What Went Wrong with BackChat

BACKCHAT

Founder : Daniel Singer
 What is it about..?

Backchat helps recreate the authenticity of human communication by using anonymity to remove the pressure and judgment from traditional social media.

With the anonymity of Backchat you aren't pressured to express your best self, you can truly express yourself as you are and really open up to people and have conversations you wouldn't have otherwise. This opens the door to amazing experiences and a new way to communicate. As they say, "Sometimes your best friends, are complete strangers." Except with Backchat you are limited to your network which helps craft relevant conversations and content.

What Went Wrong..?

• Got Outcompeted

They were supposed to challenge all the existing companies like Facebook, whatsapp etc., but were not able to. Though they got a very good response in the begging and created excitement among the teenagers regarding it. A Clue System was used to identify the anonymous person texting, which was more of a fun. Everyone lived it, but the pleasure was short term only.

• Slow Adaptation

The Market holds a tough competition and to be able to stand up till last, one must simply adapt according to the changes. Unfortunately they were not able to adapt fast enough to changing market and product conditions which quickly began to show in usage metrics.

• Ran out of Money

With a feed product on the horizon all looked well until our funding began to dry up. Deals fell through leaving the founder in the difficult position to close Backchat.

"In Business, Competition Bites you if you run, but if you become steady, it Swallows you."

What Went Wrong with 99Dresses

99Dresses

What was it About..?

Buy, sell & trade fashion with thousands of shopaholics. Refresh your closet, and never wear the same thing twice. It was setup by Nikki Durkin, and was supposed to set a new benchmark in the fashion world and among the fashion lovers.

So What Went Wrong..? (#www)

•          Lack of Confidence

          She lacked confidence, which is the basic thing one must have before starting up. She was  having problem in believing in the idea, though never showed it to investors and during the  interviews.

•         Loop Holes in the business model.

           Though after working hard on the business plan and execution, after its launch many loop                    holes came up.

    

•         Lack of experience

                  Being just a graduate girl and totally new to the entrepreneurship world, the girl simply             lacked Experience (of dealing with the investors, customers, team-mates etc. ).

“I won many Battels, But lost the War”- Nikki Durkin(founder of 99dresses)

What Went Wrong with Dinnr

      DINNR

What was it about..?

Dinnr was an ad-hoc, same day ingredient delivery service. Select a recipe on their website, and they deliver everything one needs to cook that recipe at home, all the items pre-measured with printed instructions. All you need at home is oil, salt and pepper and a reasonably equipped kitchen.

So What Went Wrong?

•      They were not solving any problem.

Actual question is …Was there any Problem..?

The surveys that the team took encouraged them to take a shot regarding the startup. 70% of the people interviewed showed a positive response. But still nothing worked.

•       If an idea is hit somewhere, it is not necessary that it will be a hit everywhere.

A small idea of this kind was doing well in Sweden, which encouraged the founder to launch the idea in the US Market. But exactly opposite happened.  It doesn’t have to work in country 2 only because it works in country 1.

Sometimes Surveys are not to be trusted fully.

What Went Wrong with Webvan

WEBVAN

What was it about..??

A startup way ahead of its time. A startup that promised delivery of groceries within 30 minutes of ordering, from state-of-the-art order fulfillment centers manned by advanced robots

It raised $375 million in its November 1999 initial public offering, achieving a peak stock market value of $1.2 billion.

The company bragged about its 26-city expansion plan, signing a $1 billion Bechtel contract to build high-tech warehouses worth $30 million each. Then, it filed for bankruptcy in July 2001 after losing money every year.

So what went Wrong..?

·         Competition

Stop & Shop supermarkets acquired PeaPod — it operated a service that delivered groceries ordered online.

·         Wrong Profit Making Stratergy.

Webvan advertised that its prices were 5% lower than conventional stores. All of these resulted from its hope that the number of customer accounts would be high enough to make profits after three or four quarters. In reality, the number was far below the forecasts and the company kept losing money.

·         Too much money, too early.

The management team was too confident and ambitious. They wanted to do everything everywhere in a huge scale. Consequently, they went against their original strategy of providing a more cost-effective solution.  The invested a lot and soon went bankrupt.

From Getting the best consumer website in 2000 to getting bankrupt in next 2 years show that 

Sometimes too early in the market can also be Dagerous.

Iridium Communications

                           Iridium Communications

What was it..??

Iridium began as a pet project of Motorola executive Barry Bertinger and some engineers in the mid-1980s after the former's wife famously complained of not being able to phone the US while on holiday in the Caribbean.

Purpose/Motive..??

Its main motive was to ring the world, allowing, in theory,

 phone calls to be transmitted and received from the furthest corners of the earth. In the 90s, it was considered to be one

of the best ideas ever.

It was thought to be a revolution in technology and the best Startup ever.

What actually went wrong..??

 Iridium's first mistake was to build a stand-alone network in space. A call from an originating handset accesses the network at the nearest satellite, travels through space from satellite to satellite before beaming down to its destination on Earth.

·         Unsurprisingly, all that technology came at a stiff price. Iridium handsets cost pounds 1,900 and calls were as much as pounds 5 per minute. Worse still, the Iridium handsets were clunky, weighed about 1lb, and harkened back to Motorola's infamous brick phones, common a decade ago.

·         Those shortcomings proved fatal. Indeed, nine months after its highly publicised launch and a pounds 60m international marketing campaign, Iridium had managed to attract less than 20,000 customers compared with a guarantee of 52,000 specified in lending covenants with a syndicate of bankers

·         Unlike conventional mobile phones, that Iridium won't work indoors. Worse, dropped calls are common, completion rates low, while other network functions perform unevenly.

In Actual it was an INTERNATIONAL Bang Failure.