How I gave up on YC

I am a single founder and I have always been. I guess it’s a cultural thing or lack of good candidates in my personal network.

Since I heard about YC back in 2011, I’ve applied almost every time. Always with a new friend of mine and a new project. Getting accepted for an interview in person was easily one of the best moments in my life, alongside the first lucid dream and Burning Man.

However, we never got in and I kept trying to do so ever since. Until now.

At some point I accepted the fact that I am extremely unlikely to be accepted with a co-founder, who is at 5% and works remotely. Once I let this idea truly sink in, it clicked. What is YC doing so great that I cannot get on my own?!

There are 3 things YC is great for:
1. Advice
2. Network
3. Funding

If your product ever blows up, you would not have much trouble with #2 and #3. The most important thing at early stages is to get your product to truly really work. Advice and social pressure at YC seems to work really well for that purpose.

If I can’t get in, can I get that advice from the outside? Directly — no, indirectly — absolutely yes!
I watched all the videos, read all the essays and posts done by YC partners and here is what it all comes down to:

1. Make something people want.
2. Make a small number of people really love your product, rather than a lot of people sort of like it.
3. Talk to users. (always)
4. Ship fast. (today)
5. Get stuff done quickly. (hours, not days or weeks)
6. Focus on growth. Everything else does not matter.
7. Exercise, eat, sleep.

This list does not end here. However, it seems like you can get a lot of other stuff wrong if you get these right.

Now all I had to do is to held myself accountable against this list. I made my co-founder print the list and told him that if one of us stops doing either of these, the other one should force him to get back on track by whatever means.

Guess what, it worked! We threw away most of the long term development plans and shipped v.1 in one week! 2 hours later I was in a personal meeting with the first user while the other 4 were looking at the product online.
We’ve learned so much from these first interactions that it probably saved us 3 month of coding something we imagined people wanted. That was yesterday.

The applications for YC W2016 has opened today, but I already have what I wanted from YC. Thank you @paulg @sama @ilikevests @paultoo and others for making so much valuable information public.