[radicalbyte]

The funny thing is that the value provided by YC style funding isn't in the funding itself. It's in the network provided by the VC (and to a lesser extent the marketing).

This is best reason to enter YC with an established (but small) company: to turn your small "life style" size business into something with a very large reach.

I'm sure that the latest batch of YC companies would agree with my reasoning. You give YC a fraction of a small pie to greatly increase the chances of your plan to turn it into a big pie.

My 2-5 year plan: build a $2 - $5m business (and the core team) in Europe around an idea that has the potential* to be a $500m+ business in America: then give YC a slice in exchange for their advice.

* What I'm working on has massive niche in a sector far away from the web. So we can build the idea, business and tech out away from the prying eyes of the incumbents. Now most of the incumbents will have trouble competing with us (different strategy), with one massive exception. If they knew about the niche we knew about, they would fill it (the niche along can support several $100m + companies).