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Launch HN: Unlayer (YC W22) – Add email and document builders to your app

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Re: Launch HN: Unlayer (YC W22) – Add email and document builders to your app

#31

Post by christoff12 »

jvwww wrote: post #29
all2 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you spend enough time with an LLM and aren't paying attention, you'll pick up on its mannerisms. I did this awhile ago (the "its not this, its that" thing) and someone here called me on it. After that callout, I've tried to be more aware of how much of that stuff leaches into my head and out into text.

While that may be true, in this instance the whole thing is 100% AI generated and this is not someone who has just adopted the mannerisms of AI. For instance, the usage of "Totally fair" and "The hard part", the usage of colons, which humans would use far less frequently, using the rule of threes (editable email, web page or document), etc. Anyway, it's just lazy. This is someone trying to sell their product. They sh…

How would we rate this revised version on a scale from 1-10?

"""

Totally fair. You can build the first 10-minute demo with an LLM now.

The hard part is usually what comes after. You need editable state, templates, and email-safe HTML. Then come export pipelines, custom blocks, permissions, and all the rendering edge cases that show up with real usage.

AI makes structure more important, not less. That’s why we launched Unlayer Elements. Instead of having an LLM generate a static blob of HTML, it can target structured components that map back into an editable email, web page, or document.

So I'd use AI to prototype it. I'd use Unlayer when that content layer becomes production infrastructure you don't want to maintain yourself.

"""

I made a deslopper[1] tool based on a new skill[2] I saw on twitter earlier. It's still a little smelly imo, but better.

---

[1] https://deslop.btst.workers.dev

[2] https://github.com/petergyang/no-ai-slop

Re: Launch HN: Unlayer (YC W22) – Add email and document builders to your app

#32

Post by Natalia724 »

I think the key issue is not whether an LLM can make a 10-minute demo, but who maintains all the edge cases afterward: template state, email-safe HTML, export, permissions, custom blocks, and previews. Which part is usually the hardest for customers to integrate today?

Re: Launch HN: Unlayer (YC W22) – Add email and document builders to your app

#33

Post by all2 »

christoff12 wrote: post #31
jvwww wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While that may be true, in this instance the whole thing is 100% AI generated and this is not someone who has just adopted the mannerisms of AI. For instance, the usage of "Totally fair" and "The hard part", the usage of colons, which humans would use far less frequently, using the rule of threes (editable email, web page or document), etc. Anyway, it's just lazy. This is someone trying to sell their product. They sh…

How would we rate this revised version on a scale from 1-10? """ Totally fair. You can build the first 10-minute demo with an LLM now. The hard part is usually what comes after. You need editable state, templates, and email-safe HTML. Then come export pipelines, custom blocks, permissions, and all the rendering edge cases that show up with real usage. AI makes structure more important, not less. That’s why we launche…

My version, off-the-cuff:

""" Making a demo that does some things is easy. Making a demo that does all the things is hard.

We took a lot of time to make this product polished. We nailed down a lot of UX gotchas and a lot of bugs that come from poorly written back-end code.

If you don't need the polish, then a demo is more than sufficient. We built this for those who just want to ship, not fight with their agent about tech stack stuff. """

Re: Launch HN: Unlayer (YC W22) – Add email and document builders to your app

#34

Post by jvwww »

christoff12 wrote: post #31
jvwww wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While that may be true, in this instance the whole thing is 100% AI generated and this is not someone who has just adopted the mannerisms of AI. For instance, the usage of "Totally fair" and "The hard part", the usage of colons, which humans would use far less frequently, using the rule of threes (editable email, web page or document), etc. Anyway, it's just lazy. This is someone trying to sell their product. They sh…

How would we rate this revised version on a scale from 1-10? """ Totally fair. You can build the first 10-minute demo with an LLM now. The hard part is usually what comes after. You need editable state, templates, and email-safe HTML. Then come export pipelines, custom blocks, permissions, and all the rendering edge cases that show up with real usage. AI makes structure more important, not less. That’s why we launche…

To be blunt, I would rate it a 1, a 0 if I could. I would stop reading after the third sentence. FWIW, humanizers do not work. Can they make AI text sound better - yes, but only mildly. Also, they won't trick good ai detectors, and the resulting text is still cumbersome to read.

This is what I got first time with a humanizer I built, still sounds terrible:

"Yeah, an LLM gets you the 10-minute demo now.

The expensive part is everything after, once real users depend on it. You end up maintaining editable state, templates, email-safe HTML, export pipelines, asset handling, permissions, custom blocks, and live previews. That takes months.

Structure makes AI output usable here, and it gets more important as the workflow gets automated. That's the idea behind Unlayer Elements. The LLM generates real editable components that map back into the actual email or page, and you keep editing what it makes like anything else in the tool.

I'd prototype with the LLM. I'd bring in Unlayer once that content layer becomes real infrastructure you don't want to own yourself."

Re: Launch HN: Unlayer (YC W22) – Add email and document builders to your app

#36

Post by adeelraza »

Natalia724 wrote: post #32

I think the key issue is not whether an LLM can make a 10-minute demo, but who maintains all the edge cases afterward: template state, email-safe HTML, export, permissions, custom blocks, and previews. Which part is usually the hardest for customers to integrate today?

Yes, maintaining is the real issue. And also battle testing the quality of software.

Re: Launch HN: Unlayer (YC W22) – Add email and document builders to your app

#37

Post by adeelraza »

axa27 wrote: post #35

Congrats on the launch, but don't mostly people use AI now for most of the ui and frontend tasks, why would they go through all of this if they can just ask AI?

AI needs structured output and that’s exactly what Unlayer Elements provides for emails and documents. And visual builders on top of that.

Re: Launch HN: Unlayer (YC W22) – Add email and document builders to your app

#38

Post by hanspagel »

all2 wrote: post #28
jvwww wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? You couldn't write this message yourself and had to ask an LLM. At least make it less obvious.

If you spend enough time with an LLM and aren't paying attention, you'll pick up on its mannerisms. I did this awhile ago (the "its not this, its that" thing) and someone here called me on it. After that callout, I've tried to be more aware of how much of that stuff leaches into my head and out into text.

You are right to push back on this.

Re: Launch HN: Unlayer (YC W22) – Add email and document builders to your app

#39

Post by Nazzareno »

Congrats on the launch, and welcome to HN. This is a real problem and it is good to see more teams taking it seriously. For a bit of context, and full disclosure that I am on the other side of this market: we built Beefree SDK around almost exactly this use case about ten years ago. We started with an embeddable email editor and expanded into popups and web pages over time, so the pain points you describe, Outlook quirks, merge tags, exports, versioning, localization, plus many others like security, scale, and collaborative editing, are all very familiar to us. I am not saying this to rain on your parade. The category has been maturing for a while now and there is genuinely room for good products in it. Honestly, HN was a big part of how we got off the ground in the early days. A launch post (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8474744) is a lot of why we were able to grow and develop at all, so I have real appreciation for founders sharing their work here. Happy to compare notes any time.

Re: Launch HN: Unlayer (YC W22) – Add email and document builders to your app

#40

Post by hohoyaya43 »

The interesting part to me is the boundary you’re drawing around AI output: agents generating structured React components that can be reviewed, versioned, and later opened in a visual builder, rather than another unowned HTML blob.

A practical launch follow-up would be to look for live conversations from teams building AI-assisted invoice, proposal, report, or email workflows and getting stuck on that handoff from generation to editable production content. With the Unlayer positioning and ideal user as input, racoonn.me can surface those timely Reddit/X threads and produce reply drafts that address the stated implementation problem before mentioning the relevant builder or Elements workflow.

That is not a substitute for docs or examples around the component model. It is the discovery-and-first-response layer for finding people who are already trying to solve the exact problem you describe.

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