Comment by keepamovin
9 hours ago
Thanks for sharing how you took it. I'm not sure how helpful that it for me here, as my goal is simply to express exactly how I feel, but it does tell me where you're at.
Here's where I'm at: I applied to YC 15 times, never once got a call back. I saw products I applied with later on become the pivot-intos for other teams. I don't think you captured the emotions that are there for me with the words you chose. I'd pick: angry, disappointed, unhappy with this kind of shady behavior.
The words you pick are more negative, and frame me as an angry, immature loser. If you're trying to be helpful, don't try to humilitate the person you're trying to help. I'm not immature and bitter, I'm facing that situation I described and having normal emotions about it, and expressing how I feel.
If you have a problem with that, where you feel you need to humiliate the person who expresses that, maybe that's something you need to examine in yourself.
Also - probably not the "look I want"? "The look" to get funding? It's an attitude/or appropach that sounds so fake, like bullshist. I'm much more into something that's real.
But anyway all of this, the experience, the emotions, even this interaction here, is singal and information to me, about what YC is and about what people think about it. "The Look" to get funding? Okay.
You should just bootstrap if you're so confident. Honestly I'm not sure this idea is that great, but hey I am happy to be wrong. It is all right though.
FWIW I'm also not the type of person who would get VC backing (not an Ivy grad, not some hot shot Kumon kid who also got a Olympics gold medal while doing heart surgery when I was 15, etc.), but I managed to save up 500k working in tech for 10 years. You can do a lot with 200k. You can do plenty with 500k.
Once you have traction, you can either take out a calculated loan or just grow organically if you're not able to get VC money. And with VC money comes a lot of obligations, so you may have to compromise and end up losing big in the end if things don't work out.
Honestly, people should just work in tech for like 5-10 years and get like 1M+ retirement fund and maybe 200-500k cash they can use for their business.
The best thing you could do in 2026 is to build your dream solo, and actually prove to VCs that it is possible for a single person to build a $1B business. And by prove, I mean that you would never need their money because you actually build something meaningful that solves problems for real people. Life is better when you mute all these FOMO-mongers and focus.
Ignore the noise, and don't hold grudges. Just be 100% selfish and feel zero remorse. You get one shot at life, so give it your best.
I live in a studio apartment and I'm earning 4% on my savings, 15% on my retirement, 170% on my meme stock portfolio, and 15-25% on my tech max stocks. Basically if you want to do something crazy, you have to take a risk and not give a fuck about other people and what they're doing. Optimize ONLY for YOURSELF.
Care only for the customer. Ignore everyone else, who gives a fuck. They can figure it out for themselves, not your problem.