why not me YC?
Paste your startup idea and find out exactly why YC is passing on you. Brutally honest. Occasionally useful.
Paste your pitch
Your idea, URL, or the deck you've been procrastinating sending.
AI analyzes it
The YC rejection oracle reads it with the enthusiasm of a partner on day 3 of batch.
Get your verdict
Score, roast, 3 specific improvements, and one piece of advice you'll actually use.
What you'll get — real examples
“ChatGPT already does this for free, and so does a €0.99 Moleskine.”
Behavioral change apps have the retention curve of a New Year's resolution — 80% churn by February. There are 847 journaling apps on the App Store. You would be number 848.
Pitch: An AI journaling app that helps you reflect and build better habits
“Uber for dog walking exists. It's called Rover. They raised $155M.”
The phrase 'community-driven' is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Marketplaces need supply and demand to arrive simultaneously — you've described how to get neither. Your moat is vibes.
Pitch: Hyperlocal dog walking marketplace — Uber for pets, community-driven
“Real problem, real market, zero evidence you're the right team.”
There are existing solutions. Several have raised over $50M. The restaurants that haven't adopted software yet are the ones most resistant to it. Your TAM math assumes 100% penetration of a market that actively avoids you.
Pitch: B2B SaaS for restaurant inventory management — $2B TAM, no existing solution
“NFTs as a restaurant reservation system is three pivot-worthy ideas stapled together.”
The Venn diagram of 'people who want restaurant reservations' and 'people who want to manage a crypto wallet to eat dinner' is two separate circles. You've invented a problem to justify a technology looking for a job.
Pitch: NFT-backed membership clubs for restaurants — reservations on-chain, community ownership
“Strong insight, defensible moat, needs a co-founder who's done this before.”
This is a real problem that existing payment rails genuinely can't solve. The regulatory moat is real. The risk is that your 'Stripe for X' framing undersells how hard the compliance side actually is — and Stripe is probably already building this.
Pitch: Compliance automation for cannabis payments — we're the Stripe for regulated industries
“You're building a feature, not a company — and the feature ships next quarter from a FAANG.”
Google and Microsoft both ship this as a free add-on to their existing products. The wedge you need is one type of user who desperately needs this — executives, surgeons, lawyers — not 'knowledge workers' which is everyone and therefore no one.
Pitch: AI that turns your calendar and emails into a prioritised daily plan
“ChatGPT already does this for free, and so does a €0.99 Moleskine.”
Behavioral change apps have the retention curve of a New Year's resolution — 80% churn by February. There are 847 journaling apps on the App Store. You would be number 848.
Pitch: An AI journaling app that helps you reflect and build better habits
“Uber for dog walking exists. It's called Rover. They raised $155M.”
The phrase 'community-driven' is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Marketplaces need supply and demand to arrive simultaneously — you've described how to get neither. Your moat is vibes.
Pitch: Hyperlocal dog walking marketplace — Uber for pets, community-driven
“Real problem, real market, zero evidence you're the right team.”
There are existing solutions. Several have raised over $50M. The restaurants that haven't adopted software yet are the ones most resistant to it. Your TAM math assumes 100% penetration of a market that actively avoids you.
Pitch: B2B SaaS for restaurant inventory management — $2B TAM, no existing solution
“NFTs as a restaurant reservation system is three pivot-worthy ideas stapled together.”
The Venn diagram of 'people who want restaurant reservations' and 'people who want to manage a crypto wallet to eat dinner' is two separate circles. You've invented a problem to justify a technology looking for a job.
Pitch: NFT-backed membership clubs for restaurants — reservations on-chain, community ownership
“Strong insight, defensible moat, needs a co-founder who's done this before.”
This is a real problem that existing payment rails genuinely can't solve. The regulatory moat is real. The risk is that your 'Stripe for X' framing undersells how hard the compliance side actually is — and Stripe is probably already building this.
Pitch: Compliance automation for cannabis payments — we're the Stripe for regulated industries
“You're building a feature, not a company — and the feature ships next quarter from a FAANG.”
Google and Microsoft both ship this as a free add-on to their existing products. The wedge you need is one type of user who desperately needs this — executives, surgeons, lawyers — not 'knowledge workers' which is everyone and therefore no one.
Pitch: AI that turns your calendar and emails into a prioritised daily plan