15-Year-Old Builds AI Startup Directory After Rough HTML Project Goes Viral on Hacker News

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A 15-year-old developer built StartupWiki, a startup research directory, after a basic single-page project he scraped together in a weekend landed on the front page of Hacker News at age 14. The rough initial version, featuring hardcoded data and broken CSS, received around 400 upvotes and 600 comments, drawing enough interest for users to request listings. He responded to every comment, fixed bugs within 24 hours, and added features based on user feedback, growing the directory from 20 entries to over 2,000. StartupWiki has since evolved into an AI-powered platform offering verified startup profiles, funding data, competitive analysis, and team insights. The project recently launched a new platform allowing startups to submit profiles, earn verified badges, and gain community visibility.

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