New startup ideas · AI and software · Developer tools

startup idea

Palmforge

Build private software for your own life that never leaves your phone.

Palmforge is a consumer subscription that lets one person describe a tool they need (a budget rule, a medication tracker, a school-schedule agent) and compiles it into a small program that runs entirely on their own device against their own data.

Software subscription
Consumer
$1-10B market
Creates a new category
US first

3/5

venture judge

similar startups, last 2 years (17 all-time)

95%

of 4 nearest real companies still alive

yes

5 matching federal grants and programs

Direction supported by government programs and grants

Test it before you build it

$1,200 · 3 weeks · 30 prospects

For $1,200 in three weeks, learn whether spreadsheet budgeters will pre-pay $29 for private on-device money rules and come back for a second tool.

Riskiest assumption · A spreadsheet budgeter who gets one working money rule will pay up front and keep asking for more tools, instead of churning the moment the first rule works.

1Focus group: who and where

An iPhone owner in the US who exports bank CSVs into a Google Sheets or Excel budget every week, has hand-built rules (subscription flags, low-balance checks) they re-run manually, and refuses Mint-style apps because they will not hand a cloud service their bank login.

where to find 30 · The r/ynab and r/personalfinance subreddits (communities of exactly these DIY budgeters), the Bogleheads.org forum threads on personal finance spreadsheets (community and de facto directory of spreadsheet builders), one-star and privacy-complaint reviews of Monarch, Copilot Money and Rocket Money in the App Store (channel to mine for language and target ads against), and Etsy budget-spreadsheet template listings whose buyer questions name the exact rules people want (channel).

2Sell first, build later

Your first three custom money rules, built for you and running entirely on your iPhone against the CSV you already export, delivered by December 1, 2026, then plain-language rule editing when the app ships.

the ask · $29 one-time pre-order, then $9 a month founding price (list $15 a month) starting at delivery.

a real yes · A real yes is a completed $29 charge. Waitlist signups, upvotes and comments saying they would use it count for nothing.

3Small experiments

The first one attacks the riskiest assumption; each ends with a number that says whether to run the next.

1. Priced pre-order page
$700 · 10 days
Put up a one-page site describing the product: your money rules run on your phone against the CSV you already export, nothing uploaded, first three rules built for you, ships December 1, 2026, $15 a month with a $29 founding pre-order. Drive about 1,200 visitors with $550 of Reddit ads targeted at budgeting and personal-finance interests plus permitted posts in r/ynab weekly threads. Checkout is a hosted card checkout taking the $29; for a consumer arriving from an ad click at this price, an online card checkout is the instrument that fits.
keep going if · 18 or more of about 1,200 visitors (1.5%) complete the $29 checkout
2. Concierge second-tool test
$200 · 14 days
For each pre-order customer, hand-build their three requested rules within 48 hours as an iOS Shortcut plus a small on-device script reading their exported CSV, so the promise is delivered before any product exists. Then count who comes back: log every unprompted request for a fourth rule or an edit. This attacks the card's stated killer, one-tool-and-done retention.
keep going if · 8 of the first 12 customers request another rule or an edit within 14 days of delivery
3. Abandoned-checkout interviews
$300 · 7 days
Email visitors who started but abandoned the $29 checkout and offer a $20 Amazon card for a 20-minute call; run 15 calls asking what stopped them, what they pay for today, and what offer would have converted. Founder runs all calls in week two and three.
keep going if · 10 of 15 abandoners cite price or trust (fixable) rather than my spreadsheet is enough (kill evidence)

4Collect a deposit up front

Tesla took $1,000 refundable reservations for the Model 3 and $100 for the Cybertruck before building either: the deposit is the measurement, not the revenue.

$29

per prospect, refundable

how · A $29 card payment on a hosted checkout attached to the pre-order page; for a consumer coming from a Reddit ad, an online card checkout is the natural instrument and anything heavier would suppress the measurement. The buyer checks out; no signatures. set up: Stripe Checkout ↗

what it reserves · A slot in the first 100-user cohort, three custom rules built for you by December 1, 2026, and the $9 a month founding price locked for the first year.

refund · Refunded in full with one click any time before the first rules ship on December 1, 2026.

target · 20 paid $29 pre-orders within 21 days from about 1,200 visitors and 25 direct conversations.

before taking money · The bank and health connectors are the regulated part, so during the test never take a user's bank credentials or health records; work only on CSVs the user exports and keeps on their own device.

Go: build it if

20 or more paid $29 pre-orders from about 1,200 visitors (1.5%+ checkout conversion) and at least 8 of the first 12 concierge users request a second rule within 14 days.

Kill: stop if

Fewer than 8 pre-orders after 1,000 visitors, or fewer than 3 of 12 concierge users ask for a second rule; either means one-and-done tools and no $15 a month subscription.

5 Scripts to run itoutreach message, landing copy, deposit terms · click to open

outreach message

You track your money in a spreadsheet because budgeting apps want your bank login in their cloud. I am building a small iPhone app that runs your custom rules, like flag any subscription over $20 or alert me when checking drops below $2,000, entirely on your phone against a CSV you export yourself, nothing uploaded. I am doing 20-minute calls with 15 spreadsheet budgeters this week to pick the first rules to ship. Can I get 20 minutes with you?

landing page

Your money rules, running on your phone, never uploaded $29 pre-orders your first three custom rules, then $9 a month founding price (list $15), shipping December 1, 2026 Pre-order your first three rules

deposit terms

Your $29 pre-order reserves a spot in the first 100-user cohort and locks the founding price of $9 a month for your first year. Your first three custom rules ship by December 1, 2026. Refundable in full, one click, any time before your rules ship.

Would you run this test?

One tap. The yes-share feeds the Demand pillar of this idea's score; nobody sees who answered.

Budgets are out-of-pocket estimates for a team of one to three, US market. Size the deposit to the deal, and check the terms before taking money in a regulated line.

Scorecard

One score that balances how trendy the idea is, the demand for it and its potential for 100x, with competition measured relative to every other idea in the catalog. Recent startup trends first, government priorities second.

Idea Score, 0-100 · raw 39.4 x 1.61

Warm

competition: more crowded than 32% of ideas · headwind x0.84

+1.8

government priorities, secondary (4 matching grants)

Trend

Is the wave forming now? 2025-26 entrants vs 2023-24, rounds since 2025, the sector's live-batch direction, the 2026 trend analyst.

Entrants 2025-26 vs 2023-24 (similar companies)61
Rounds announced 2025+ in the sector16
Sector direction (live batch)50
2026 trend analyst25

Demand

Does anyone want it? YC's current RFS, companies already paid for something similar, the operator judge, founders' yes-rate in decks, readers who would run the test.

YC asks for it (current RFS: idea / sector)30
Someone already pays (similar companies, recent / all-time)100
Operator judge: real pain0

100x potential

Can it return a fund? The venture judge (double weight), market-size and moat axes, neighbours still alive, the technologist judge.

Venture judge50
Market size axis33
Moat axis80
Neighbours still alive67
Technologist judge50

Score = 100 x cbrt(Trend x Demand x 100x) x (1 - 0.5 x crowding) + government bonus (max 5), calibrated so the 95th-percentile idea scores 90 (order never changes). A geometric mean: a weak pillar cannot be papered over. Percentiles are among the 272 ideas in the catalog; the terms matched were private, life, never, leaves, phone, consumer, subscription, describe.

The idea in full

What: Palmforge is a consumer subscription that lets one person describe a tool they need (a budget rule, a medication tracker, a school-schedule agent) and compiles it into a small program that runs entirely on their own device against their own data. The deep part is on-device: a distilled code model plus a local knowledge graph over the user's bank feeds, calendar, health records and photos, so nothing is uploaded and the app works offline. Consumers pay a monthly fee; the connectors to regulated financial and health data are the gated, licensed part.
Why now: On-device is being funded as a category right now: Graphify Labs (yc S26) is building an on-device knowledge graph engine, smol machines (yc X26) portable self-contained VMs, and CodeWisp and Sparkles are both selling non-engineers the ability to create real software. The cluster added 87 companies in 2024 and 62 in 2025, almost all cloud-hosted builders, which leaves the private, personal-data side of the same idea open.
Wedge: first customer and entry point: US iPhone owners who already export bank CSVs into spreadsheets: a single local money-rules app that watches transactions and fires custom alerts, then opens up to let them edit and add rules in plain language.
Path to 100x: Prosumer software subscriptions are a $1-10B market and nobody holds the personal-automation slot; the moat is distribution, since being the default local-agent surface on a phone (share sheet, widgets, shortcuts, preinstall deals) is the position that decides the winner. If a few million people pay $15 a month for private personal software, a new category exists and the top of the $1-10B range belongs to whoever owns the on-device slot.
Ceiling: Apple or Google ship an equivalent local agent in the OS for free and Palmforge becomes a feature rather than a subscription.
Closest real companies, as the generator saw them: CodeWisp lets anyone create real games with AI and Sparkles makes everyone on a team an engineer, but both target creation for others and run in the cloud; Vendo lets a product's users build features on top of that product. Palmforge builds software only for the owner of the data and never moves the data off the device, which is why it can touch bank and health records at all.
Main risk: Ordinary consumers do not want to own software they have to maintain, so retention collapses after the first tool works.

Five judges

Each judge scores every idea in the catalog with a named rubric; the venture judge decides whether a card is shown at all (4-5 is venture-grade).

Venture investor
3/5
Real category slot but the on-device personal-automation position dies the day Apple ships it free in the OS.
Bootstrapper
2/5
Consumer $15/month subscriptions with stated retention collapse after the first tool is exactly the churn this lens punishes.
Operator
1/5
Consumers maintaining their own software is a vitamin, and the card itself concedes retention collapses after the first tool works.
Technologist
3/5
A distilled on-device code model over a local knowledge graph is genuinely hard, but Apple shipping the same OS slot erases it.
Risk
1/5
Whole business sits on Apple and Google, who both control the share sheet and can ship the same local agent free in the OS.
trends
2/5
Consumer cluster is shrinking to 3% of the S26 batch, and personal automation on your own data was equally pitchable in 2023.

Similar startups in the directory

Companies whose pitch matches most of the idea's terms (private, life, never, leaves, phone, consumer, subscription, describe): 17 all-time, 4 from the last two years. Same matching as Idea Check.

Certus AIyc S25 · 2025 · Vertical AI agentsalive
Replacing the restaurant phone line with Voice AI
Sentient OSyc F26 · 2026 · Horizontal AI assistantsalive
On-device AI that knows your entire life and does your work overnight.
Pigeonlyyc W15 · 2015 · Consumersite down
The affordable way to search, find & communicate with an incarcerated…
Rollupspeedrun SR007 · 2026 · Data for AIalive
Years of user context for personal AI, in minutes.
Moonshotyc S26 · 2026 · Consumeralive
agents for the rest of us
ShortLoopyc W23 · 2023 · Vertical AI agentsalive
Phone AI that Captures Every Dealership Revenue Opportunity
Myriayc W22 · 2022 · Consumeralive
A marketplace of luxury services for the ultra-wealthy
Circularyc W22 · 2022 · Consumeralive
Subscription consumer electronics for Asia
OneSchemayc S21 · 2021 · Vertical AI agentsalive
The AI Cowork for big data
Superwallyc S21 · 2021 · Commerce and marketplacesalive
Subscription infrastructure & paywall experimentation for mobile apps
Wyndlyyc W21 · 2021 · Healthcare and bioalive
Life's better without allergies
Veera Healthyc W21 · 2021 · Healthcare and bioalive
We treat women with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome in India

Run this as an Idea Check →

The generator's reference companies

Real companies the model named as closest when it wrote the card, with their fate. A check mark is a company the radar could verify in its directory.

Public money in this direction

US federal grants, SBIR/STTR awards and open opportunities from the radar's public-money feed, matched to the idea's terms; the sector totals give the context.

grants and programs matching the idea

122

startup-relevant grants in Developer tools

$70M

awarded in the sector, tracked

opportunities open now in the sector

Daily Burn Active Together: A personalized, dyadic exercise and health program for people living with dementia and their family care partnersawardhigh relevance
NIH / NIA · SBIR phase I · $500K · posted 2026-09-17
Closed-Loop Stimulation to Restore Voice and Swallowing by Reanimating Paralyzed Vocal Foldsawardhigh relevance
NIH / NIDCD · SBIR phase II · $1M · posted 2026-08-01
The SoundMind Smart Amplifier: An affordable, accessible, user-friendly hearing solution for persons with memory concerns and their family caregiversawardhigh relevance
NIH / NIA · SBIR phase I · $500K · posted 2025-09-20
High-flow portable oxygen concentrator for long-term oxygen therapyawardhigh relevance
NIH / NHLBI · SBIR phase II · $1M · posted 2025-08-01
A New Incentive Design Theory for Learning Agents in Federated Population Gamesawardmedium relevance
National Science Foundation · EPCL: Energy, Power, Control, · $530K · posted 2026-08-10

All public money by sector →

Market signal

What the radar sees in Developer tools: new companies by cohort year, the forming YC batch, and outcomes since the February snapshot.

Developer tools · 64 → 105 → 121 → 90 → 57 new companies 2022 → 2026 · 87% aliveYC F26 live: 8 in this cluster, 6% of the batch (was 3% in S26)Since February, of 474 YC companies here: 6 acquired, 8 shut down, 59 rewrote their pitch

Developer tools: companies, trend and grants →

Design attributes

The card is one cell of a designed set: every axis below was chosen before the text was written, and the text had to realize it.

Buyer: Consumer
Business model: Software subscription
Path to 100x: Creates a new category
Market size: $1-10B market
Capital intensity: Capital-light (software margins)
Speed to revenue: Revenue in 1-3 years
Technical depth: Deep tech: ML, hardware, bio
Go-to-market: Self-serve
Moat: Distribution moat
Geography: US first
Regulation: Some regulation
Vibe: Hot space