The honest question here is whether pattern-matching against past YC companies is predictive or just comforting. YC's own partners have said repeatedly that they fund ideas they haven't seen before. A tool that scores your app based on similarity to previous admits has a built-in contradiction: the more your idea looks like something YC already funded, the less likely they are to fund another one in the same space. The highest-scoring ideas on this tool might actually be the worst applications for the current batch.
The rubric side has a related problem. PG's essays and Startup School content are already the most widely-read startup advice on the internet. Every serious YC applicant has already optimised for those criteria. Extracting them into a scoring rubric doesn't surface hidden signal - it just quantifies table stakes. The things that actually differentiate successful applications (founder-market fit, timing, contrarian insight) are exactly the things that resist pattern extraction from historical data.
There's also a market structure question worth thinking about. Your target users are YC applicants, which is a seasonal cohort that peaks twice a year around batch deadlines. That's a narrow demand window with a hard ceiling on willingness to pay (pre-funding founders watching every dollar). The tool that would actually command pricing power is one aimed at VCs doing deal screening, not applicants doing self-assessment. Same underlying tech, completely different buyer with a completely different budget.
The form-filling piece is smart and clearly solves a real pain point with XFA PDFs. But the strategic risk here isn't technical, it's liability. Immigration forms are high-stakes documents where a wrong answer can trigger a denial, RFE, or worse. SimpleCitizen's $529 isn't just paying for form filling. It's paying for guided logic ("if you answered X, you probably need to also file Y"), error checking against known USCIS rejection patterns, and a company standing behind the output. A free tool with no guidance layer exposes users to silent errors they won't discover until months later at their interview.
The "free alternative" positioning also creates a distribution problem. The people who most need this (first-time filers, non-native English speakers, people who can't afford a lawyer) are the least likely to find a developer's side project on HN or GitHub. SimpleCitizen's real moat isn't the PDF conversion. It's the SEO, the trust signals, and the hand-holding. Competing on price against $529 sounds compelling, but the actual competition is immigration attorneys at $2,000-5,000 and free legal aid clinics. Those are the alternatives your users are actually weighing.
One more operational risk worth flagging: USCIS revises forms regularly and without much warning. The I-130 alone has had multiple revisions in the last few years. Each revision means your 1:1 field mapping breaks and users could submit outdated forms, which USCIS will reject. That's a maintenance commitment that scales with every form you add. Might be worth thinking about how sustainable that is before expanding the form library.
Idk if your comment was bot/AI generated. Nevertheless, I'll reply:
1. Our web forms are exactly based on the official USCIS's PDF, with smart logic. If you fill A -> section B is hidden -> jump directly to section C (you get the point)
2. Regarding high risk: When a user fills our form, they get the official USCIS PDF filled. All the instructions are given in the PDF. At the end, the user has to submit the form by themselves.
3. "The "free alternative" positioning also creates a distribution problem..." "The people who most need this are the least likely to find a developer's side project on HN or GitHub" - you are right. I just shared what I'm building on HN. I share my project on immigration subreddits + FB groups. Thats where my audience is. So far, I've received positive review. In the long run, I'm leaning on: community + word of mouth + SEO
4. "..., but the actual competition is immigration attorneys at $2,000-5,000 and free legal aid clinics". Fillvisa is aimed at DIY applicants. People who need legal advise should absolutely hire legal help.
5. "One more operational risk worth flagging: USCIS revises forms regularly and without much warning..." - fillvisa.com is 100% free. That said, I'm also building a paid version (plus.fillvisa.com) for immigration lawyers/law firms. Both the apps utilize the same form + mapping.
Thus that cares of revenue + I have incentive to maintain the forms.
I'm not a bot, but maybe i could turn down my tism a little...
Fair points, especially on 5. The B2B play for lawyers solves the maintenance incentive problem neatly - they need up-to-date forms, they'll pay for them, and that funds the free tier. Smart structure.
The DIY framing in 4 is clear. My concern was more about how DIY applicants perceive risk, but if you're already getting traction in immigration subreddits and FB groups, the audience self-selects. People in those communities already know they're doing it themselves.
Good luck with it.
Thanks. I get your point. Perhaps, in the long run, the free website should offer more info around immigration process. Right now it's a specialized form filler.
Just google "uscis adobe site:reddit.com"
Lot's of people experience this pain point on how to fill/edit the USCIS PDFs. For now, that's my entry point
