So true. It's fairly common for people to spend most of their lives expecting others to give them value. "If I get into Stanford/YC, then I'll be successful"

It's weird people don't think about the other way around:

• Strive for success — period — and then Stanford/YC will want YOU.

At the end of the day it's about creating value. It's not made out of thin air. It's not made from a diploma. It's not made from an acceptance letter.

It's made by You.

(hopefully)

This lines up so well with what I've been thinking. If your goal is to get into YC or some other VC thingy or get some high-level contacts or something of that nature, then you are probably thinking all wrong. Start by building something and getting some customers, then find out what else they want. If you can't get any customers at the un-funded scale, then funding isn't likely to help you much.

I bet every investor out there would much rather fund the guy who says "I built this website with this basic feature set, got a few dozen customers and X revenue. My customers want these totally doable features. If you give me $Y, then I can hire more engineers or whatever to build them." than the guy who says "I have a really cool idea that I haven't done anything at all with yet. Give me $Millions and I'll do something awesome".

If your goal is to get funded, you're much more likely to get ignored. If your goal is to build something awesome with whatever is at hand, then the investors just might come to you.

> It's not made out of thin air. It's not made from a diploma. It's not made from an acceptance letter. It's made by You.

You couldn't have said it better. Nothing motivates me more than realizing that if I don't do something I care about myself, it won't happen.