Negative Space

Negative Space is a tool for finding startup inspiration, and its idea is simple: turn the descriptions of 6,304 YC companies into coordinates and plot them on one big map. Companies whose descriptions read alike end up close together on the map, so places crowded together are saturated markets, and the empty spots nobody occupies are called "negative space" — that's where the ideas are hiding.

It doesn't just draw the map; it also writes ideas for you. It first picks a few companies that already sit close together, blends their descriptions, then pushes away from all existing companies, and lets Claude write a startup idea for that empty spot. Once written, it measures how far the new idea actually sits from existing companies, and revises it if it's too close. All 122 clusters on the map were grouped by the algorithm itself, with no labels added by hand.

You can play with it right on the website: an explanation on the left, a glowing cloud of points on the right that you can click and filter, and generated ideas to look at. The full code and data pipeline are public on GitHub, and the author also includes a Claude skill so you can run the same workflow in your own Claude Code. The repo is still at 0 stars, though — it was only created on November 3, so it is a very new project.

Take the author's own warning seriously: low similarity only means the idea is written differently from YC companies — it doesn't mean the idea is good, and it doesn't mean nobody in the world has tried it. Treat it as an inspiration toy, not investment advice, and definitely don't start a company on its say-so alone.