Daniel Farrell
| Daniel Farrell | |
| Occupation | Entrepreneur, designer |
|---|---|
| Known for | Co-founder of Onlook |
Daniel Farrell is an American entrepreneur and designer who is the co-founder of Onlook, an open-source visual editor that integrates design, development, and artificial intelligence for building websites and web applications. Onlook, described as "Cursor for Designers," participated in Y Combinator's Winter 2025 batch.[1]
Early life and education
Farrell holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Denver.[2] His Behance profile lists him as based in Denver, Colorado.
Career
Prior to founding Onlook, Farrell accumulated over ten years of experience as a designer. He worked as a freelance designer and co-founded Wanderlift, where he served as Chief Operating Officer. He also held a role in Global Expansion Strategy at Bird. His Y Combinator profile describes him as a former Head of Growth.[3]
Farrell co-founded Onlook with Kiet Ho, an engineer with prior experience at Amazon and ServiceNow. The company is based in San Francisco and operates in the artificial intelligence, developer tools, and design tools sectors. Onlook's product is an open-source visual editor that allows users—particularly designers—to work directly with real code components, build and deploy websites, and submit pull requests rather than producing static prototypes. The tool aims to bridge the longstanding gap between design and software development workflows.[4]
Since its launch, Onlook reached the number-one position on Hacker News and became the top trending repository on GitHub, surpassing DeepSeek at the time. The project has accumulated over 24,000 GitHub stars.[5]
Farrell has described himself as a "Design Founder and Go-to-Market strategist." In September 2025, he was featured in Bold Journey Magazine.[6] Onlook has also been profiled by Huge Magazine.[7]
References
- ↑ "Onlook – Y Combinator". 'Y Combinator}'. Retrieved 2026-03-19.
- ↑ "Daniel Farrell – Behance". 'Behance}'. Retrieved 2026-03-19.
- ↑ "Onlook – Y Combinator". 'Y Combinator}'. Retrieved 2026-03-19.
- ↑ "Onlook". 'Onlook}'. Retrieved 2026-03-19.
- ↑ "Onlook". 'Onlook}'. Retrieved 2026-03-19.
- ↑ "Meet Daniel Farrell". 'Bold Journey Magazine}'. Retrieved 2026-03-19.
- ↑ "Onlook feature". 'Huge Magazine}'. Retrieved 2026-03-19.