Lessons From A Failed Startup

Lessons From A Failed Startup

Perry Ogwuche who was previously a YC founder talks to other founders from the YC community and beyond with inactive companies to learn from their stories and unique experiences with running a business that they eventually had to shut down. Lessons from a failed startup podcast focuses on the stories of entrepreneurs who have started businesses that are among the 95% of businesses that don’t quite make it to the finish line.

Episodes

February 16, 2021 35 mins

Nathan Lustig, the managing partner of Magma Partners, a seed stage investment fund, shares his perspective on how he views founders with a failed startup under their belt.

Learn more about Nathan:
- Blog: https://www.nathanlustig.com/about/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/nathanlustig
- Magma Partners website: https://www.magmapartners.com/
- Crossing Boarders podcast with Nathan Lustig: https://latamlist.c...

Mark as Played

Praful Mathur shares his experience with building a YCombinator company and loosing his  co-founders and biggest investor in the process. 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/prafulmathur/

Mark as Played

Ayush Kumar shares his experience with shutting his company and trying to get back into the workforce afterwards. 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/akumar0630/

Mark as Played

Peer and I talk about his experience with shutting down his company Mage and getting an acquisition offer for his newer company Lean Hire, from On Deck, the very next day, which was when we recorded this episode. 

Peer now serves as the head of product at On Deck. 

Lean Hire Acquisition: https://www.beondeck.com/post/lean-hire

Mark as Played

João De Paula previous co-founder and CTO of Glio, the Amazon market place for Latin America shares his story about building the company and having to shut it down after 6 plus years of running it. 

Mark as Played

Gaurav Maken, previous co-founder of YCombinator's Mylk Guys shares his experience with building a growing business that he had to shut down at the height of their growth. Gaurav talks about the importance of focusing on what matters for your business and the importance of learning from the successes and failures of founders.

https://twitter.com/gauravmaken
https://www.linkedin.com/in/gaurav-maken/

Mark as Played

Colin Hayhurst a successful entrepreneur , and startup mentor, shares his experience in starting and shutting down the YCombinator backed company GoScale that he co-founded with James Cunningham. 

The YC practice interview app, referred too, can be found here and the associated TechCrunch article here.

Colin has a deep technical and commercial background with startups in engineering and applied physics software, web infrastructure, m...

Mark as Played

Renji Bijoy, founder and CEO of ImmersedVR talk about his company AraJoy which pivoted to becoming Immersed. He talk about the process he went through to realize that his initial ideas was bad and that he needed to pivot. He also talks about his startup hack to finding good developers for cheap and more. 

Connect with Renji:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/RenjiBijoy
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/renjibijoy/

Mark as Played

Pranshu, co-founder of Prayas Analytics- the google analytics for retail stores talks about the importance of founder market fit. He discusses his experience with shutting down Prayas after not being able to get any "real" customers even though they had money in the bank. Discusses how it was for him to get back out there after shutting down his company. 

You can connect with Pranshu on Twitter: @pranshu_m

Mark as Played

John Coogan, co-founder and former CTO of Soylent shares his story publicly for the first time about his failures before Soylent. 

Mark as Played

Kristen Fang, previous co-founder of StrattyX, a trading interface that allowed you set up sophisticated “if-this-then-that” rules and execute orders on the stock market, talks about her experience with shutting down the company after being in the top 4 of Tech Crunch disrupt 2019 and midway through YCombinators Winter batch of 2020. 


Mark as Played

MoveLoot was an online market place to buy and sell used furniture. They were part of YCombinator's winter 2014 batch. MoveLoot experienced a lot of growth and expanded to multiple cities including NY and LA. They raised multiple rounds of funding summing up to $22m, but ultimately the company had to shut down. Perry dives deep to learn what happened from co-founder Shruti Shah and draw out lessons learned. 

Mark as Played

Vikram  Rangraj and his co-founder had a really awesome idea to build Dropleaf, a video game subscription service for all you can play video games. Essentially Netflix for video games. They got into the prestigious YCombinator in 2017 and had to shut down only 2 years later. Vikram is currently the Chief Academic Officer at Rize Education and he shared his experience of building and shutting down Dropleaf in 2017.

Twitter:...

Mark as Played
October 28, 2020 5 mins

Introducing Lessons From A Failed Startup Podcast. Perry Ogwuche gives a brief intro about the podcast and briefly describes his experience with his failed startup.

Mark as Played

Popular Podcasts

    If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.

    Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang

    Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.

    Dateline NBC

    Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com

    Paper Ghosts: The Texas Teen Murders

    Paper Ghosts: The Texas Teen Murders takes you back to 1983, when two teenagers were found murdered, execution-style, on a quiet Texas hill. What followed was decades of rumors, false leads, and a case that law enforcement could never seem to close. Now, veteran investigative journalist M. William Phelps reopens the file — uncovering new witnesses, hidden evidence, and a shocking web of deaths that may all be connected. Over nine gripping episodes, Paper Ghosts: The Texas Teen Murders unravels a story 42 years in the making… and asks the question: who’s really been hiding the truth?

    The Breakfast Club

    The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!

Advertise With Us
Music, radio and podcasts, all free. Listen online or download the iHeart App.

Connect

© 2025 iHeartMedia, Inc.