Crash and Burn: How Yik Yak, Fab.com, and Vine Failed to Keep the Momentum Going
Industry buzz and a highly engaged user base don’t always guarantee success
Most startups fail because there was no market need (42% of them, actually). But what about the rest? We need only look at three once-promising startups to understand that industry buzz and a highly engaged user base don’t necessarily guarantee success.
Yik Yak (2013–2017)
Fatal flaw: Changing the core identity of the product
At the height of its popularity in 2014, Yik Yak had a $400 million valuation and was ranked higher on the App Store than Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. By September 2016, that number of downloads had dropped from 1.8 million to 125,000. In April of 2017, founders Tyler Droll and Brooks Buffington announced that the app was closing for good.
Despite the dismal numbers, anonymous university-based Facebook pages and anonymous forums like Whisper seem to indicate that there’s still a market for Yik Yak.
