Hey — It’s Nico.

Welcome to another Failory edition. This issue takes 5 minutes to read.

These are the 5 most important things:

• Greenikk, an agritech startup, has shut down — learn why below.

• Cowboy Ventures shared what they’re excited about this Q4.

• Open-source data orchestration platform Kestra published their $8M seed deck.

• Y Combinator is facing criticism for backing a cloned AI startup.

• Product Hunt is not what it used to be and people are starting to notice — learn what’s wrong below.

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This Week In Startups

🔗 Resources

A framework on how vertical startups can approach product-market fit.

Cowboy Ventures shared what they’re excited about this Q4.

Open-source data orchestration platform Kestra published their $8M seed deck.

Carta data highlights new fundraising advice for startups in 2024.

Sam Lessin on why the SaaS era is over.

📰 News

Fidelity cut X's valuation by 79% since Elon Musk's purchase.

Y Combinator faces criticism for backing a cloned AI startup.

SoftBank to invest $500M in OpenAI.

LGBTQ+ social app Lex was acquired by 9count.

Payments infrastructure startup Moov has laid off up to 50 employees.

💸 Fundraising

11x.ai raises $50M for its AI sales reps agents.

Food delivery app HungryPanda raises $50M at a 500M valuation.

Event booking platform EVA raises $2M to expand to more US cities.

YC-backed startup Vector raises $2.6M for its B2B lead generation platform.

Fail(St)ory

The Banana Platform

A few days ago, Greenikk, an agritech startup, announced its decision to shut down operations.

Launched in 2020, Greenikk aimed to give banana farmers a new way to thrive by offering tools, resources, and market connections all through a digital platform.

Despite the early excitement, things took a sharp turn as funding challenges, loan defaults, and low revenue growth forced the company to shut down.

What Was Greenikk: Greenikk, founded by Naushad and Previn Jacob, aimed to build a digital ecosystem around banana cultivation.

Their platform was tailored specifically for banana farmers, providing them with financial aid, seeds, expert advice on crops, insurance coverage, agricultural supplies, and connections to markets. Their services cover everything from production to sales, both within the country and internationally.

Despite this ambitious vision, the company faced increasing challenges. Greenikk raised around $1 million in funding and initially planned to secure a larger Series A round of $5 million. But market conditions shifted, and raising that crucial next round became impossible.

The Numbers:

• 📅 Founded in 2020.

• 💰 Raised around $1 million in total.

• 🍌 Built a digital platform to support banana farmers.

• 📉 Struggled with loan defaults and slow revenue growth, leading to a shutdown in 2024.

Reasons For Failure:

• Funding Challenges: Greenikk was hit hard by shifting market conditions. They initially raised capital in 2022 when AgriTech was booming, but by the time they were ready to scale, investor sentiment had cooled. This created a funding gap they couldn’t bridge, which was critical to their survival. As Naushad put it, “We chased the wrong metrics to grow and scale up.”

• Loan Defaults: One of the key services Greenikk offered was access to credit for farmers. Unfortunately, this became a major source of their troubles. Farmers were defaulting on loans, and Greenikk struggled to recover the funds. This issue isn’t unique to Greenikk—other agritech startups like ReshaMandi also struggled with collecting payments, contributing to their collapse.

• Low Revenues: While Greenikk was providing much-needed services to farmers, it wasn’t generating enough revenue to sustain itself. Their model of providing support and market access wasn't scaling as expected. Naushad highlighted that while the company could have survived as a low-revenue business, that wasn’t the vision investors bought into. Greenikk had set its sights on becoming a scalable, high-impact player in the agritech space—something they ultimately couldn’t achieve.

Trend

The Fall of Product Hunt

Last week, Nico Jeannen, an indie maker and longtime user of Product Hunt, shared a long tweet that caught the attention of many in the startup community.

Jeannen expressed frustration over the direction Product Hunt has taken, particularly after his latest app failed to get featured. His thoughts echo what many have been feeling for a while now: that Product Hunt is no longer the vibrant, indie-focused platform it used to be.

Why It Matters:

• A VC Playground: Product Hunt used to be a space where anyone could launch a project, get upvoted, and maybe even win the prestigious "Product of the Day" badge. Today, it seems dominated by VC-backed startups with big advertising budgets.

• Declining Traffic: Product Hunt's traffic has dropped significantly, going from 2 million monthly visitors in 2023 to just 800,000 in 2024. I used to enter daily — now I don’t remember the last time I visited the site.

• Pay-to-Play: More and more, startups are paying hefty sums to get featured, turning what was once a community-driven platform into something more transactional.

The Evolution of Product Hunt: Product Hunt has long been a go-to place for indie makers, startups, and tech enthusiasts to showcase their latest projects.

Founded in 2014, it quickly became the heart of the startup ecosystem, where new tools and apps gained visibility through community upvotes. The competition was tough but fair, and anyone, regardless of their resources, had a shot at standing out.

However, things began to shift after the platform was acquired by AngelList in 2017. The focus gradually moved away from indie makers towards larger, VC-backed startups. This change didn’t happen overnight but became more noticeable as the years went by.

In the early days, a small side project could capture the community's attention and rise to the top. Makers would post their latest creations, whether or not they planned to monetize them. 

This spontaneity kept Product Hunt interesting and gave it a unique charm. There was a genuine sense of discovery, with new and quirky projects popping up daily. 

But as Jeannen pointed out, now the platform feels more like browsing a directory of polished, investor-driven products, lacking the fun and community engagement that once made it special.

The VC Takeover: The increasing dominance of venture-backed startups has shifted the dynamics on Product Hunt. These companies have the budgets to pay for expensive ads, which indie makers simply can't compete with. 

Product Hunt now charges $55 just to show an ad to 1,000 people. This is very expensive, but for VC-backed startups, it is a worthwhile investment. 

According to Jeannen, the “Product of the Day” badge is still seen as an important social proof among investors. Therefore, if you are a VC-backed startup, spending a couple of thousands to promote your startup in Product Hunt and increase your chances of winning the badge is a good investment. 

But this pay-to-play approach is alienating the community that once made Product Hunt thrive. 

My Experience with Product Hunt: I've been a long-time user of Product Hunt and have launched several products there over the years. Back in 2017, when I first launched Failory, it earned the "Product of the Day" badge with 900 upvotes. This was a pivotal moment for Failory as it helped validate the concept. The response showed me there was real interest in the idea and motivated me to keep building it.

At that time, Product Hunt was a place where indie makers had a fair shot. If you had a solid product and a bit of luck, getting the "Product of the Day" badge felt achievable.

But today, I’m pretty sure Failory wouldn’t even make it to the front page. There’s no longer much room for makers without VC backing or the funds for expensive marketing. Product Hunt just isn’t what it used to be—and that’s a real shame.

So, what do you think?

Help Me Improve Failory

That's all of this edition.

Cheers,

Nico