Y Combinator Startup Podcast
00:00:53 · Aaron Epstein, Alex Danilowicz
[00:00:53] S0: You don't come from a design background. And so talk a little bit about the inspiration for building this. [00:00:57] S1: Yeah. It does. We are unique in that we are nondesigners, my cofounder and I. We are, by trade, front end engineers. And actually, when we got into the YC batch, our YC partner told us, do something that you're really good at. What are you... What do you know really well? And for us, that was translating Figma mock ups into code. And that's how Magic Patterns was born. It was the product that we always wanted ourselves. There was something always there where I was never really good at Figma. And we just felt like, well, wait a second. I'm doing lots of front end engineering. As a founder, I have to do lots of design. What is a tool that is more intuitive and easier for nondesigners like myself? [00:01:37] S0: And this was the early days of a lot of prompt to design tools or prompt to prototype tools coming out. Right? You guys were actually one of the first that was doing that. [00:01:45] S1: We were certainly one of the first. When we launched in October 2023, the only other tool on the market similar to us was v zero. [00:01:53] S0: Mhmm. [00:01:54] S1: And if you look back, that was before even chat was a thing. The models were so bad that there was no chat. There was no back and forth conversation. It was literally just prompt, You get a design. Prompt. You get a design. No actual interaction with the agent.
00:01:54 · Alex Danilowicz, Aaron Epstein
[00:01:54] S1: And if you look back, that was before even chat was a thing. The models were so bad that there was no chat. There was no back and forth conversation. It was literally just prompt, You get a design. Prompt. You get a design. No actual interaction with the agent. [00:02:08] S0: You applied to YC, and you you had a different idea. And so maybe talk about some of the the origin story of how you met your cofounder, your time during YC, and then ultimately, what led you to building this? [00:02:20] S1: Yeah. So my cofounder and I, we actually applied to YC with a text message analyzer. Your top group chat, your top word... What's the funniest thing you sent in 2026 across all your group chats? And we had revenue, which I think is why we got into YC. But we get in and our YC partner tells us, hey. This is this is your company. It's an okay idea, but I highly recommend you do something that you know really, really well. And for us, again, that was front end engineering and implementing Figma MacOS by code. And then... Then, during all of our pivots, that's pretty much what we focused on. [00:02:54] S0: How long did it take you to get to the idea that ultimately became Magic Patterns?
00:02:54 · Aaron Epstein, Alex Danilowicz
[00:02:54] S0: How long did it take you to get to the idea that ultimately became Magic Patterns? [00:02:59] S1: It took us about nine months. We were always circling around it. So again, we were doing a component library editor. We were doing kinda Storybook on steroids. We'd had a Chrome extension that allowed you to bring local host and instantly publish it on the Internet as kind of like a feedback tool. That later became a feature of Magic Patterns. And throughout all of that, the main thing that I learned was that classic PG advice, find 10 users who really love you. None of those pivots we had... We didn't have any 10 users that really loved us. [00:03:32] S0: Mhmm. [00:03:33] S1: Where love is defined as they're paying you and they're using you. And then once we launched what became Magic Patterns, those 10 users came very quickly. [00:03:41] S0: How do you stay differentiated in a world where it feels like the design tools keep leveling up significantly every six months? And you guys were one of the the original prompt to design products that are out there. And so how do you find your audience in that and and keep staying ahead of the game, especially as the models continue to improve as well? [00:04:00] S1: I've said this before on video. Like, customers are our religion. [00:04:04] S0: Mhmm. [00:04:04] S1: Talking to them every single day. And then also adapting to new workflows. As an example, we released an MCP about a year ago as part of a hackathon project internally. [00:04:16] S0: Mhmm.
00:04:16 · Aaron Epstein, Alex Danilowicz
[00:04:16] S0: Mhmm. [00:04:17] S1: We didn't think it would go anywhere. And now MCP usage has completely exploded. It's one of the main ways that people interact with Magic Patterns. And so you always have to be almost rebirthing your company to adjust to new workflows, especially in the AI world. [00:04:31] S0: I'd love to see a demo. Can you show us a little bit about how it works? [00:04:34] S1: Yeah. Let's do it. I think one thing that would be good to start is I'll show you how we use it internally. [00:04:39] S0: And you're always dogfooding your product. [00:04:40] S1: Right? We are obsessed with dogfooding. But we never force the dogfooding because then it's... You're not getting actual... [00:04:46] S0: Right. It has to be good enough that you actually want that and you choose that to be your tool. Right?
00:04:46 · Aaron Epstein, Alex Danilowicz
[00:04:46] S0: Right. It has to be good enough that you actually want that and you choose that to be your tool. Right? [00:04:51] S1: Exactly. And then noting when you don't choose it. And so we've been dogfooding, creating our loading indicator for our own product. So, you know, we have WALL E, Eve from WALL E, or some of the... If you ever played portal, the video game, we were thinking through that kind of... What that might look like as a loading indicator. What's in here is everything here is a global chat. So we can make any updates and and make several updates at once. Right? Like, as an example, I could select the two of these. Say, give me a new style of loading indicator that merges the inspiration of the Claude Code icon and the Grok bot. And what's really neat too is, of course, you can use the MCP. So let's go ahead and do that just to kinda show it. I'm gonna go into cursor here. And through using our MCP, I can just go ahead and prompt. Right? Add an ASCII version of my agent. What's really neat is we're seeing lots of enterprises use this where they have so much context, like, in cursor or Claude code, whether it's PRDs or... And and meeting notes. So they can leverage all the skills that they already have, but then instantly kinda put it on this visual canvas to better communicate.
00:04:51 · Alex Danilowicz, Aaron Epstein
[00:04:51] S1: Exactly. And then noting when you don't choose it. And so we've been dogfooding, creating our loading indicator for our own product. So, you know, we have WALL E, Eve from WALL E, or some of the... If you ever played portal, the video game, we were thinking through that kind of... What that might look like as a loading indicator. What's in here is everything here is a global chat. So we can make any updates and and make several updates at once. Right? Like, as an example, I could select the two of these. Say, give me a new style of loading indicator that merges the inspiration of the Claude Code icon and the Grok bot. And what's really neat too is, of course, you can use the MCP. So let's go ahead and do that just to kinda show it. I'm gonna go into cursor here. And through using our MCP, I can just go ahead and prompt. Right? Add an ASCII version of my agent. What's really neat is we're seeing lots of enterprises use this where they have so much context, like, in cursor or Claude code, whether it's PRDs or... And and meeting notes. So they can leverage all the skills that they already have, but then instantly kinda put it on this visual canvas to better communicate. [00:06:10] S0: Mhmm. Yeah. It's interesting. So you've got this powerful canvas in in Magic Patterns, where when that's the best tool for the job, you can be working directly in there. And when you want to be working in code or in cursor or another app, you can just pull directly from that through the MCP.