What else did we get from our YC experience?

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My Acceptance Into Y Combinator
I decided that on my seventh attempt, I wouldn’t treat my YC application like a lottery ticket. I would be more strategic.

I met with founders who had gone through YC and I pitched them our idea for SwipeGood, asking for their expert feedback. I got mixed reactions—some founders thought the idea sucked, and others were more encouraging.

One founder was excited enough about SwipeGood that he emailed his recommendation to Y Combinator co-founder Paul Graham directly. Two hours later, Paul emailed us back with an invite to the program.

On the one hand, it blows my mind that once I finally had a viable startup idea, it only took two hours to get accepted into YC.

On the other hand, I knew that it really took five uruguay telegram data years for me to learn all the things, make all the mistakes, and meet all the people it took to become the kind of entrepreneur who could get into YC. It was an overnight success five years in the making.

The YC experience was completely transformative. Within two weeks, we successfully raised $1.2 million in funding.


Mentoring from founders like Paul Graham, who taught us how to build a company the right way
An environment that forced us to move much faster and generate more traction with rapid iteration
Prioritizing the right things and high-impact work
Identifying which metrics to focus on and how to make those numbers grow week over week
Exposure to a community of the other creative, talented founders
Raising money much more quickly (and successfully) than if we’d done it alone
All the lessons I learned in YC became the foundation for the company I run today, Close, a B2B SaaS company with $30 million in ARR.