Show HN: I built a game where you guess which startup idea succeeded

4 Belsonsan 3 5/3/2025, 7:03:15 PM startuporflop.com ↗
I’ve been studying real-world SaaS ideas — some that took off, others that failed hard. I turned it into a small side project: StartUp or Flop?

You get two real startup ideas. One became successful, the other didn’t. You guess which is which, then you get the actual answer plus a short explanation of what made it work (or not).

It’s a lightweight way to learn from real startup outcomes, uncover the patterns behind success and failure, sharpen your product instinct — and maybe even confront some of your own startup biases along the way. It’s surprising, humbling, and kind of addictive.

Would love your feedback! https://www.startuporflop.com/

Comments (3)

kartik_malik · 2h ago
For really, I don't understand the use case.
Belsonsan · 9m ago
Totally fair — it's not meant to be a “tool” in the traditional sense.

The idea is to help founders, builders, or even curious observers sharpen their instincts by exposing them to real startup ideas and outcomes. A lot of people (myself included) get caught up thinking “this idea has to work,” and this game shows how often that intuition is wrong — and why.

It’s lightweight, educational, and honestly a bit humbling. Kind of like flashcards for product thinking.

Appreciate the honest feedback!

Belsonsan · 15h ago
ey folks — I'm Henri, a solo dev and product enthusiast based in Europe. I built this mostly for myself at first, as a way to train my product intuition and avoid falling in love with my own startup ideas too quickly.

I’ve made some bad bets in the past (who hasn’t?), and I realized how easy it is to assume we know what works just because something sounds smart. I wanted a fun way to challenge that — to learn from real examples without reading 50 postmortems.

Would love to hear what you think, especially if you’ve built something or are in the early stages of a project.