I'll bite:<p>It was 2008, I was a junior in college, I had been coding on-and-off for a few years (for hire) but was anxious to do my own thing.<p>I decided my "killer idea" was to sell safe-sex supplies online (condoms, lube, toys, etc). I built a site called "OrgasmSafely.com" and then opened 5 credit cards and bought about $15,000 worth of inventory.<p>I was renting a tiny room near campus, and my inventory filled it up. Boxes and boxes of condoms, gallons and gallons of lube. I had to put my bed against the wall. I slept in a ball in the corner.<p>I ordered dozens of T-shirts that said "OrgasmSafely" and handed them out on campus. I printed up thousands of flyers and handed them out at nightclubs. I setup an affiliate program. I ran google adwords campaigns. I setup an ebay store. I wrote to the school newspaper for feature stories, etc etc etc.<p>Nobody came.<p>Within a few weeks the minimum payments of the credit cards overwhelmed me. They were all maxed out. I was toast. I couldn't even afford to pay for hosting. I shut it down and walked away, with destroyed credit.<p>Sigh...<p>Post-mortem lessons: Don't buy inventory up front. And don't start a business you can't afford to keep running for awhile.<p>...Also don't sell condoms on the internet...
Hey zura,<p>I posted this article on my blog a while back about how I gave up too soon on my SaaS:<p><a href="https://mattkremer.com/how-i-got-2200-pre-signups-for-my-saas-in-2-weeks-then-failed-hard/" rel="nofollow">https://mattkremer.com/how-i-got-2200-pre-signups-for-my-saa...</a><p>Since failure, I've successfully relaunched the product and am getting a lot more actual traction than the first time around :)
I posted this on my site a few weeks ago, detailing my most recent failed project. "Failure" might be a harsh description in my case, but "success" hardly seems appropriate either.<p>How Not to Build Phone Apps: The Story of Twelve Gauge Software:
<a href="http://drewrobey.com/articles/bydatepublished/2014-09-09" rel="nofollow">http://drewrobey.com/articles/bydatepublished/2014-09-09</a>
Hm, it seems not that many HN people fail or at least they are shy about this :)<p>Anyway, thank you guys who replied, very interesting read!<p>As for me, I've been thinking to start "somethings" for a long time but I'm afraid that it will fail... i.e. I do not risk to invest a time.