How We Redesigned Our Website

YC’s Aaron Epstein and Eve Bouffard explain how they rebuilt the YC homepage by prioritizing founder storytelling over conversion tactics, using Claude Opus as a live design collaborator instead of Figma.

• Built the new site by prompting Claude Opus 4.5 in Cursor rather than designing in Figma, treating the model as a co-designer.
• Old site was dismissed as a B2B SaaS template: stat blocks, logos, vague headlines with no concrete numbers.
• Core redesign principle: make visitors dream, not convert — no apply CTA in the hero section by deliberate choice.
• Before/after founder photos (humble beginnings vs. now) are the primary storytelling device to help applicants see themselves in YC alumni.
• AI animation tool (a recent YC startup called “One”) used to lightly animate still photos of notable Silicon Valley figures for the network section.
• YC partners’ batch-era photos shown on hover to visually prove partners were once in applicants’ exact position.
• Body copy in the new site is nearly identical to PG’s original YC website copy from 15+ years ago, updated only for location and batch frequency.
• Prediction: web design will shift toward interaction and animation as primary communication tools, not decoration, as AI makes prototyping near-instant.

2026-01-30 · Watch on YouTube