Wanting to start your own venture is a lofty goal. You have all these great ideas that you are so sure will make you a successful entrepreneur but, did you know that there are some startup ideas that have persistently failed? If you want to make it big, then avoid these startup ideas that frequently fail.
SEARCH ENGINES
Why make another search engine when ‘search engine’ is synonymous to ‘Google’? People do not anymore refer to it as ‘looking it up online’ instead they refer to it as ‘Googling’. Google owns the search market and they intend for it to stay that way.
ALTERNATIVES TO EMAIL
Electronic mail (e-mail) has changed the way people communicate. Everyone, from your neighbor’s grandmother to CEOs of big business, uses email to communicate. There is no need for an alternative to email but email in itself can be done better, especially as spamming is still a big problem.
MUSIC STARTUPS
It would be very hard to beat free downloads when the alternative is to charge for each song. Surprisingly, iTunes is doing well but that could also be due to the Apple magic. It’s difficult to pull off a music startup because there are just too many middlemen and you have to pay huge sums as royalties.
WEBTV
Year after year some entrepreneurs attempt variations of WebTV ideas despite anybody getting critical success in this business. People clearly do not want another box in their homes as the TV has become a mainstay in their living rooms.
BUSINESS CARDS
Throughout the years, various entrepreneurs have tried (and failed) to solve the problem of the digitalization of the business card. CardMunch, for one, was doing fine converting business cards into digital address book contacts until it was acquired by LinkedIn. LinkedIn subsequently killed it.
DATING APPS
Really, there are just too many dating apps out there. It is crowded and it is scary but singles will still be looking for dates. The big thing now with dating apps is Tinder who has made a huge impression with a simple swipe idea.
COUPON AND VOUCHER DEALS
The Groupon-type business model has been tried dozens of times and has persistently failed, until Groupon. Sad to say, Groupon is slowly declining because people have begun ignoring the group discount emails. These emails have become too much to deal with, especially if you are not yet ready to make a purchase. People want to get deals when they want it and not when they are working and not even thinking about shopping.
Other than those mentioned above, here is a list by Lee Semel (leesemel.com) who answered this on Quora:
- Anything that makes programming “easy for non-programmers or businesspeople”
- Micropayments
- T-Shirts (except Threadless and Busted Tees)
- Recommendations based on what your friends like
- RSS readers, or more generally, sites focused primarily on presenting and formatting news stories gleaned from 3rd party sources
- Customized personalized newspapers focusing on mainstream news (as opposed to niche industry news with high business value)
- Find nearby people to meet/date through your mobile phone
- Anything involving paying people to look at ads
- Sites that purport to measure someone’s trustworthiness as a standalone service, separate from any other context or functionality
- Craigslist killers–but not sites that attack individual categories on Craigslist
- To-do lists–there are tons of these, but everyone’s workflow tends to be so personalized and specific to that person that none of them really catch on
- Most blogs that are started with the intent of being businesses
- Business that let consumers scan some kind of code, number, or barcode in real life, with some special device, or lately their phone, and they get sent a URL, ad or coupon in return.