How To Actually Get Into Y Combinator: Tales from a Founder

Like most founders, I’ve been trying to get into Y Combinator for years.

Their brand is so notable that some even take getting in as startup success (it isn’t).

How It Started
The first time I applied to Y Combinator was in 2019.

I had an idea for a customer support outsourcing company and I believed it was a multi-million dollar opportunity — but not a billion-dollar one.

This shows how little I knew about what YC and indeed all VCs valued.

If you’re applying to YC, and you don’t believe your startup could be worth a billion dollars someday — you’ve already lost.

And in my case, months after pitching, I only got the generic “We wish you luck…but NOPE” email from them.

But getting into YC was my dream so the next year I tried again.

**I tried to write this on IH but the formatting was clunky, read the full article on Medium: https://thelennyjohnson.medium.com/how-to-actually-get-into-y-combinator-tales-from-a-founder-f376a0444920 **