Social Startup Failures

Yik Yak relaunched in 2021 with new funding and moderation — the same anonymous local social harassment problems returned and the product shut again in 2023

Built the right community, couldn't build the right business model around it.

73M monthly users in 2022. Raised €60M. Sold to Voodoo for €500K in 2024 — TikTok copied the feature.

Elon paid $44B for Twitter — analysts value X at $12B

The TikTok killer backed by rappers — revenue claimed $100M, auditors found $600K

The privacy social network that became a refugee camp for banned communities — not a mainstream alternative.

Spotify bought the podcast social layer then killed it to cut costs.

Hit #1 on App Store, lost 80% of users within 90 days.

A Discord rival that built half a million communities but couldn't charge any of them.

Social events app raised $170M from SoftBank at $1.17B unicorn valuation. SEC investigation found 95% of reported users were bots. Abraham Shafi charged with securities fraud.

Twitter's answer to Facebook Stories — abandoned by Twitter before it could answer anything.

100 million users who never bought anything — India's TikTok clone with no business model.

Snap bought France's best social app for $213M. Then quietly killed it to cut costs.

400 million users watched — almost none of them bought anything.

The live podcast platform haunted by tragedy and buried by a dead market category.

A billion users, sub-1% checkout rates — Meta killed Instagram Live Shopping in 3 years.

A social events app that became a $1.17B unicorn — then the SEC revealed 95% of its 20 million reported users were bots, and the company shut down.

India's homegrown Twitter rival — backed by Tiger Global and Accel, boosted by a government Twitter dispute — shut when a merger talks failed and the funds ran out

Yahoo paid $1.1B for Tumblr — Automattic later bought it for $3M after the NSFW ban destroyed the community

Tried to make podcast listening social when listeners prefer to listen alone.

The conservative social network that was deplatformed by AWS, Apple, and Google in 48 hours — then sold for $1 after its founder was ousted

The ad-free "Facebook killer" that discovered ads are what make social networks economically viable.

$4B for live audio. Then the pandemic ended and Big Tech copied it.

A $1.4B fashion social commerce IPO reduced to pennies by the rise of Douyin and Xiaohongshu.

The audio reply platform that pivoted too many times to remember what problem it solved.

Another creator monetization play that couldn't steal fans from Patreon.

Solving senior loneliness was real, but $5M and complex onboarding made it impossible

A pet social network that KakaoTalk demolished in eight months with a single feature update.

Germany's anonymous local social app. BeReal and TikTok arrived. Users left.

Outgunned by ByteDance and Kuaishou subsidies, this social commerce startup never stood a chance.

2 million downloads and still no one to talk to. Social audio's cold brutal math.

Russia's Facebook tried to go global — sanctions shut the door permanently.

China's Discord challenger raised $35M but couldn't crack its home market before funding dried up.

Vine's creator tried again with a new social app — the hype lasted two weeks.

Nine minutes of audio freedom that couldn't find a reason to exist long-term.

Vine's spiritual successor — killed again by TikTok

Anonymous confessional social network raised $61M from Sequoia. Peaked at 25M monthly users in 2014. Reddit and TikTok absorbed the use case. Shut September 2022.

A sports audio room that Spotify bought, renamed, and deleted in under two years.

The audio-only social app that made everyone feel like they'd found the future — before Twitter Spaces, Spotify Greenroom, and Facebook Live Audio copied the format and made the original irrelevant.

Group video chat with $72M raised. Epic Games acquired it for Fortnite social features. Built nothing useful. Shut in 2021.

The social podcast app that became Twitter Spaces before Twitter Spaces existed.

Dominican influencer platform built on Instagram's API — until Instagram pulled the plug in January 2020.

ZAO got 8M downloads in 48 hours — then China's regulators shut it down just as fast.

Raised $15M in 24 hours to kill WeChat — DAU fell 95% within 30 days of launch.

China's Tinder sold for $760M and was pulled from app stores by regulators within a year.

Google tried to be Facebook. 500 million accounts. Zero daily users.

Built a social network for pets—Instagram's algorithm made it irrelevant in 18 months.

300 million users. A cryptocurrency ICO. An SEC lawsuit. Shutdown.

A NASDAQ-listed Chinese sports social app that became a penny-stock ghost.

The hardcore Facebook strategy gaming unicorn — peaked with the platform, failed with the platform.

Google's AI messaging app — launched, forgotten, killed in three years

China's fashion photo app raised $150M and then disappeared into WeChat's shadow.

Facebook paid $100M for an app, got 5 months of use, then shut it down

A social media platform where users created and shared short lip-sync music videos.

Ask.fm had 150M users and a direct line to a teen suicide epidemic. IAC paid $150M. Never fixed the safety problem.

The original content discovery app — killed by eBay's acquisition and then its own founders' buyback

Casey Neistat built the anti-Instagram. CNN paid $25M for it. They built a deals website.

Yahoo paid $200M for fashion collage social with 20M users — Verizon acquired Yahoo, Instagram and Pinterest built shopping features, and Verizon shut Polyvore in 2018

Invented the short video format. Never monetized it. TikTok inherited the creators.

Dalton Caldwell's $50/year ad-free Twitter alternative — crowdfunded $750K in 30 days from developers, built a beloved product, and shut down because users wouldn't pay for social networking

Structured public discussion with curated participants — Facebook acquired the 10-person team and shut the product within months

del.icio.us invented social bookmarking in 2003. Yahoo bought it. Then AVOS. Then Science Inc. Then it died.

AIM defined a generation's digital social life. 100M users. Away messages. Buddy lists. Verizon killed it with a press release.

Photo slideshows set to music — acquired by Musical.ly then absorbed into TikTok

An AR live video pioneer killed the moment Snapchat and Instagram copied its core feature.

A social networking platform that reunited people through shared schools, universities, workplaces, and other common connections.

Real-time friend radar was creepy enough that users deleted it within days.

Private photo albums for small groups — a beautiful product with no monetisation path

Got Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift to stream before Periscope existed, then Periscope arrived and ended everything.

A mobile social network application created by Dom Hofmann available on Android and iOS.

Spain's Facebook with 15 million users. Telefónica bought it. Then destroyed it.

The always-on social app that killed your battery before it could build your network.

An Indian Q&A social platform that connected users with public figures who could respond with short-form video content.

Won SXSW 2015. Twitter blocked its social graph 48 hours later. Periscope launched two weeks after. Dead in 8 months.

Sean Parker and Shawn Fanning's video chat startup — launched in 2012 with celebrity fanfare, overrun with pornography within 24 hours, pivoted three times, and quietly shut down

Indian Q&A social platform connecting users with celebrities through short-form video responses.

Frontback was a social app for sharing selfies from front and back cameras simultaneously.

The anonymous sharing app that hit #1 in the App Store — and shut down 15 months later because anonymity enables cruelty at scale

Dave Morin's "thoughtful" private social network raised $60M to fix Facebook. Sold to Kakao for a nominal sum. Shut down in 2018.

The live-streaming app that launched at SXSW 2015 to the loudest applause of the year — and died seven months later when Twitter blocked it

Viggle paid people to watch TV. Raised $150M+. Discovered you can't build a sustainable business by paying people to do something they already do for free.

A real-time feed aggregator that consolidated social media updates, blog posts, and RSS feeds from multiple platforms.

The social aggregator that invented the Like button — Facebook bought it, used the idea, killed the product.

A free messaging social app that integrated multiple services including content sharing, location discovery, and app automation features.

Free messaging social app with integrated content sharing and lifestyle discovery features.

A private messaging app for couples — acquired and shut down within months.

The crowdfunded privacy-first social network — a beautiful idea that the mainstream never adopted.

A live video broadcasting platform that allowed anyone to stream user-generated content online.

Formspring rebranded as Spring.me after cyberbullying killed the original — the same anonymous Q&A product with a new name had identical harassment problems and shut 12 months later

Branch was invite-only public conversations between thought leaders. Facebook acquired it. Shut it down within months.

The 'Instagram for video' hit 40 million users in 8 weeks. Then Instagram added video.

Google's social network — dominant in Brazil and India, invisible in the US, killed by Facebook.

Won Apple Design Award for beautiful social reading — but Kindle, iBooks, and Google Books owned ebook distribution; Readmill couldn't acquire books through its app

A social newsreader application.

The virtual DJ room that built the internet's most social music experience — and was shut down by music licensing costs

28 million users loved asking anonymous questions. Some of those questions were horrifying.

Live streaming before YouTube existed — but it could not survive what came after.

The social network that pivoted to Asian e-commerce — and failed at both

AOL paid $850M for Europe's biggest social network and drove it into the ground in two years.

The best photo product ever built — shut down because 55,000 users wouldn't pay enough to sustain it

The teenage founder who gamified check-ins then abandoned them for mobile payments.

YC co-founder of today's YC President built "post by email" blogging. Twitter acquired it to improve posting UX. Shut it 13 months later.

The social network AOL paid $850M for — sold back to its founder for $1M five years later, after AOL did nothing with it while Facebook took all its users

DailyBooth was an early web photo-sharing service that allowed users to share daily photos.

After Twitter shut Posterous, the founder raised $500K to relaunch as Posterous Spaces — shut after 3 months when free users wouldn't pay for the same functionality

The FarmVille empire — built on Facebook, destroyed when Facebook changed its newsfeed algorithm.

27 million teenage bloggers. By 2013 they were all on Facebook. Xanga sold for $60K.

Raised $41M before anyone used the product. Launched to near-universal confusion. Acquired by Apple for ~$7M. Returned 1 cent on the dollar.

The Twitter rival Google acquired and then open-sourced into irrelevance

Gowalla built the better check-in app. Foursquare built the better network. Facebook acquired Gowalla for the team.

Meebo let you use AIM, MSN, and Yahoo Messenger in a browser tab. Google acquired it. Shut it down in 6 weeks.

Kevin Rose raised $45M for social news and declined a $200M Google offer. Digg v4 redesign in 2010 destroyed the community overnight. Users fled to Reddit. Sold for approximately $500K in 2012.

Apple built a social network inside iTunes — and no one wanted to be social inside iTunes

100 stamps per user, zero users at scale — Yahoo bought the team, not the product.

16 million downloads via viral spam tricks, then a $60M exit before the music stopped.

Apple's music social network was announced as "Facebook meets Twitter meets music" in 2010 — Apple failed to secure Facebook integration, users had to find friends by email, nobody used it, killed September 2012

Raised $12M from Sequoia to share your credit card purchases publicly — credit card numbers were indexed by Google and no one actually wanted friends to see every purchase

Silicon Valley's $41M pre-launch embarrassment that nobody could figure out how to use.

A suite of applications allowing users to manage multiple social media accounts simultaneously across platforms like Facebook and Twitter.

The social network that owned Latin America — until Facebook arrived

The social network for meeting strangers that Facebook made redundant

The first social network. Facebook arrived. MySpace watched.

Rupert Murdoch paid $580 million for the internet and sold it for $35 million six years later

The original social network that invented the template — and gave it to MySpace and Facebook to execute.

Google launched a social network inside Gmail. It automatically told everyone who your closest contacts were.

Jonathan Abrams built the first major social network, declined a $30M Google offer in 2003. Servers crashed under growth. MySpace overtook them in 2004. Sold to MOL Global for $100M in 2009. Shut entirely 2015.

Microsoft's 30 million-user blogging network that couldn't out-compete WordPress

South Korea's Facebook — 27 million Korean users — tried to conquer America. Zero Americans wanted it.

A social networking platform designed to help conference attendees connect before and after events.

A social network designed for people over 40 to share experiences and learn from each other.

Yahoo's answer to MySpace — arrived at the question before Facebook made it irrelevant.

A social network designed for people over 40 to share experiences and learn from each other.

The Craigslist-meets-social-network that never found its audience

Kevin Rose built a better Twitter with file sharing. Two weeks after acquisition, it was gone.

20 million teens, zero profit model — MySpace finished what the crash started.

SixDegrees.com built the first real social network in 1997. Sold for $125M. Shut down in 2001. The world wasn't ready.

First social network. IPO gained 606% on day one in 1998. Stock hit $0.10 by 2001.

French teen social app that raised 31 million dollars to be the social platform for Generation Z before TikTok and platform safety regulations wiped out the category.

Filipino live-streaming social app that raised $10M and grew to 2M users but could not monetize at scale.

The hyperlocal city discovery app that couldn't monetize neighbourhood data

German public broadcasting streaming joint venture that could not compete with Netflix and Disney Plus.

Anonymous question-and-answer social network for Gen Z in Australia

Dutch cross-platform mobile messenger that reached 200 million users before WhatsApp's free unlimited messaging killed the carrier-billing model.

A Vernacular Q and A social network acquired by ShareChat that was quietly wound down after the integration failed.

A creator link-in-bio platform that raised $36M but could not differentiate in a market that Linktree and Instagram owned.

A celebrity SMS platform that raised $113M so influencers could text fans directly and could not find a monetization path beyond novelty.

Indian vernacular social media unicorn that reached $5 billion valuation before TikTok ban benefited it briefly and Meta copied every feature.

Canadian teen messaging app killed Kik to fight SEC enforcement over $100M Kin crypto token ICO

Trell raised $45M to become India TikTok for lifestyle content — then laid off 300 people in a fraud scandal and never recovered

South Korea audio social platform that raised $15M and operated across 40 countries before live audio became a graveyard as Clubhouse hype died and Spotify Greenroom failed.

Philippines live-streaming social app raised $10M then lost the race to TikTok Live

Anonymous Q&A social had 30M users before cyberbullying cases linked to teen suicides made App Store restrictions and major media criticism inevitable

Nordic youth football social app sold to the Danish Football Union after six years and €6M

Andreessen Horowitz-backed Swedish startup let you gift retailer rewards through Facebook and discovered that digital gifting is not a habit.

Chronological, ad-free social network challenging Instagram

Built kind communities as a Reddit alternative — deliberately slow growth for quality, no revenue model, A16Z backed, shut after 18 months when no business model emerged