Apply to Y Combinator

Founders

Oisin Lyons

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Earl Potters

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How long have the founders known one another and how did you meet? Have any of the founders not met in person?

Earl and I (Oisin) met 2.5 years ago at a hackathon where we were both competing. After that, I hired Earl at several companies where I worked. We collaborated on numerous hackathons and projects and shared ideas, leading us to eventually co-found Missio. We’ve worked closely in person, and there are no founders who haven’t met in person.

Who writes code, or does other technical work on your product? Was any of it done by a non-founder? Please explain.

Earl and I handle all the coding and technical stuff. Earl focuses on the backend and our automation engine, while I work on the frontend. We collaborate a lot across both areas. We’ve done everything ourselves to keep the product aligned with our vision and haven’t brought anyone else on board yet.

Founder Video

Company

Company name

Missio

Describe what your company does in 50 characters or less.

Automated Task Management for Product Teams

Company URL, if any

https://missio.ai

Demo Video

Please provide a link to the product, if any.

https://app.missio.ai

Unanswered

What is your company going to make? Please describe your product and what it does or will do.

Missio connects to your company’s tools via APIs to automatically create and execute tasks, saving hundreds of hours on manual work. Our Copilot also lets you manage all your platforms from one place, speeding up workflows and saving time on complex tasks and context switching.

Where do you live now, and where would the company be based after YC?

SF, USA / SF, USA

Explain your decision regarding location.

San Francisco has the best tech scene, top talent, and access to investors. It’s the perfect place to grow Missio.

Progress

How far along are you?

We have a working product in beta that's being tested by 10 teams. Through conversations with 50+ product teams from companies including AWS, Meta, Salesforce, and SAP. We've identified a consistent challenge: Product teams are spending 30-40% of their time coordinating across fragmented channels (customer support tickets, Slack messages, meeting notes) instead of building product. Our task generation engine actively monitors these channels to automatically create and organize tasks. We're iterating rapidly based on our beta users' feedback, focusing on improving the accuracy and relevance of automated task generation.

How long have each of you been working on this? How much of that has been full-time? Please explain.

We have been working on this iteration of Missio for 3 months, all full-time, in-person.

What tech stack are you using, or planning to use, to build this product?

Next.js, OpenAI for now, with plans to focus on on-premise deployment for enterprises in the future.

Are people using your product?

Yes

How many active users or customers do you have? How many are paying? Who is paying you the most, and how much do they pay you?

We have 3 active company workspaces with 15 users testing and giving feedback. Our task engine is almost ready for full beta, where we’ll start charging. Plus, we have over 30 companies on our waitlist.

Do you have revenue?

no

If you are applying with the same idea as a previous batch, did anything change? If you applied with a different idea, why did you pivot and what did you learn from the last idea?

Last time, we built a customer support tool but didn’t get the traction we hoped for and weren’t passionate about it. Now, with Missio’s task automation, we’re getting great feedback and excitement from users and ourselves!

If you have already participated or committed to participate in an incubator, "accelerator" or "pre-accelerator" program, please tell us about it.

Unanswered

Idea

Why did you pick this idea to work on? Do you have domain expertise in this area? How do you know people need what you're making?

I have a background in enterprise software, working as part of product change management with SAP. I have experienced the pain of inefficiencies at scale and quit my job because of it. After working for several startups, I realised the same problems persisted from small startups to enterprises where inefficiencies and manual tasks led to a massive decrease in productivity and output. Speaking with a lot of early users and over 50 PMs from startups and enterprises, we have validated the problem across the board and have decided to do something about it!

Who are your competitors? What do you understand about your business that they don't?

Height.app: Good for project management but doesn’t automate task creation. Butler AI: No async or fully autonomous tasks. Manaflow (YC24): Hard to set up and not truly autonomous. Brainbase (YC24): Complicated workflows, not fully autonomous. Drymerge: Like Zapier with NLP, but it doesn’t handle our workflows well. Zapier: Automates tasks but needs a lot of manual setup and isn’t fully autonomous. Why Missio is Different: We automate both the creation and execution of tasks without requiring any coding. Plus, our Copilot feature lets you manage all your platforms from one place, making workflows simpler and faster. This means less setup, less maintenance, and a more seamless experience for product teams.

How do or will you make money? How much could you make?

We are planning to charge 50$ per seat for Missio. Capturing 1% of the projected $52.85 billion global product management software market by 2031 would result in approximately $528.5 million in annual revenue

Which category best applies to your company?

B2B SaaS

If you had any other ideas you considered applying with, please list them. One may be something we've been waiting for. Often when we fund people it's to do something they list here and not in the main application.

Unanswered

Equity

Have you formed ANY legal entity yet?

yes

Please list all legal entities you have and in what state or country each was formed (e.g. Delaware C Corp, Mexican SAPI, Singapore Pvt Ltd, etc.).

Delaware C Corp

Please describe the breakdown of the equity ownership in percentages among the founders, employees and any other stockholders. If there are multiple founders, be sure to give the equity ownership of each founder and founder title (e.g. CEO).

45/45/10 (options pool)

Have you taken any investment yet?

no

Are you currently fundraising?

no

Curious

What convinced you to apply to Y Combinator? Did someone encourage you to apply? Have you been to any YC events?

After bootstrapping for 3 months and getting real traction with our beta, we know Missio could be huge. Our target users (product teams) are literally telling us 'please build this faster.' We've watched companies like Linear and Retool emerge from YC to transform how teams work, and we want to do the same for product teams. A YC alum who saw what we're building told us that product teams desperately need better automation tools and encouraged us to apply. He's right - we're ready to pour gasoline on what's working, and YC's the best place to do that.

How did you hear about Y Combinator?

YC Startup school and social media (LinkedIn)

Missio

Winter 2025