[bdominy]

YC does offer a free version of their program open to anyone called Startup School (https://www.startupschool.org) that can be a good way to gain validation and judge interest. Applying to YC seems to be best for idea staged founders with impressive resumes and people skills or startups that have already gained some traction. If you are in the "Trough of Sorrow" stage as Paul Graham described it, then I'm not sure where you really turn for help.

[eins1234]

Yeah that's exactly it. If you're in that "Trough of Sorrow" (and statistically speaking most startups in the world are at any given moment), YC and everybody else will not touch your startup even if you had resumes that would have been impressive enough to get your foot in the door with just the idea.

Ofc if an applicant made it past the "Trough of Sorrow" and reached PMF on their own, it's a no brainer, any decent VC would be throwing money their way at that point. For the rest of the applicants though, it just feels a bit backwards to me how YC seems to rather bet on founders with impressive resumes who have built nothing over similarly impressive founders who have proven that they can build something tangible, but need some help getting it past this infamous "Trough of Sorrow" that most successful startups are known to have gone through.

But hey what do I know. Surely they have the data internally to back that up right?