[bksenior]

>That's not necessarily true, as plenty of businesses fail because they don't have a business plan for their product. The world is littered with great products that failed because there was no business plan or the business plan wasn't sustainable. That observation is a long horizon observation. In the short horizon most businesses tend to stagnate and die because of interest and growth. Unless theyre trying to grow an organic biz overtime (which applying to YC seems to signal otherwise) going and getting in the ecosystem would be by far the largest upside to the biz and more importantly the entrepreneurs.

> Combining the non-zero and best thing for the biz.

These are kids who by being in YC get expert observation and access to a network that they would take a decade to build. The only scenario in which not getting in is better is if they strike some insane gold pocket and they are physically too busy to participate in YC. They had YC as a captive audience and there was precedent for flexibility, thats non zero.

same same. I hope this serves as the intro to a story titled "The time YC almost made another $5b."