Developer Tools Inspired by Existing Internal Tools

Successful companies often build internal tools for their own painful, repetitive problems. YC suggests turning those into products for everyone else.

Developers at successful companies often come across tools and frameworks their colleagues built to solve their own painful or repetitive problems. These tools tend to have funny internal nicknames and mostly never see the light of day.

YC says aspiring founders often overlook these as a source of ideas. Its reasoning: a tool that is very useful at one company is likely useful at others. YC also notes that most software tools trace back to something a programmer built to get their own job done, and expects that to keep being true.

The ask: startups inspired by the homegrown internal tools founders used at past jobs.

Read the full request on YC →