Why We Shut Down a Business That Was Making Money
In this postmortem from 2011, @dh candidly breaks down the dissolution of their startup, examining the fatal assumptions, misallocated resources, and market dynamics that led to its shutdown.
Core Principles for Independent Builders:
Early signals were often rationalized away instead of prompting an immediate pivot in distribution or pricing.
The psychological toll of running out of capital compounds operational friction in a solo or small team setup.
Key Antidote: Validate paying willingness before committing months to building sophisticated product features.
Community Debate Themes:
Community discussions on HN centered on identifying product-market fit early, avoiding vanity metrics, and the emotional recovery process after shutting down.
CATEGORY Postmortems & Failures →
HISTORICAL ERA Web 2.0 Genesis (2007–2013)
COMMUNITY SCORE ★ 25 points
TOTAL DISCUSSIONS 9 comments
Answer: because they had another product that was making more money.
They never actually came out and said it in the article, but it sounds like the thing that shut down was just squeaking by and distracting their core, profitable, business.
So while plenty of us would be happy to be running this abandoned product on our own as a sole developer/marketer, it wasn't a big enough thing to make a dent in their already thriving company. So they dropped it.
The article doesn't mention why they shut it down.