Tech people like to discuss which place is the tech heaven. Who has the best ecosystem. Why Silicon Valley is paradise for an entrepreneur. Where money flows and coders are coding on every corners. But the true paradise is where startups go after they die. It's much bigger than Silicon Valley because dead startups are infinitely more numerous than the living ones. It's where the startups souls can rest in peace and inspire us, their offsprings, who are still fighting down there.

What they rarely tell you in tech media is that most startups fail. Maybe for the best, because otherwise it could be discouraging. But that's the truth, Ruth. You learn it when you've started a company and that after 6, 12, 18 months, people who were fighting and innovating with you, always full of hope and energy, are telling you that "yeah it didn't quite work out as we expected… we're gonna shut it down and do something else.."

Sometimes it's a shock. A few days earlier, you saw an article talking about them. You even saw new features and a glorious tweet. But that's the mask. Behind is an entrepreneur soul that is slowly giving up and going to paradise. And few people take notice. Because, as Paul Graham said in How not to die:

"We don't know exactly what happens when they die, because they generally don't die loudly and heroically. Mostly they crawl off somewhere and die."

Yesterday a good startup died. It's called Banters. Lauren Leto, its founder, announced it in this post. It's social, very innovative, fun. It had taste. Product design was neat and inspiring. I would often go there to see how they implemented a feature or organized their UI (both mobile and web). But it wasn't enough.

Two weeks ago another startup I liked announced it would shut down, Barkles. They had an original and well designed approach on the opinion space we work on at HeyCrowd. I sent the founders an email to tell them that hey, they did some awesome stuff, I noticed and I wish them good.

These are just two recent exemples, but there are many more in my head.

Chris Dixon tweeted a few days ago:

It's intellectually lazy to criticize startups. Most will fail. The hard and interesting problem is creating something new.

It's true. And a lot of them did create something new. On a personal level, they make me way more passionate about tech and startups than discussing if Facebook valuation is 80Bn or 90Bn dollars. And as the death of your closed ones gives you a lot of strength and courage in life, these startup souls are giving me a lot of energy and inspiration. We'll keep fighting and hopefully, will win in their name!