YC deadline in <2 weeks; Who's applying?
If you're applying, reply below with what you're building so we can cheer you on!
If you're doing a startup and not applying, why aren't you applying?
If I were starting a company today, I would 100% apply even though I've done it before with @Tandem (S19) for a few key reasons:
The partners help. A lot. (this isn't common. Most people who say they help startups are neutral or harmful)
The network is insane, especially for b2b companies. It will accelerate your G2M like nothing else.
You'll learn what real speed looks like, by grinding alongside the top early stage founders. Every time I talk to a current or recent YC company or go to the events, I'm reminded what top speed looks like. And I'm also reminded that the speed that start-ups are capable of gets faster every year, especially with AI.
As for hesitations...sometimes people balk at the dilution, but generally speaking, the higher price that startups command in their next round at Demo Day more than compensates.
Replies
Solo founder: building robotic simulation engine.
I am planning to apply this time after facing rejection in W25 batch. but this time I have worked on all the previous mistakes and applying with more focused and niche use case of Browser Accessibility using AI agents for big tech companies for auditing purpose. let's see how it goes. if you have any feedback or suggestions would love to hear it from you.
Also, if anyone can review my current YC application. I would really appreciate it!
✈️ We are applying for this fall. We are building an AI powered Travel Organiser which crunches your travel records to provide helpful insights like What kind of traveller are you, exploration gaps, memory curation etc. It is also collaborative in nature.
This is the first time I am applying with co-founder from YC co-founder page.
wanna apply, can you suggest what are the things to keep in mind while applying?
I feel like I'm going against the trend here, but I'm not. Why? I'm launching a major update to my product this week (after 6 weeks back in dev) and I want to speak to existing users, hear what they think, and iterate on that. I feel like YC right now would be a distraction from the solid start I've made with this product so far.
But, yes, in the future I'll consider it once I know where my bottleneck is and how being on YC might actively help with it.
Hyacinth Unlimited Design Subscription
Hi, we'll be applying with an AI Agent Design Platform, that lets businesses and users embed and integrate the custom agents into their existing websites, phone and desktop apps without maintaining any code or infrastructure. A lot of control over customization, output types and AI actions.
🚀 We’re applying with Synthex!
Synthex is a launch-readiness engine for builders. Upload your pitch or idea → get a personalized, technical startup checklist. From auth to infra, payments to docs, everything you forget to do before shipping.
We’re also layering in auto-generated README.md files, launch tweets, tagline one-liners, Subscription and API vaults, all in one minimal dashboard built for speed.
Already in private alpha and excited for what's coming!
Planning to apply... but should I as a solo founder? I don't have a co-founder yet.. I've just been building for the past 3 months.
I've been working on.. InitRepo.com - It's an AI-powered workflow that turns a series of questions into structured documents for AI coding tools to build your MVP. It could be used to Zero / 1 shot projects in the future. Right now you would need to tell your AI agent "keep building" or "continue with Epic 2" and keep track of its tasklist..
Hoping my MCP tool that's under construction will help with this and delegate/deploy multiple agents to work on the project for you.
I built initRepo because I was spending hours on document driven development (DDD).. and if you aren't writing prd's already for your AI, you should try! initRepo writes more than a prd though, It's everything you would expect from a Agile project management system. Even produces documents for Kiro IDE. And it can export user stories to github issues. <-- if you know, you know how powerful this could be, as it will tag @Claude Code in the issues.
Also planning on launching here on product hunt very soon! Would really love to show people here once I get the MCP tool working. I think you all will love it, we'll have to see!
1 question for whoever is reading this; What is your go to tech stack to build on? frontend/backend/database/hosting/billing/auth?
interested to see what people are building on! As I need to give the option for people to pick what they want during the questionnaire process or just stick with my current default set for these projects.. Nextjs, Convex, Vercel, Clerk
Nomadful
Do you think a project from a high school student has any chances at Y Combinator? I recently launched a project and I'm looking forward to its growth.