I recently soft-launched a side project called Startup Graveyard.
The idea is simple: a place to browse failed startups, learn what went wrong, and pull lessons from their mistakes.
You can check it out here:
https://www.startupgraveyard.co
Why I built it
I have always been interested in startups, software, and the idea of building something from scratch. But the more I looked into successful companies, the more I realized that failed startups are just as useful to study.
A lot of failed startups had good ideas, talented teams, funding, users, or hype. But something still went wrong.
Sometimes it was poor timing.
Sometimes there was no real market need.
Sometimes the business model did not work.
Sometimes the product was interesting, but not useful enough for people to keep using.
I wanted to build a site that collects those stories in a simple, searchable way.
What the app does right now
Startup Graveyard currently lets users:
- browse failed startups
- search and filter by category
- sort by newest, top, or A-Z
- view startup detail pages
- upvote startups
- comment on startup pages
- create an account
- submit failed startups
- manage their own submissions from a profile page
New submissions go into a pending review state before they appear publicly, so the site does not become a spam board.
Tech stack
I built it with:
- Next.js
- TypeScript
- Tailwind CSS
- Supabase for auth and database
- Supabase RLS for security rules
- Resend for production auth emails
- Vercel for deployment
This project also helped me get more comfortable with real-world production concerns like:
- authentication
- email confirmation
- row-level security
- moderation
- SEO metadata
- sitemap and robots files
- environment variables
- deployment issues
- preventing public email exposure
- keeping user-submitted content controlled
What I learned
The biggest lesson from building this was that launching an app is not just about making the UI work.
There were a lot of things I had to tighten up before I felt comfortable sharing it publicly:
- user emails should never show publicly
- new submissions need moderation
- users should not be able to self-approve their own posts
- auth emails need production SMTP
- database rules matter more than client-side checks
- SEO needs to be handled before sharing links
- a feature can work in development but still need production hardening
The app started as a simple directory, but it quickly became a good learning project for how real apps are built and protected.
What I want to add next
The next big improvement I want to make is a better failure pattern system.
Instead of only showing a basic cause of death, I want startups to be grouped by patterns like:
- no market need
- pricing failure
- poor timing
- distribution failure
- funding or burn-rate issues
- legal or regulatory problems
- retention problems
- founder conflict
- competition
- hardware/manufacturing issues
Long term, I would like the site to become more of a learning engine for founders and builders, not just a list of failed companies.
Feedback welcome
This is still a soft launch, so I would really appreciate feedback.
I’m especially looking for thoughts on:
- the overall idea
- design and usability
- anything confusing in the flow
- features that would make the site more useful
- bugs or rough edges
Site:
https://www.startupgraveyard.co
Thanks for checking it out.