Why 9 big startups failed, in their own words

Startups fail every day. But when the big or widely-admired ones go down, it’s worth learning why. And sure, analysts, VCs, and insiders will all have their takes, but sometimes it’s nice to get the word straight from the source.

So here you go: nine startups and why they kicked it, in their own words. Some startups on this list were bigger than others, but all of them made major achievements, from winning awards to leading their markets to raising seven-figure funding rounds.

Note: this post was inspired by this one on Chinese site iHeima, and a few of these quotes were sourced from CBInsights’s startup post-mortems list, although most of them come from our own archives.

Rdio

What it was: a major streaming music service with 35 million songs

When it died: 2015

How it died: Former Rdio lead designer Wilson Milner told The Verge: “Rdio, I guess, made the mistake of trying to be sustainable too early. That classic startup mistake of worrying about being profitable and having a business that makes any sense before you’ve reached this astronomical growth curve. Which is partly the trap of the business model itself — because of the content licensing deals, the margins for the business were so incredibly thin. No matter what we did, the labels made the lion’s share of the revenue. You have to make it up with extreme volume, which is why you see Spotify going after every human being in the world.”

Paraplou

What it was: a major Indonesian fashion ecommerce site

When it died: 2015

How it died: According to a statement posted by the Paraplou team, the shutdown happened because “the market for premium branded fashion is still young.” and because of “uncertain global financial conditions and a tight funding environment.”

Sidecar

Novelsys

Zen99

Abraresto

Alikolo

Valadoo

QBotix