Alternatives
Products that do what We decided not to apply to YC so we could try Kickstarter does
Hey everyone! We spent the major part of the year preparing an idea we had for the YC application. At last minute, we decided not to go through with YC. I mean, we've had our fair shares of failed startups and this was one of those make it or break it scenarios. We took everything we've ever learned and strived to make an app that we were proud of. We spent so much effort into making this app that we couldn't bear stopping short and applying to Y Combinator. (Mind you, there's nothing wrong with YC.) We didn't want to apply to Y Combinator at the last minute because if we had really gone…
- 1AS
Got rejected from YC a few times, so I built a site to collect lessons, reflections, and what people would do differently next time. Thought it could be helpful since most founders apply more than once anyway :) Hope it's helpful: https://ycrejection.com/
2025 · ycrejection.com
- 2IL
Please check it out. I spent all of 2012 learning to code to launch what would eventually become Uncover. I'm super excited to announce that we're finally live. Here's a blog post I wrote on how we got there and a little story behind the startup: http://spencerfry.com/introducing-uncover
2013 · uncover.com
- 3MP
http://invincibilitee.com Me and my co-founder submitted an app for YC W11, with a web site that would help college graduates figure out what jobs they could get with their chosen degree. We got a rejection email, and already had this as a back-up idea in case we did get rejected. So in the month between rejection and today, we found a printer, found some graphic designers, and got enough done that we felt comfortable with it as a first iteration. I know there aren't so many non-web app startups on HN, but I thought y'all might like to see how 2 guys rebounded from YC rejection.
2010
- 4
I’m done. I’m bowing out of the startup rat race.
2017
- 5MO
Hey Everybody! Hope you had a merry christmas Today I had a bit of fun with Claude. Started by scraping YC's startups list, then ran them through OpenAI's embedding service, then UMAP'd the embedding to reduce the dimension to just two coordinates and then just forced Claude to write React that would compile to visualize that. I had fun and I think it's interesting, so take a look! Also note that you won't be able to zoom on mobile (found about this Plotly limitation way too late). If there's interest I can fix this issue by changing plotting libs tomorrow :) Merry christmas
2024 · yc-map.vercel.app
- 62G
4 months ago sucked. Our technical co-founder quit after 6 months and we still had no product. My co-founder and I had been 'working' on our startup for 8 months. I say 'working' because as the "business people" - there wasn't a whole lot we could do except philosophize. We had gotten really awesome intros to some of the top VCs and entrepreneurs, but had nothing to show. And now we felt stranded. Had we wasted 8 months of our lives? Identity crisis? Check. So we did what any rational person would do - we ran to the mountains. Literally. In Boone, NC - we talked about why we started Knowit,…
2012
- 7
- 8BY
Hey guys, we just launched a platform to match top startups with high end projects. We're focused on supporting startups that would rather take on a short term consulting gig than raising a round of funding. We'd love some feedback. Thanks!
2011 · grouptalent.com
- 9OS
We did a "Show HN post" 6 months back of our startup and we're very excited to show everyone how far we've come as well as the lessons we've learnt so far! It's been a roller-coaster so far and we think there's lot more of the same to come! We did apply for Ycombinator funding but got turned down :( But may re-apply soon :) For those that don't know, our startup is called Scirra and we make Construct 2 which is an HTML5 game engine (http://www.scirra.com). Our engine allows anyone to make HTML5 games without knowing any programming. It's only me and my brother working on this and we're based…
2012
- 10FP
A little background. For the last 1.5 years I lost what could be considered an embarrassing amount of money hiring other people to work on a project that I thought had potential, I got some important people involved, had some great coders, but couldn't launch. The failure was depressing, rejection by YC didn't help.. I had to take a job, I didn't enjoy and I had a girlfriend who stood by me despite going into debt. But bouncing back over the last 45 days I've taught myself Rails some Jquery, and Javascript and built this www.hangout.io. It's empowering to build something myself because I'm…
2011
- 11DF
Hey all, We’ve applied to YC three times and got rejected each time. we’ll get there eventually! The main reasons for rejection were: being a solo founder (no co-founder), having no team, an MVP that wasn’t ready, or no traction in place. --- My expertise lies in building software products for startups, unicorn companies, and even governments. Throughout my years in software, I’ve had plenty of exposure to data products. I’ve faced recurring challenges like the lack of data, uncertainty around data handling, or even generating too much data and not knowing how to best utilize it to generate…
2025 · opendatabay.com
- 12KO
My co-founder and I saved up enough money to quit our jobs 6 months ago and go full-time. We began working on, while bootstrapping, a photo sharing startup. Unfortunately, after many iterations, it wasn't working well enough and we decided to kill it. However, through that process, we conducted a lot of user tests and interviews, and realized that finding users to test is a pretty hard problem. That's why we made Gemba, Japanese for "the real place", which is a service that connects companies to testers on demand for in-person interviews. URL: http://gemba.me Would love your…
2013
- 13IM
2025 · yc-sim.vercel.app
- 14BF
Excited to announce my new project, Rally! It’s a useful community for early-stage startup founders, inspired by Y Combinator’s Bookface. Site: https://rally.socap.ai/ We think many problems that founders have can be solved 10x better through other founders, but there’s no tool/place to do that well and at scale. For example, instead of googling how to launch on PH, reading blog posts, etc., you could ask for an intro to a famous hunter who’ll explain all that and hunt your product. We're building this place + software to make it work really well. What Rally is: • A…
2024 · rally.socap.ai
- 15IV
Hey my name is Ivo and I'm a developer and a startup entusiast. My girlfriend was out of the coutry for the weekend and I decided to do something cool like building a startup. I've done a few startups over the years but that's the first I actually released, I would love to hear your feedback on it.
2024 · craftlynow.com
- 16MY
Every batch, many founders get rejected due to basic application mistakes, missing key criteria that YC partners explicitly look for. We learned this the hard way, which is why we built YC Score. Simply upload your draft PDF or fill out our YC-mirrored form. Our AI analyzes your responses against 25 critical factors that can make or break your application, from technical credentials to market validation. For instance, when YC partner Dalton Caldwell notes that teams with technical founders have "5x better odds," you need to know before submitting. YC Score flags these deal-breakers and shows…
2025 · ycscore.com
- 17
Hi guys I know ur time is valuable so I will keep this short. Ever since I was in uni I saw that its been difficult for people finding collaborators for your project/startup. Building something is easier than ever but finding collaborators has never been more difficult. so I interviewed 1083 users (yea i know thats a lot but i needed some validation hehe). Half of them did not hear about yc cofounder matching and other platforms and the ones who were using them still found it quite painful and exhausting and they got no one from there. I found that in most cases for my users the only…
19d ago · cofoundme.app
- 18WA
Hello everyone! We just launched our project for the 48H non-stop Codebits Programming Contest which took place this last days in Lisbon, Portugal. When a new project starts, you get all motivated to get it done. Weeks pass and now you are all confused and wondering why the hell you are doing what you are doing. We hope to help you get those thoughts out of your mind and focus on what's important: getting it done. http://www.whyamidoingit.com "Why Am I Doing It?" (WAIDI) is a personal reminder of why you are doing whatever you are doing disguised as a web app. WAIDI will help people like us…
2010
- 19M4
Hello HN, Later today I'll be shutting down the servers and moving on. This is my 5th startup and the 4th failure. The reason is very simple: I understimated the cost of user acquisition. This is the second time this happened. The dozens of users actually love the software and are using it on a daily basis. I'm ruthless when it comes to coding and money. So, if you are building a startup: do not ignore how much money you will have to spend to get a user. If you are not able to find that number, something could be wrong with your model. Maybe someone smarter than me could write something…
2012
- 20IC
I saw this app youlearn.ai on YC and thought of building it. They are claiming to have 1M+ users with just one feature which is to convert your learning material into summaries, quizzes etc. I gave this a shot and cloned almost most of the features in just 9+ hours of continous vibe coding (with 20% manual though). Now I'm selling this on mvp marketplace. Might probably open source it in future or give it free.
2025 · ai-tutor.mvpwrappers.com
- 215Y
Hey HN, I built this tool that maps out every YC company worldwide. You can zoom into cities, explore clusters, and click to see details like batch, location, and website. Why I made it? I thought it’d be fun to visualise it, using the same infrastructure I already use in my other project: FoundersAround Some things I’m still improving: • Improve performance • More filters (industries, stages, etc). Would love your feedback. https://yc.foundersaround.com
2025
- 22TM
So I applied to YC a few times...this time I thought I'd use assistance. And I went all out. The thing I'm applying with did my application. I didn't touch a knob or a dial...didn't type a key. I just prompted the agent and it used the tool. You can see the insane 3 min video - sped up 21x here (link in its description to the full slow video too): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udwuE1PrM_0&feature=youtu.be To me this is the ultimate YC application - one i didn't have to stress over, had someone to help me with, and was a showcase of itself. This Show is for the receipts.…
Jun 2026
- 23MP
Hi I'm the developer of UX-App if you have any questions then fire away :) Just thought I'd give you all some background. I'm a high school teacher by day and developer by night. I was bitten by the start-up bug a few years ago and UX-App is my first product launch. In between a full time job and a 5 month old at home it has taken about 3.5 years to complete the project. I'd like to think its a unique product that holds its own against the existing competition and even has some features that no other tool has. My favorite aspect is the visual code builder which allows designers to easily…
2015
- 24IM
I am a non-hacker "idea guy" with zero discernible talent. Like most, the story starts with me doing things the hard way. I dreamt of a tool that would save me countless hours. Like most of my ideas, it was supposed to die in a couple of hours, but this one had some legs.... "If I needed this, surely others did too" kept looping in my head. Could I get this built? Could I build it myself? Nah...too lazy to learn how, but before I did anything, I had to promise myself one thing: No more ideas! If ideas were sit-ups, I would have a six pack instead of this tire. It was a constant mental…
2012
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