My history of (mostly failed) side projects and startups

As a builder of digital things, the 3 things I have the most trouble communicating to non-builders are:<p>- how hard it is<p>- how much time it takes<p>- how long it takes to become successful<p>So instead of trying to explain it, I may just send them to this blog post, which <i>shows</i> all 3. Thank you, Gabriel!<p>(Now if only you would remove that Mojo Badge business from blocking your great content.)

Among my non-startup friends, there seems to be this pre-conception that people are working in some day-job and one day, have some crazy idea that nobody else has thought of and go and start a company and become successful.<p>Good to see several people writing recently (from experience) about how this couldn't be farther from the truth. While it may happen from time to time, it's clear that most founders of successful (technology) startups have built a long-term lifestyle around working really hard, for a really long time, on a bunch of their own ideas and projects. Especially true given what we know about how much of a role luck and timing plays in the success of startups.<p>Thanks for the post, Gabriel.

"Ship often. Ship lousy stuff, but ship. Ship constantly." - Godin from <a href="http://the99percent.com/tips/6249/seth-godin-the-truth-about-shipping" rel="nofollow">http://the99percent.com/tips/6249/seth-godin-the-truth-about...</a>

An overnight success, 15 years in the making. The lesson here is that you only really need to be successful once, so keep trying.

Why did Google blacklist all of your Tldscan sites? Was it just because your sites' content was updated automatically? Or was it because you did something wrong for SEO?

Yep, pretty interesting. And although at first I didn't, I have to agree that a list of failed projects is not a bad indicator for success. At least it shows that you keep trying.<p>As for mine:<p>1. Mefeedia.com Built it out for 2 years, then sold it because it wasn't going where I wanted it to go.<p>2. Poorbuthappy.com Lots of traffic for travel forums, but the community got out of hand so I had to close it.<p>Those where the 2 main projects where there was an expectation of it possibly becoming something big-ish.

Wow, great list! My biggest take away was all of the times he says "perhaps I should have stuck with it". You never know where a project can go unless you stick with it.<p><i>Back to hacking at my project...</i>

This is very interesting. I think that the more failure you had in the past, the more likely you will have success in the future. I also had some previous side-projects experiences which did not work but I learnt so many things from these projects!

Kangadoo:<p>Why did this fail, really? This should be a runaway success. There are millions of people out there that can barely figure out their cameras, let alone understand the concept behind facebook or picasa or flickr or whatever could be considered "competition".<p>Even with a founder departure, this is a valid idea... why didn't you continue to peruse it?

I wonder how many were done while holding down a regular job? From his linked in profile, it looks like he's being doing startups for a while.<p>Pretty cool.

Would be even more interesting to know the details of why Gabriel failed to stick with some of the ideas. A Posterous-type service in 2001 sounds like it could have been a bigger success than the Names Database.<p>Nth clubs sounds like it could work with a bit of incentive for club pros to recommend it...

Gabriel,<p>In Googling "namesdatabase" I've come across some old claims of allegedly dubious practices of the site that occurred while you were running it. I know your reputation is stellar here and that you contribute much to the community so I was more than a bit surprised.<p>May I ask, have you addressed these allegations somewhere? I'd like to give you the benefit of the doubt, so I'm wondering where I can read your side of the story. Is there an HN thread or blog post you can point me towards? Many thanks.

Very very inspiring post. I've built and released only two web sites and just a couple of C++/C projects in storage area (of course nothing successful), so I have way to go...<p>It be would interesting to know what did you learn of each these projects? Which project do you consider the most important from learning perspective?

I wonder if the lesson from this is perhaps narrow but deep rather than wide but shallow?

And just imagine there are people, most people actually, that think they have This Great Idea and don't want to tell anyone about it without an NDA because they think you will steal it.

I like hearing about these and would be interested in hearing more, but can't imagine everyone would want HN flooded with personal failure histories. Is it worth cataloguing them somewhere, with potential for HNers to comment on or takeover or try again?<p>Call it something like 'Start Up Down'?<p>What do people think? Obviously not really something that's going to become a lucrative venture but it wouldn't be tough to create either.

It would be very interesting to add information about when you were working with advisors/mentors and when you were purely working on your own.<p>I haven't had nearly as many at-bats as you have, but enough to know that I personally can't get very far on my own without an experienced voice guiding me past a lot of dumb ideas.

For those who missed , Andy Brice interviewed some startup/projects founders who failed :<p><a href="http://successfulsoftware.net/2010/05/27/learning-lessons-from-13-failed-software-products/" rel="nofollow">http://successfulsoftware.net/2010/05/27/learning-lessons-fr...</a>

I'd like to see how much was made or lost on each of these, enough to do angel investing after all of that. I know the $500/day was mentioned, but just curious. Was the bulk of the money made that is now invested from these startups, or some other income?

Looks like you were startupping since 2000. Except NamesDatabase there haven't been any other exits. So how did you feed yourself until then? I am guessing your later projects were taken care by that exit.

This makes me feel better. I've built and released 4 webapps with another in dev and they all seem to be perfect failures, which I've been thinking is perhaps a sign...

How did you decide when it was time to stop and try something else?

Are there links for the two episodes of "Twenty Questions"?

would be interesting to see what sort of traction you got with each service. i.e. did you quit when they only had 100 users, or was it more like 100,000