You asked about Design
786 people built something like it. 132 are gone.
That is 19% of the ones whose fate we could settle, against 23% across the whole register. 101 were acquired.
| Launched | What it was | Today |
|---|---|---|
| 2015-01-01 | YCGitLab A complete DevOps platform delivered as a single application. · gitlab.com | acquired |
| 2010-01-01 | The first all-in-one operating system for marketing · optimizely.com | acquired |
| 2017-06-01 | The first public safety operating system that eliminates crime. · flocksafety.com | still up |
| 2010-06-01 | Real-time visibility into critical apps and services all in one place. · pagerduty.com | acquired |
| 2016-01-01 | AI-First Creative Partner for Enterprise Teams · superside.com | still up |
| 2014-01-01 | YCAlgolia A developer-friendly and enterprise-grade search API. · algolia.com | still up |
| 2022-03-10 | spline.design | still up |
| 2022-07-18 | locofy.ai | still up |
| 2022-06-02 | untitledui.com | still up |
| 2022-02-10 | morflax.com | still up |
| 2022-01-19 | framer.com | still up |
| 2013-06-01 | YCWebflow Professional website design and publishing platform. · webflow.com | still up |
| 2022-11-08 | frontitude.com | still up |
| 2022-02-23 | make.com | unverified |
| 2022-02-22 | snappify.com | still up |
| 2022-10-21 | html.to.design | unverified |
| 2023-06-01 | csspro.com | still up |
| 2016-06-01 | YCScale AI Data-centric infrastructure to accelerate the development of AI · scale.com | still up |
| 2016-06-01 | YCBird The world’s largest omnichannel communications platform · bird.com | still up |
| 2022-01-18 | simplified.co | moved |
| 2022-07-11 | siter.io | still up |
| 2022-11-15 | fn12.com | still up |
| 2022-01-06 | figma.academy | moved |
| 2022-11-29 | designerdailyreport.com | still up |
| 2021-04-01 | mailstudio.app | still up |
| 2022-06-10 | brevy.com | still up |
| 2022-11-01 | figura.digital | still up |
| 2022-03-02 | huemint.com | still up |
| 2022-04-01 | uizard.io | still up |
| 2022-04-28 | dopeui.co | unverified |
| 2022-01-07 | designgradients.com | still up |
| 2022-02-06 | wunderbucket.io | gone |
| 2022-04-07 | kit.tl | moved |
| 2022-11-15 | descript.com | still up |
| 2022-02-23 | endless-sphere.com | still up |
| 2022-05-11 | creattie.com | still up |
| 2022-05-06 | dittowords.com | still up |
| 2016-01-01 | YCSendbird The AI agent that doesn’t just support, it delights. · sendbird.com | still up |
| 2022-03-14 | premast.com | still up |
| 2022-02-22 | uxdatabase.io | unverified |
| 2022-02-17 | toools.design | still up |
| 2022-06-14 | prettysmart.co | still up |
| 2023-02-18 | noya.io | still up |
| 2018-01-01 | Agile commission software to design, deploy & adapt commission plans. · captivateiq.com | still up |
| 2022-06-03 | designmaestro.io | still up |
| 2022-05-29 | drotion.xyz | unverified |
| 2022-04-07 | stage.so | still up |
| 2022-06-28 | bubble.io | still up |
| 2022-01-25 | creative-tim.com | still up |
| 2022-10-13 | beginnerbank.com | still up |
| 2022-01-05 | nft-inator.com | still up |
| 2022-01-11 | iconscout.com | unverified |
| 2014-01-01 | YCPovio Engineering and Design that Fuels Startup Success · povio.com | still up |
| 2016-01-01 | Agentic Observability Platform for Mobile · luciq.ai | still up |
| 2012-01-01 | YCRescale High Performance Computing Built for the Cloud · rescale.com | still up |
| 2022-01-11 | supernova.io | still up |
| 2022-06-27 | ballparkhq.com | still up |
| 2022-10-12 | designer.microsoft.com | still up |
| 2022-05-22 | webui.design | unverified |
| 2022-01-17 | flat-icons.com | still up |
How this compares
Y Combinator reports its own outcomes, including acquisitions. The other two are judged by asking the domain, so they are not measured the same way and are never averaged together.
Older launches have had longer to die, so this slope is expected. A year that broke it would mean something is wrong with the checking.
The register re-probes every domain it holds. Some that answered last month stop answering. We send that list — what went quiet, and what it was — once a month. Nothing else.
How this was made. Show HN entries are every post from 2021 to 2023 with at least five points that linked to its own domain; code hosts and free hosting are excluded, because a repository outlives the effort behind it. Product Hunt entries needed 100 votes — a far higher bar, so they are the promoted top slice rather than a like-for-like sample. Both are judged by asking the domain whether it still answers: gone means it no longer resolves, refuses the connection, serves a parking page, or says plainly that it shut down. An HTTP error is not counted as gone — a server answering 404 is one somebody still pays for, and an audit of 25 gone-calls found two such sites alive with only a moved homepage. Y Combinator entries use the status YC publishes itself, which is why only those can say acquired. Squatted domains — a lapsed name now serving somebody else's site — are not detected, so these figures run slightly low.