>> I've always been super curious about the YC application vs. accepted demographics. ESPECIALLY who gets told to come back with a co-founder. I applied as a solo woman technical founder with a product that is already close to ramen profitability. Going in, I thought this already made me an outlier - especially because I'll be able to tap my network and hire a founding team with some cash in the bank.

The tepid response during YC interviews was jarring. I know the panels are an exhausting marathon, but my group partners acted like they'd rather be anywhere else than talking to me. I got the impression that maybe I'd been invited to fill a quota, and the Zoom interview was just going through the motions.

The whole experience made me sit down and reverse-engineer the actions needed to hit 10-15k MRR by Q2 2023. With that amount of cash flow, I can reach out to angels directly. Just 6 angels in for 30k/1% party round is 180k @ 3M post.

If you're a woman with a similar story, I'm an angel investor (B2B, Saas, manufacturing). Reach out (email in profile.

If YC is trying to interview a certain number of under-represented founders per batch (quota), then that seems like an earnest attempt to change their demographics.

However, after like 15+ years in the tech world, I've noticed that quota-based targets train people to tune out. I don't think that's misogyny, since it's a pretty natural reaction to check-out if you don't think your input will impact an outcome because there's a mandated quota.

Does that make sense? I'm trying to give you the benefit of the doubt here, but I don't think you're assuming good intent or approaching this discussion with the curiosity I've come to respect on HN.

You say you have $2m and $50k expenses. You can self-fund a 4-person team to get to PMF if you want to, without YC's $500k. But based on these 2 signals, you seem risk-averse and not actually willing to go all-in to your company. Personally, I'm a male and didn't get a YC interview for any of my YC applications, but I can't feign sexism over that.

* When an angel invests 30k, I get value beyond the cash amount.

The angels I reach out to are founders with multiple successful exits, board members of other startups, and have 20-30+ years of experience. I get access to a fountain of wisdom and the person is motivated to answer my emails and take my calls when I'm stumped by a challenge.

I'm not good at EVERYTHING (who is), but I am proactive about getting help when I need it.

* A priced seed round sets the value.

Let's say you own 100% of a fine work of art, which you've priced at $10M. There's just one problem - only you value it at 10M, so there's no anchor for the real-world value. To get a return on your investment, you have to find a buyer that agrees with your valuation.

What if instead you owned 25% time-share of a work of art (this is a silly asset class, just using it as an example) that you and 3 other people price at $10. If you want to realize a return, there are now at LEAST 3 other prospective buyers that agree on the market value of your shares.

* There are more people like me out there.

I make angel investments in under-estimated Founders, because they're often overlooked by the pattern-matching lemmings in the institutional investment world. This isn't charity either; since a fund-raising round is similar to an auction, there are fewer investors bidding and betting on these founders. That gives me an edge.

I also tend to invest in "work horse" companies, not necessarily potential unicorns. Institutional investors have to chase unicorns that produce outsize returns, but I can participate in seed rounds that never raise after a seed or Series A.

There's a fund that follows the same thesis (https://tinyseed.com/) but I don't know of many institutional investors who make these kinds of investments.

* The best time to raise money is when you don't need it.

In the example I gave (6 x 30k @ 1% for 180k/3M post-money for a business earning 10-15k MRR), I have options for revenue-based financing and other kinds of debt.

Like I said, a fund-raising round is like an auction. If you have leverage or alternatives, you can command a higher price.

YC's startups get 125k for 7% + an additional 375k SAFE, which gets priced when you raise another round. If you raise another 2M all-in for 15% on demo day, YC gets around 20% of your company for 500k.

So, all I could think of during the tepid interview was "y'all want 20% of this business, but are acting like you're at the dentist." People didn't even introduce themselves (names) or ask mine. I know this wasn't intentional rudeness, it's due to application volume. The factory-farming way YC operates made me realize I could engineer better circumstances for myself and my business via an angel round.

Hope that all makes sense.

How will YC own another 13% if you only sold another 15-20%? That would mean you sold 2-7% for 60k - 200k at a 2.9m valuation, unrealistic. Seed rounds themselves will be 10% - 15%, $2-5m at a $15 - 50m valuation. Most likely they're getting another 1 - 3% for that 375k if you raise a standard seed.

I agree that YC could've got a lot more impersonal with the huge 500+ batch sizes these days. But I still don't agree that the "connections" you're making or making "more people like me" are important when you're spending the money you say you need by raising from your own angels. Raising from your own angels stands as important because you're getting cash for operations and advice, no brainer. I think there's a good reason why founders angel invest after series B+, when they're possibly able to pull liquidity to the tune of several million dollars, making the $50k angel investments trivial. It shouldn't be your focus right now.

You can see from a glance that is NOT a representative sample of the population, and that's based on looks alone. Let's not even mention things like the way you talk and present yourself, educational and employment background. God forbid you are one of those neurodivergent people - Google even has a cute word for those poor undesirables: lacking googliness.

Bottom line, entrepreneurship is just anohter political occupation that relates to power over other people. It cannot function otherwise than as an extension of power relations in society, because those relationships permeate the market and affect the businesses` ability to make money. Startup survivorship is so low and the pool of qualified applicants so inexhaustible, that an accelerator cannot but work to enforce those stereotypes and power structures: why waste capital on a militant atheist founder in a devout society if there is even the slightest chance some parts of the public will boycott their products?

And having a 80% of a full chance on account of gender is in this context a minor problem compared with a 0% chance of anybody that does not talk the talk investors expect for purely cultural reasons.