The latest articles on DEV Community by Josh Cox (@hightech89). https://dev.to/hightech89 https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=90,height=90,fit=cover,gravity=auto,format=auto/https:%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Fuser%2Fprofile_image%2F1471184%2Fa810060e-cfbc-4cde-bdbf-640cf2c8ce9e.png https://dev.to/hightech89 en Josh Cox Mon, 18 May 2026 01:46:37 +0000 https://dev.to/hightech89/i-built-startup-graveyard-to-study-why-startups-fail-147i https://dev.to/hightech89/i-built-startup-graveyard-to-study-why-startups-fail-147i <p>I recently soft-launched a side project called <strong>Startup Graveyard</strong>.</p> <p>The idea is simple: a place to browse failed startups, learn what went wrong, and pull lessons from their mistakes.</p> <p>You can check it out here:<br> <a href="https://www.startupgraveyard.co" rel="noopener noreferrer">https://www.startupgraveyard.co</a></p> <h2> Why I built it </h2> <p>I have always been interested in startups, software, and the idea of building something from scratch. But the more I looked into successful companies, the more I realized that failed startups are just as useful to study.</p> <p>A lot of failed startups had good ideas, talented teams, funding, users, or hype. But something still went wrong.</p> <p>Sometimes it was poor timing.<br> Sometimes there was no real market need.<br> Sometimes the business model did not work.<br> Sometimes the product was interesting, but not useful enough for people to keep using.</p> <p>I wanted to build a site that collects those stories in a simple, searchable way.</p> <h2> What the app does right now </h2> <p>Startup Graveyard currently lets users:</p> <ul> <li>browse failed startups</li> <li>search and filter by category</li> <li>sort by newest, top, or A-Z</li> <li>view startup detail pages</li> <li>upvote startups</li> <li>comment on startup pages</li> <li>create an account</li> <li>submit failed startups</li> <li>manage their own submissions from a profile page</li> </ul> <p>New submissions go into a pending review state before they appear publicly, so the site does not become a spam board.</p> <h2> Tech stack </h2> <p>I built it with:</p> <ul> <li>Next.js</li> <li>TypeScript</li> <li>Tailwind CSS</li> <li>Supabase for auth and database</li> <li>Supabase RLS for security rules</li> <li>Resend for production auth emails</li> <li>Vercel for deployment</li> </ul> <p>This project also helped me get more comfortable with real-world production concerns like:</p> <ul> <li>authentication</li> <li>email confirmation</li> <li>row-level security</li> <li>moderation</li> <li>SEO metadata</li> <li>sitemap and robots files</li> <li>environment variables</li> <li>deployment issues</li> <li>preventing public email exposure</li> <li>keeping user-submitted content controlled</li> </ul> <h2> What I learned </h2> <p>The biggest lesson from building this was that launching an app is not just about making the UI work.</p> <p>There were a lot of things I had to tighten up before I felt comfortable sharing it publicly:</p> <ul> <li>user emails should never show publicly</li> <li>new submissions need moderation</li> <li>users should not be able to self-approve their own posts</li> <li>auth emails need production SMTP</li> <li>database rules matter more than client-side checks</li> <li>SEO needs to be handled before sharing links</li> <li>a feature can work in development but still need production hardening</li> </ul> <p>The app started as a simple directory, but it quickly became a good learning project for how real apps are built and protected.</p> <h2> What I want to add next </h2> <p>The next big improvement I want to make is a better failure pattern system.</p> <p>Instead of only showing a basic cause of death, I want startups to be grouped by patterns like:</p> <ul> <li>no market need</li> <li>pricing failure</li> <li>poor timing</li> <li>distribution failure</li> <li>funding or burn-rate issues</li> <li>legal or regulatory problems</li> <li>retention problems</li> <li>founder conflict</li> <li>competition</li> <li>hardware/manufacturing issues</li> </ul> <p>Long term, I would like the site to become more of a learning engine for founders and builders, not just a list of failed companies.</p> <h2> Feedback welcome </h2> <p>This is still a soft launch, so I would really appreciate feedback.</p> <p>I’m especially looking for thoughts on:</p> <ul> <li>the overall idea</li> <li>design and usability</li> <li>anything confusing in the flow</li> <li>features that would make the site more useful</li> <li>bugs or rough edges</li> </ul> <p>Site:<br> <a href="https://www.startupgraveyard.co" rel="noopener noreferrer">https://www.startupgraveyard.co</a></p> <p>Thanks for checking it out.</p> learning showdev sideprojects startup Josh Cox Thu, 14 May 2026 18:16:05 +0000 https://dev.to/hightech89/im-building-a-startup-failure-archive-with-nextjs-and-supabase-4544 https://dev.to/hightech89/im-building-a-startup-failure-archive-with-nextjs-and-supabase-4544 <p>I’m building a project called Startup Graveyard.</p> <p>The idea is simple: a searchable collection of failed startups and post-mortems so builders can learn from what went wrong instead of only seeing success stories.</p> <p>It’s built with Next.js, Supabase, and Vercel. So far I’ve added auth, startup submissions, comments, voting, profiles, and filtering.</p> <p>I’m still polishing it, but I’m thinking about writing a dev.to post about the build process, what I learned, and some of the mistakes I ran into along the way.</p> <p>Would this be something worth sharing?</p> nextjs showdev sideprojects startup Josh Cox Fri, 08 May 2026 18:26:28 +0000 https://dev.to/hightech89/hey-everyone-first-time-posting-on-devto-and-first-time-entering-a-coding-challenge-here-so-i-23ce https://dev.to/hightech89/hey-everyone-first-time-posting-on-devto-and-first-time-entering-a-coding-challenge-here-so-i-23ce career codenewbie community devchallenge