Tarpit Ideas, the Plausible Ones That Keep Failing

While mulling over the product I am building, I came across a video. The message was that the problem I am trying to solve is one even YC (Y Combinator) considers hard to solve.

Here is what the video and the YC article mean by a tarpit idea, and how it applies to my own product.

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What a tarpit idea is#

A tarpit idea is one where the problem sounds plausible, but the product collapses under real user behavior. It's a startup concept that smart people have tried many times, and nobody has made work yet.

It looks solid right up until you enter the market. Then the more you work on it, the less it improves. Like falling into a pit of tar, the harder you struggle, the deeper you sink.

These ideas fail for reasons that aren't visible on the surface. While solving the main problem, other problems keep surfacing that you can't solve. In other words, the idea carries hidden factors that make it fail.

The hidden factors tarpits share#

Here are the hidden factors from the video and the article, rewritten in my own words.

1. Behavior patterns that don't exist — We assume users will act a certain way, but that behavior pattern simply isn't there.
2. Uncontrollable acquisition costs — Building a network requires more user acquisition spend than you can afford.
3. Monetization that only works on paper — The strategy looks effective in the math, but fails in practice.
4. Network effects that never start — The feature only matters once network effects kick in, and they never do.
5. Imperfect market timing — Though personally, I don't think this one matters much.
6. The gap between desire and habit — Users say they'll use it, but they don't. Perceived usefulness (desire) doesn't turn into actual behavior (habit).
7. Low frequency and high friction — It isn't repeated often enough to form a habit, and there's not enough usage to improve customer acquisition cost (CAC). It seems important but isn't essential.
8. Chicken and egg — The product needs to be valuable to users, but it has no value, so users don't use it.
9. Social gravity — It's awkward, slow, and invisible, so users avoid sharing and participating.
10. The monetization mirage — Engagement is high, but there's no clear willingness to pay or to keep paying.
11. The founder problem — I think I feel the problem, but the market doesn't urgently want a solution.

Case study: an app for making plans with friends#

The product I am building sits squarely in this territory. Here's how the hidden factors from the video play out, one by one.

The person you reach out to when you want to hang out might want to stay home, or might not want to hang out at all. An app can't force desire. That's where the flake rate comes from, the share of people who committed but didn't actually show up.

Plans fall apart because people give up. The reason you never reached agreement isn't a lack of coordination tools. It's that someone genuinely didn't want to go. Making plans is more of an emotional problem, yet I was treating the coordination process as the problem. I was focused on something that mattered less.

The video suggests a direction. From creating plans all the way to gently declining with a ready-made excuse, offer pre-built options and safe defaults. It argues that treating the social phenomenon itself as the priority, rather than helping people schedule, is what could make it better.

Monetization isn't easy either. About the only monetizable lever is pre-selling reservations, and that requires high market share first. And when one user leaves, their friends lose their reason to use it too.

That leaves questions like these.

• When nobody is actually making plans, is opening the app enjoyable enough on its own?
• How do you keep socially frowned-upon plans (all-night clubbing, pickup bars, and so on) from being exposed?
• Can it provide value before a plan is even made?
• What happens when nobody is willing to go first?

The four causes of collapse#

Map all of that back to the common factors above and it boils down to four.

1. Low frequency — It isn't used often enough to become a habit.
2. Behavior mismatch — People say they'll use it, but they don't.
3. The acquisition trap — The cost of acquiring users to build the network is unaffordable.
4. The monetization illusion — There's engagement, but no sign of willingness to pay.

If you've found a tarpit#

For someone holding a tarpit idea, a video like this isn't made to make you give up. If anything, it makes the next steps clear.

First, dig into why past attempts failed and identify the hidden factors. Then understand why each one matters. Finally, decide whether to abandon it or find a way to overcome it.

The more plausible an idea sounds, the more worth it is to ask, "Could this be a tarpit?" The cost of climbing out only grows the later you find out.

If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.

— Lao Tzu