for geeks, failed

Robert was the co-founder of Cuddli, a dating app for geeks. The startup was based in the US but they had their development team in Croatia. Media features grew the app to 100k users but a combination of a small market and their inability to monetize the app forced the startup to … | Continue reading


@failory.com | 3 years ago

How 3+ failures led to a $150k/month SaaS

Bernard Huang (@bernardjhuang) is the Co-founder at Clearscope, a profitable SaaS product used by companies to get written content performance. He is a driven entrepreneur who has used his creative capabilities to launch many startups, including Mushi Labs, Mosec, and Food By Peo … | Continue reading


@failory.com | 4 years ago

Bootstrapping a B2C startup to and$20k/mo

Buster Benson (@buster) is the founder of 750 Words, a $5/mo journaling tool. He kept it alive for more than a decade while working at Twitter, Slack, Patreon and running and shutting down Health Month, a startup leveraging social gamification to get its users healthy. Learn abou … | Continue reading


@failory.com | 4 years ago

Show HN: Failory Podcast, candid talks with failed startup founders

Some founders make it, others not. We're here to talk with those who've gone through both failed and successful startups and learn from their wins and mistakes. | Continue reading


@failory.com | 4 years ago

Making $76k a month turning podcasts into videos

In 2015, Baird partnered up with Nick to launch a social network that combined Reddit, Twitter and audio. After 2 years and $30k lost, they shut down but decided to convert one of their internal tools into a SaaS. Through word of mouth and content marketing, the startup has grown … | Continue reading


@failory.com | 4 years ago

Making $1M a year from a cold email SaaS

Guillaume felt frustrated with the cold email tools in the market, so he decided to build one himself that combined personalization (on text and images) with email. Through cold outreach, promotions on communities and a huge AppSumo launch, the 3 founders have grown the tool to $ … | Continue reading


@failory.com | 4 years ago

$12k/month SaaS scraping social networks’ data

Alex got lazy about using the inspector to download Instagram pics, so he searched on Google for a solution. The results were crappy but their traffic was high… So he purchased a domain and decided to build the tool himself. Since then, Ninja Copy has grown into a SaaS that’s mak … | Continue reading


@failory.com | 4 years ago

Why this P2P loan marketplace shut down

CircleBack Lending was an online personal loans marketplace connecting potential borrowers with lenders. Due to problems with profitability and issues with the P2P lending industry, the startup was forced to stop giving loans and cease their operations. | Continue reading


@failory.com | 4 years ago

What was Aria Insights and why did they fail?

Aria Insights was a US-based drone manufacturer that specialized in developing highly advanced drones. After some pivots, including moving away from drone production to focus on developing an AI system for their drone programs, the company couldn't find out the correct business m … | Continue reading


@failory.com | 4 years ago

ShipItWise: Why this Algorithm SaaS shut down

ShipItWise started out as a way of giving an instant, dynamic quote, or shipping price to anyone, anywhere in the world, using a complex algorithm. However, the transportation companies involved in their business weren’t eager on jumping on this new technology as they didn’t unde … | Continue reading


@failory.com | 4 years ago

The e-Commerce that mastered word of mouth to $40k/month

Stef is a 33-year-old raised in London and the co-founder of Stone, a brand developing innovative trade and lifestyle products for the food and drinks industry. Through harnessing the marketing power and endorsement of chefs, Stone is now generating $40,000 in monthly revenue. | Continue reading


@failory.com | 4 years ago

Startup shuts down and loses £45,000 due to legislation changes

Will created Sport Draftr, a Daily Fantasy Sports site in the UK, offering leagues in the English Premier League, and UEFA Champions League. The product was loved, but due to a lack of knowledge in the gambling industry and legal changes in legislation, they were forced to close … | Continue reading


@failory.com | 4 years ago

Growing 40% per Month Disrupting the Dev Analytics Space

Looking to solve the problems he had as a non-technical manager, Alex decided to build Waydev, a Git Analytics tool. With the objective of validating the product, they launched on Product Hunt on 5 different occasions and were able to get first paying customers. They’re now growi … | Continue reading


@failory.com | 4 years ago

How to Build a Startup Brand

Building a strong brand is critical when launching your startup. Throughout this article, you'll learn a framework that will enable you to create a meaningful brand for your early-stage business. | Continue reading


@failory.com | 4 years ago

Making £250k/year but Running out of Cash

After realizing no triathlon clothing brand was properly catering to the market from a design point of view, Matthew decided to do it himself and started VO2 Sportwear. Through social media, sponsorships, and SEO, the business made £250k its third year, but then failed to manage … | Continue reading


@failory.com | 4 years ago

From $9Bn to $0: What Happened with Theranos

Continue reading


@failory.com | 4 years ago

The Fall of “The Uber for Shipping”

Shyp wanted to do exactly what Uber had done with an on-demand shipping service in mind. Started in the summer of 2013, they had everything that San Francisco-based venture capitalists were looking for. However, they were unable to figure out a profitable business model and had t … | Continue reading


@failory.com | 4 years ago

Tali: $750k burnt due to lack of market fit

Ireland needs to stop burning peat, and wood from down under presents a surprising sustainability dilemma. | Continue reading


@failory.com | 4 years ago

Radar Radio – The $4m-in-debt shut down digital radio

Radar Radio was a London-based and seemingly vibrant online radio station that was seen to be the breeding ground for some of the most talented musicians. However, the company had its fair share of financial struggles and with a debt of £3.6m, they shut down. | Continue reading


@failory.com | 4 years ago

Poppy – Raising and$2M but failing to find the correct price and model

Poppy was a modern childcare solution for families that had difficulties hiring babysitters. While it did get funding of more than $2 million, it had to shut down after three years in the business. Most of their problems were related to how they monetized the service and how much … | Continue reading


@failory.com | 4 years ago

Review: Micro PE Course – how to buy, grow and sell businesses

Micro PE is a course built by Ryan and Hideko Kulp where you will learn how to buy, grow and sell small businesses (mostly digital ones) profitably. They share all the tools, documents and recommendations they have from buying more than 10 companies with little or no money. | Continue reading


@failory.com | 4 years ago

Bootstrapping a North Carolina agency up to $125k per month

Michael Georgiou and Pete Peranzo developed Imaginovation, a technology company helping other businesses with their websites and applications, out of their desire for something bigger. They started with nothing and now are a 7 figure earning business with goals to continue to gro … | Continue reading


@failory.com | 4 years ago

Working and100 hours on a side hustle just to shut it down

Gregg Blanchard developed Readership from a fascination with Twitter API. While the visual analytics on Readership was appealing, it didn’t bring enough marketing value to get the buy-in needed to be a successful start-up. | Continue reading


@failory.com | 4 years ago

Vreal: Why Did They Fail?

Started in 2015, Vreal was a virtual reality startup that enabled users to create avatars and interact with content creators and players on a shared VR space. However, after 4 years, the startup failed. They admitted that they were ahead of their time with a product whose market … | Continue reading


@failory.com | 4 years ago

Utrip: Why Did They Fail?

Utrip was a travel planning startup that used AI and user recommendations to create highly personalized itineraries for its clients. The costs associated with sales, marketing and keeping the recommendation engine alive was too much for them, which made them be unprofitable and h … | Continue reading


@failory.com | 4 years ago

Flexiple: $80K/month connecting startups with developers

After working on a tech-related internship, Suvansh and his two friends decided to start testing different business ideas. They launched Flexiple, a freelancing platform that connects startups with developers. This has been grown through cold outreach and side-project marketing u … | Continue reading


@failory.com | 4 years ago

Bootstrapping a SaaS to and$250K/Month on a Competitive Market

What started as a simple tool to find keywords has turned into a SaaS that makes over $250,000 per month and employs 8 members. This is the story of how an entrepreneur called Peter learned from failures & mistakes and grew a successful business in a highly competitive market. | Continue reading


@failory.com | 4 years ago

Why did Call9 shut down, burning $34M

Call9 was a health startup targeted to patients who needed the urge to speak with a doctor right away about their issues. However, the selection of a bad business model where doctors were paid what the patient wanted, and founder's inability to achieve growth, led to it's shut do … | Continue reading


@failory.com | 4 years ago

Why did Indian cryptocurrency platform, Koinex, fail

Koinex let users trade well-known cryptocurrencies on a peer to peer basis. It was doing it really well and they were able to raise some money on 2 rounds, from 3 investors. However, the Indian laws got harsh against cryptocurrencies and the big amount of obstacles and little pro … | Continue reading


@failory.com | 4 years ago

ClaimCompass: Disrupting the Airline Business and Making $100k/Month

Alexander Sumin is one of three founders of a company called ClaimCompass where they help travelers get paid when airlines mess up their flights. In October of 2016, they began to draw the attention of investors and after that, they’ve continued to grow. | Continue reading


@failory.com | 4 years ago