That means for every founder accepted, 99 others get the “no” — many of them brilliant, gritty, and building something real.
So if that was you? Don’t sweat it. You didn’t just dodge a 7% equity trade… you still get access to the knowledge.
Thanks to @Kevin Jurovich for compiling one of the most tactical lists I’ve seen — YC’s best lessons, no application required:
How to Start a Startup
How to Find a Co-Founder
How to Talk to Users
How to Build an MVP
How to Fundraise
B2B vs B2C Metrics
Bootstrap or Raise?
Lessons from 1,000+ YC startups
…and more (link below 👇)
At Mangusta Capital, we see hundreds of decks a month — and the truth is, the strongest founders often already think this way. YC or not.
They:
Build before raising
Talk to users before building
Ship before it’s perfect
Learn faster than their competitors
Startups aren’t built in application forms. They’re built in discomfort, rejection, iteration, and persistence.
So to every founder who didn’t get in: keep going. You might just be building the next outlier that everyone missed.
💡 Full YC resource list here: https://lnkd.in/gBRU-nFV
startups founders venturecapital YCombinator AI MangustaCapital
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