I built a failed startups goods website and named it VcSubsidized.com
19 comments
·February 13, 2025jonas21
brendanfinan
I'd be surprised if $1 of cash changes hands due to this website. It seems like he whipped it up in an hour using Cursor to promote his main business, which he linked at the top of the page
dartos
Is there anything about it that screams cursor to you?
Or was that just a throwaway statement
EDIT: nvm literally says at the bottom of the page
ridgewell
I remember at the start of COVID, scoring a Steelcase Leap v2 from a guy who was scooping up office chairs from failed Silicon Valley startups and hauling them up to Canada. Super chill dude, and totally upfront about basically making a 100% profit margin by gluing on new armrests to these wholesale fire-sale finds. It really highlighted the interesting economics of the time - a lot of businesses probably thrived just by redistributing stuff from regions in freefall. You have to wonder how much of the "supply chain" was actually just people moving stuff from places that were dying to places still kicking. Kind of a morbid redistributive supply chain, when you think about it.
neilv
Neat idea. Random initial impressions:
* On search listings, make clicking anywhere in the rounded-rectangle for the search hit go to the details view. (Actually, maybe make the whole rectangle a hyperlink, so people can middle-click and do all the normal browser link things with it.)
* On the detail view, there's no obvious button to go back to the search view. Even if you support old-school browser back feature, which is commendable, you might want to also have a button/link.
* On the detail view, the Twitter/X logo button in the upper right corner of the window almost looks like a close-window X like we see on some other sites for going back to the search view.
* You might want to make a clear argument for why people should use this instead of a liquidator, eBay, CraigsList, Facebook Marketplace, etc. (As a buyer, I'm thinking maybe I can find a deal here because there's not many other buyers. But as a seller who just lost their startup, I'd be thinking what's the easiest way to make these Aeron chairs and standing desks go away, with money a second priority, since there are better uses of my time and storage space.)
* You have a spam.
dartos
> On search listings, make clicking anywhere in the rounded-rectangle for the search hit go to the details view
These are the kinds of small issues which compound into a shitty product that you get from wholesale relying on AI.
jbentley1
From the name I was hoping this would be a list of services being offered at a loss as they burn VC money to get marketshare.
jagged-chisel
This would be the same list as those startups whose initial investors have not yet exited.
null
coldpie
ZeroInterestWaste dot com
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LordDragonfang
From the title I thought this would be a site to get, like, weird startup gadgets that never took off. Looks like this is just craiglist for office furniture/IT from startups.
kokanee
I thought the title was saying that OP's e-commerce website had failed
mattigames
This grammar issue is often solved by adding a hyphen, as in "failed-startups"
beebaween
any plans to open source the code?
jheriko
I thought this meant the website was a failure... and looking at it, I think its due to become one.
xeonmc
looks great, have you considered making a startup business for this?
mpeg
they should track the office furniture provenance with blockchain, that way you could verify what startup it came from, and then when your startup fails and you sell the aeron chairs again it can be an added bonus to the item value.
null
Everything for sale on this site seems to be a joke, but there are real firms that specialize in liquidating the assets of failed startups. There was an HN post about this a few weeks ago:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42790536