Aaron Epstein
@aaron_epstein
General Partner @YCombinator. Previously co-founder @CreativeMarket.
More designers should be founders. And we want to back them at YC. Over the next decade, as new coding tools make it easier than ever to build and ship products quickly, great design is going to matter even more.
Fun fact: @typingwala and I started working on @simstudioai 3 weeks before applying to YC. We applied an hour before the deadline on a whim. We couldn’t believe it when we got in. These stories are more common than you think. Go apply! @ycombinator
Applications for the YC Fall 2025 batch are now open! Apply by August 4: ycombinator.com/apply
Today @instant_db is releasing an API to let humans and agents spin up full-stack backends Each backend comes with database, sync engine, auth tools, file storage, as well as presence And it's all hosted on multi-tenant infra You can create millions of DBs in milliseconds
Still buzzing from the @ycombinator event we hosted in one of Paris’ most iconic venues. So many future founders in the room! Huge thanks to @solomonstre, @kiwicopple, and @t_blom for sharing their stories, and to @unaitefr for helping make it all happen! 📍La Sorbonne
The best product websites do more than pitch. They explain, guide, and reflect the product itself, and often serve as a company’s first impression. For Design Review, YC’s @aaron_epstein is joined by Karri Saarinen (@karrisaarinen), co-founder & CEO of Linear, to break down how…
9 years to get to $10M ARR; 9 months to $100M+. Replit is a story of a founder with a vision finally unlocked by AI.
Amjad Massad (@amasad) started Replit to make programming accessible to anyone, anywhere. What began as a tool for learning to code has grown into a platform pushing the limits of AI-assisted software creation and recently surpassed $100M in ARR. On The Breakdown with @t_blom…
So much opportunity in building tools to manage agents at scale
We made a Mac app that lets you run a bunch of Claude Codes in parallel. Introducing Conductor!
Something special happening here
Excited to announce @orchidsapp has closed a $2M seed round to be the best AI app/site maker on the market. We are HIRING for full time and internships. This was with participation from Y Combinator, BoxGroup, Transpose Platform, Leonis Capital, Raphael Schaad (Head of Design @…
There's been a lot of discussion around moving past chat as the primary input for generative AI. I've had this idea for years that you could use a flowchart as your prompt, and now in Wender it's real! It's so easy and fun to design entire apps from simple user flows.
Mixy is on fire, one of the fastest ever to hit 1m users
Mixy just hit 1M users and 10M mashups in 3 weeks. Jonah and I met as YouTubers when we were 13. We started making apps together 16 years ago. We were obsessed with the chance to leave an impact on the world. Here’s one of our old 16 hour Skype calls, and here’s to many more
Watch @AravSrinivas talk about their massive bet on the new Comet browser at AI Startup School. Just launched this week!
Perplexity co-founder and CEO Aravind Srinivas (@AravSrinivas) on the race to build the AI browser of the future. At AI Startup School in San Francisco. 00:48 - Perplexity's Current Status and Challenges 01:16 - Future Plans: The Browser Bet 03:18 - Competition and Market…
We're on pace to be the fastest AI app/site builder to 100k users. This is our story. 10k to 10 best projects Hiring for Full Stack Eng, Design Eng, Growth Apply at orchids [dot] app / careers
Looking forward to meeting builders in NYC next week. RSVP for the event and reply below with what you’re working on.
Join us in NYC next week for an inside look at YC with General Partner @aaron_epstein! Whether you’re actively building a startup or just considering taking the leap, come to learn more about how we support founders, what we look for in startups, and ask questions. Expect honest…
A lot of AI generated sites and apps feel AI generated. Orchids is changing that.
Introducing Orchids - the world's first AI tool that lets you chat with AI to build apps and websites that don't look and feel "AI generated". On internal benchmarks, Orchids performs close to 3x better on general app and website creation tasks than any other tool on the market.…
proud to announce that we've raised a $6M seed round led by FCVC, with participation from LUX Capital, Y Combinator, Orange Collective, Pioneer Fund, Shay Banon (Founder of Elastic), and a group of amazing investors and angels
Congrats to the team @airweave_ai on their $6M Seed! Airweave is an open-source dev tool that lets AI agents search any app. It connects to apps like Github, Notion, Google Drive, or Postgres and turns them into agent-ready knowledge bases automatically. airweave.ai/blog/seed-round
New video that shows off the core features of Wender, my AI-powered design app for product managers. I use Wender daily to make quick mocks and prototypes to share in Slack, and to automatically design the presentations that I give at work. Try it out and tell me what you think!