MyFavorites
The business, the turning points, and the decisions behind them.
01 / WHAT IT BUILT
What the company did
MyFavorites was a self-funded startup by founder Steve Poland that billed itself as the like button for everything: an app for favoriting anything you liked. With a team of seven building toward a SXSW launch, it burned cash at what the founder called a ridiculous pace — building an iPhone app and a web app at the same time before any real user had tried the core favoriting flow.
02 / MyFavorites FAILURE REASONS
Failure reasons
MyFavorites failed for reasons its founder documented in a postmortem titled The little startup that could not. The problem he was trying to solve was not one people actually felt they had, and he flip-flopped on the user experience without any users testing it. After returning from SXSW the whole team lost interest, wondering where the startup was even going, and Poland realized he could not keep funding it himself. Seven people, two platforms, zero users, no revenue — he called it quits and shut the company down.
03 / EVENT HISTORY
Events in the structured record
- Product launch
MyFavorites builds toward a SXSW launch with a seven-person team, developing iPhone and web apps in parallel.
- Closure announced
Founder Steve Poland publishes the postmortem The little startup that could not, shutting down the self-funded startup.
04 / CONTEMPORARY REBUILD ASSESSMENT
Difficulty of rebuilding this project today
Material for this section is being gathered and checked. It will appear here once ready.
Overall assessment: Not completed
05 / CAUSAL CHAIN
How the factors connect
- 01
Solving a problem nobody feels they have is the hardest startup to build
- 02
Seven people and two platforms with zero users is burn, not progress
- 03
Flip-flopping on UX without user feedback is just arguing with yourself
- 04
When the team comes back from the launch event asking where this is going, it is already over