Ran out of money

22 projects

Redbox A dollar a night from a vending machine, until the lights went out mid-rental 2002–2024 E-commerce & Retail Ello "You Are Not a Product", then it took the venture money 2014–2023 Social Networks Loon Alphabet's internet balloons, nine years in the stratosphere and one commercial customer, grounded in 2021 2013–2021 Online Services Essential Phone Android's creator builds a phone: $699, titanium, and about 90,000 buyers 2017–2020 Phones & Tablets Pebble The smartwatch Kickstarter built, and Fitbit buried 2013–2018 Gadgets & Hardware Vidme The YouTube alternative for creators fleeing the adpocalypse, out of money in December 2017; its domain now points at porn 2014–2017 Video & Streaming Juicero The $400 Wi-Fi juicer that squeezed proprietary bags, and the bags you could squeeze by hand 2016–2017 Gadgets & Hardware App.net Users paid for it, and it still was not enough 2012–2017 Social Networks Yo An app that said one word, raised a million dollars, and became the whole 2014 app economy in miniature 2014–2016 Mobile Apps Rdio The prettiest streaming service that ever lost 2010–2015 Music Streaming Emojli The social network where your username and every message had to be emoji, built as a joke, closed eleven months later 2014–2015 Social Networks OnLive Cloud gaming, a decade too early 2010–2015 Game Platforms & Services Springpad The smart notebook that turned everything you saved into something useful, loved by five million people and unable to pay for itself 2008–2014 Online Services Everpix The photo service that solved the problem everyone had and ran out of money anyway, and then published its entire post-mortem for others to learn from 2011–2013 Photo Sharing Turntable.fm The site where strangers took turns DJing to a room of cartoon avatars, killed in 2013 by the price of the music it played 2011–2013 Music Streaming Formspring Ask me anything, anonymously: the Q and A site that reached 30 million accounts, then drowned in the harassment its own anonymity produced 2009–2013 Social Networks Gizmondo The handheld with GPS, a camera and adverts, sold by a company run by Swedish gangsters, gone in a year 2005–2006 Consoles & Handhelds Webvan Right idea, twenty years early, at a billion dollars a mistake 1999–2001 E-commerce & Retail Kozmo.com A video in an hour, free, by bicycle 1998–2001 E-commerce & Retail eToys.com Worth more than Toys R Us, for about a year 1997–2001 E-commerce & Retail Pets.com The sock puppet outlived the company 1998–2000 E-commerce & Retail Boo.com $135 million in eighteen months, on a site nobody could load 1999–2000 E-commerce & Retail