Show HN: Generate your YC application with GPT-4 | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Generate your YC application with GPT-4

pitchpal.app

14 pointsneiman114 comments

I just wouldn't use this. I think when applying for things like jobs or funding, you want to write every single word yourself. Because

* Honesty

* They can see how you think/write

* The process of writing is thinking. Your application to YC might make you rethink some things about your business. Like a forcing function.

* Writing the application is a form of preparation

* You might get caught out with something false in the application that was generated and you missed the mistake. E.g. "we doubled our users last month" or something.

Good job on building something cool and putting it in front of people.

The biggest flaw I see is that it generates marketing-speak. It fails to answer well the most important question.

Here's what it gave me:

"Beddit is developing an, engaging online forum that will revolutionize digital communities via structured discussions, dynamic networking and unique engagement tools. Focused on aligning the often chaotic world of online networking, Beddit offers users a vibrant and organized platform for connecting, learning, and growing. Key functionalities include advanced topic filters, an interactive voting system for significant contributions, as well as real-time discussion monitoring for maintaining quality discussions. As we further enhance our product, Beddit aims to incorporate machine learning for personalized user experiences, AI moderation, and predictive analytics to anticipate trending topics, creating the future of online forums."

Here's something better I wrote:

"We'll make a better Reddit. Users visit a website to post links and comments and we save them in a database. A background process ranks news based on number of views and puts them on the front page."

GPT-4s response doesn't say how the site works. The description above does.

Looks really cool.

Does it need our own OpenAI API key to run this or it doesn't need that?

How long are you planning to offer the lifetime offer? If I invest in lifetime plan, is it sustainable enough to run at least for 2 years even if you are not able to sell it more or produce MRR ?

Also, how can I contact you if I want to promote this via our platform? Do you have any active affiliate program for promotion?

Thank you.

Thanks a lot!

> Does it need our own OpenAI API key to run this or it doesn't need that?

You don't need an OpenAI API key.

> How long are you planning to offer the lifetime offer? If I invest in lifetime plan, is it sustainable enough to run at least for 2 years even if you are not able to sell it more or produce MRR ?

Whilst I'm considering a switch to a subscription model, I will of course honour previously purchased lifetime licenses forever. When you buy a lifetime license, you are also sent a compiled version of the app that you can run locally on your own machine, using your own OpenAI API key, so there's no risk to you even if PitchPal ends up not being sustainable.

> Also, how can I contact you if I want to promote this via our platform? Do you have any active affiliate program for promotion?

You can contact me at sam@pitchpal.app - shoot me an email re: the affiliate program as it's not something I've considered!

Thank you for the precise response, Sam. I will contact you soon.

Hi Sam, emailed at sam@pitchpal.app twice since 11th July but didn't receive any response. Not sure if the your email client is working properly or not.

Thanks

Love this! Have you looked at a service for completing grant applications?

That's not something I've considered, but love the idea!

Initial assumption is that there could be a ton of overlap (e.g. select a research area + provide a brief description of your hypothesis/planned experiments to generate the application).

Are there any nuances / complexities I'm missing? What do you find to be the most time consuming part about writing these applications?

There are a bunch of different expectations depending on the types and agencies. I suggest starting at SBIR.gov then really happy to help in any way. Most time consuming part is tailoring the answers to all of the sections.

And one for reviewing grant applications please

Hey HN, just sharing a tool I made over a long weekend to help founders generate completed applications for popular funds like YC, Seedcamp, etc.

Just enter the name of your startup, along with a brief description of the service + founders, and it will use GPT-4 to create an application that takes into account the requirements of your chosen accelerator.

Wow looks cool.

Dumb question(s): do you store my data? does anyone have access to it? can you or anyone associated with the app other than myself read my data?

Not a dumb question at all imo, it’s missing from the info. At the very least sent to OpenAI which is affiliated with YC

No, I don't store or read your data. State is managed using your browser's local storage. The caveat being that the tool uses GPT-4, so your data will be sent to OpenAI via an AWS Lambda function.

However, upon purchasing PitchPal you will also be emailed a compiled version of the app that you can run on your local machine, using your own OpenAI API key.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com