Email the YC founders who actually need what you sell.

Pick a batch and it drops the companies that cannot buy, finds one founder per company, and finds a verified email. Then it drafts the note, and you press send.

Built by Atharva Shah. YC Founder Outreach is built to order. Ask for a custom build.

YC Founder Outreach at a glance

YC Founder Outreach is an AI agent skill for Claude Code, Codex CLI, Gemini CLI, and other agents that read SKILL.md. Screens a YC batch for founders who can buy, finds a verified email, and drafts one personal note each. Best for: Claude skill for Y Combinator founder outreach.

Works with
Claude Code, Codex CLI, Gemini CLI, Cursor, GitHub Copilot
Category
Growth and outreach
Availability
Built to order. Ask for a custom build.
Requirements
Needs a paid Claude plan with Claude Code and Python 3. A TypeSafe key screens the companies, at about $0.05 for 230. treg finds emails at about $0.0048 a hit, and a miss costs nothing. Drafts save to Gmail through a Google Workspace connection. This skill is built to order and is not sold as a download yet.
Included
A screen built for your offer, One verified email per founder, Gmail drafts, never sent, A hard spend cap

What YC Founder Outreach produces

A sample batch report listing five companies with what each sells and a green keep or red drop verdict.
Keep or drop. Companies that cannot buy are dropped before any email is bought, so spend goes to real fits. (sample output)
A sample Gmail draft to a founder that opens on a webhook question they asked and ends with a single ask.
The draft. One short personal email per founder, opened on something they wrote, with one offer and one ask. (sample output)
A sample table of four email statuses, verified, published, accept all, and empty, each with a meaning and an action.
Email status. Every address carries a status, so you know which ones to trust and which carry bounce risk. (sample output)

From a batch to drafts in three steps.

You pick the batch and the offer. The rest follows one path.

  1. Pick a batch and an offer. Name a batch and say what you sell. It reads the batch from the public company index.
  2. It screens and finds the founder. Companies that cannot buy are dropped. For each fit, it picks the one founder who decides and looks for a verified email.
  3. You review the drafts. It writes one short email per founder from facts in the brief and saves each as a Gmail draft. You decide who gets a send.

Lists guess. This one screens.

A raw batch list gives you every founder. Most of them cannot buy from you.

YC Founder Outreach

  • Screened for fit. A company must sell to your buyer and need your offer.
  • One founder each. The one who decides, never the whole team.
  • Email status shown. You see which addresses to trust.
  • A personal draft. Each note opens on something the founder wrote.

Raw founder lists

  • Every founder, no screen. You email companies that cannot buy.
  • Guessed emails. A name pattern bounces more often than it lands.
  • One template for all. Founders spot a mail merge in a line.
  • You do the research. Reading every page is the slow part.

A sales development agency

  • A monthly retainer. The fee runs whether or not a batch fits.
  • Their voice, not yours. Messages go out under your name.
  • Slow to start. Onboarding takes weeks before a first send.
  • Opaque targeting. You rarely see why a company made the list.

It targets your offer. Not a template.

A custom build starts with your offer. You say who buys it, who decides, and what a good fit looks like. Those answers become a profile, and the screen follows it. A new offer is a new profile, and the pipeline stays the same.

Questions about YC Founder Outreach

How do I find YC founders worth emailing?

Screen the batch first. Keep companies that sell to your buyer and need your offer, then pick the one founder who decides. This skill does the screen and drafts the note.

Can Claude find a founder email without guessing?

Yes. It uses an address published on the company site or a paid lookup that returns a status, and a missing email stays missing. It never guesses a name pattern.

What does it do?

It screens a YC batch for companies that can buy from you, picks one founder per company, finds a verified email, and drafts a short personal note for each.

Is it for sale?

Not as a download yet. Ask for a custom build and I aim it at your offer.

What does a batch cost?

The screen costs about $0.05 for 230 companies. Each email found costs under half a cent, and a miss costs nothing. A spend cap stops the run.

Does it send the emails?

No. It saves each one as a Gmail draft. A send needs your explicit yes.

Where does the data come from?

The batch comes from the public company index. Founders come from each company page, and emails come from the company site or a paid lookup.

Can I trust the emails?

Each address carries a status. A catch-all domain proves nothing, so the report flags the bounce risk. A missing email stays missing, and it never guesses a pattern.

Is cold email allowed?

It drafts one personal note per founder with a real reason for writing. You choose who gets a send, and you follow the email laws where you live.

Which Claude plan do I need?

A paid plan with Claude Code. A batch run is small, so Pro is enough.

Does this skill work with Gemini CLI, Codex, Cursor, or GitHub Copilot?

Yes, with one caveat. The skill is a SKILL.md folder in the Agent Skills open standard, which Claude Code, Codex CLI, Gemini CLI, Cursor, and GitHub Copilot all load. It is built and tested on Claude Code. Steps that lean on Claude-only features, such as parallel subagents, run one after another or need a manual step in other agents.

How do I install an agent skill?

Copy the skill folder into your agent's skills directory: ~/.claude/skills for Claude Code, or the skills folder your agent documents for Codex CLI, Gemini CLI, Cursor, or Copilot. The agent reads the description and loads the skill when your request matches it. Each skill ships with a setup guide for any tool it needs.

Related skills

  • Marketing X-Ray: A behavioral-science interrogation of your offer that ends in seven ranked moves.
  • Signals Proposal: Turns what buyers say in public into ranked actions, content ideas, and keywords.
  • Dream 100 Outreach: Scores your ideal prospects, researches each one, and writes the message and the gift.
  • GTM Toolbelt: Decides which tool owns each outbound job, then runs prospecting, warm-up, and listening at the lowest cost.

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