Top 7 Mobile App Failures & Learnings to Build a Successful App

2)Hailo – (2012-14) (American market story)
Hailo used to provide Uber-like taxi services and it was a huge success in London, they marked New York City to take over in the upcoming steps of expanding. It crashes badly in the entire North American market while still performing well in Europe.

As per this Cab application, the path and the drivers of London and New York were the same while not only the path but perspective about the cab facilities was very different. New York City’s Yellow taxi drivers usually don’t carry smartphones during their shifts but smartphones are an essential tool for using this Taxi app played a major cause in the disastrous outcome. They failed to provide training to American cab drivers and drivers were not mandated to use smartphones as part of their profession. As a result, Hailo could not onboard the needed number of yellow cab riders in America, and, even after receiving funding of more than $100 million, they could not survive the American Market.

Lessons to learn 
Every user is unique and the same goes with the market. Refrain from making assumptions and conclusions on a single successful launch and do not underestimate the value of market research before the launch.

3)Vine -(2012-17)
Vine was a successful social networking site and it gained quick popularity for making short-term videos. 

The main reason behind the failure was that they could not develop a sustainable business model, failed to adapt, and could not compete with other similar available apps. In 2012, Vine was purchased by Twitter at $30 million as it was quite ahead of other social media platforms but lacked the adaptability to put this app behind its competitor’s apps like Snapchat, Instagram, etc.

Later on, makers made efforts to revive this social media application by extending the duration of the video clip and onboarding other failed social networking sites named Wagon but these efforts were not sufficient to change the destiny of this app. In 2017, Twitter decided to end the struggle and shut down the app forever.

Lesson to learn 
You can not be sure about the success but the one thing you should be sure about is competition. You can not avoid competition, and to beat the competitors you should always embrace the changes and actively seek the scope of improvement to be ahead.

4)Auctionata- (2012-17)

It was a unique concept with lots of potential and received funding of more than $96+ million. This app is used to livestream the auctions for selling artifacts, ornaments, and fine arts. Auctinata’s effort to live stream the auction was not up to the mark due to slow broadband speed, the customer service was below average, the online payment method was not smooth, and the users were facing issues with delivery services as well. The owners were attempting to take legal action against their customers. In 2016, the app was accused of rupturing the trade laws, and later on, the involvement of board members in illegal bidding to artificially raise the price was discovered.
These facts were sufficient to break the faith of users and users started to decline the app.

Lesson to learn 
Do not be unethical, or irresponsible, and never cheat your customers. Your transparency with the T&C of your app is required, and protecting the data of your users should be your priority. Accept the mistakes, learn from them, and take the necessary steps to not repeat the mistake. 

5)Shyp- (2014-18)

If you want to ship something to the other side of the country and expect to avoid big queues and other formalities, then this app something all you need. The process was very smooth, take a picture of the item you want to ship, upload it to the App and someone will come to pick it up. And the cost of the service was just $5. Initially, it was launched in San Francisco for testing purposes and the app faired pretty well. The app was quite successful in California as well but when they tried to expand in other major cities like New York, and Chicago the app tasted failure. The founders made efforts to save this app but that was too late. The journey of this app was full of ups and downs, full of lessons to learn but within 5 years the on-demand courier service app closed.

Lesson to learn 
Founders could not address the issue till the end and did not pay attention to their investors suggestions on key issues. And growth at any cost mentality was one of the primary reasons for the demise of Shyp.

6)Rdio- (2011-15)
This app was designed by Skype co-founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom. Rdio was basically a music streaming app that used to offer more than 5 million songs to its users and along with that app allows their users to see what their family and friends were listening to, in the past and in real-time. Instead of focusing on the user base, the founders were too focused on developing an ideal software for streaming the music. They undervalued the importance of marketing and did not have a dedicated team for marketing or marketing plans, it was the beginning of the downfall of this app. Later on, Spotify arrived in the American market and offered free music streaming to customers, and along with that they did the marketing of their product quite nicely and became well known even before the launch.

Lesson to learn 

They were more focused on the features of the app than on the user base. Better marketing and services like offering free music could have saved the app but efforts were made when it was too late to get better.

They failed to compete with other apps like Spotify, and Apple Music.

7)Google Wave (2009-10)
In the initial phase, Google Wave was stated as the future of communication and the buzz about the app was quite positive. Email, blogging, instant messaging, document sharing, multimedia management this app has it all in one place and was supposed to make communication and collaboration effective and convenient. The app was developed by more than 6000 developers and tested by over 100,000 users. Even after positive hype the app could not take off so well and the services were shut down after 6 months of its launch. The prior reason behind the failure of this application was launching the app before planning proper execution and taking the attention too seriously.

Lesson to learn 

The execution was not planned and the founders were tempted by attention and did not make their product clear. The concept of the App was too complicated to use and very much ahead of time.
These were the major reasons that did not let the Google Wave touch the mark.

8)Everpix – (2012-13)Everpix was an application designed to integrate and organize users’ photo libraries seamlessly, irrespective of whether the photos were stored on a desktop or in the cloud. The concept was innovative and fulfilled a genuine need among users at that particular time. The Everpix was too focused on the perfection of the product while only perfection of the product is not enough to be successful. The founders got a sufficient amount of funding to grow but they did not believe in the concept of marketing as there was no team or even a salesperson. Every task was managed by the developers and designers. The product was unique and carried a lot of potential and it still has a negative gross operating margin. Also, they could not convince the desired number of investors. As they were running out of money, they had to shut down the Application in 2013.

Lesson to learn 

If you are looking to grow your product consider marketing and advertising as essential components for your business. Money management is an essential part of the business and never use investors money to to pay salaries and other expenses.