Forget whatever YC tells you about how they accept and vet startups. YC is highly biased in their process. For an investment company of their size, it strikes me as odd that they seem to mostly "wing it". There's no apparent (or at least nothing they make public) structure and no real or apparent analytical process that goes into their application process. I'm sure they do have a process, but you can glean a lot and read between the lines on those rejection emails that give very little evidence as to their actual decision making process. It's probably opaque for a reason, right?<p>I've had friends who literally have gone through them multiple times, taken their money, and failed with multiple different business ideas, that, on their face were both poor ideas and poorly executed. Only to see them get accepted again. Your chances of being accepted greatly increase if you know them personally, or went to MIT/Stanford and part of that crowd. The other case is where you are part of their current focus and just happen to get lucky. What they fund and are interested in seems to change based on their moods and personal interests more than any overall strategy that is more complex than a blog post.<p>You're far better, at this point, to simply take on debt. With that revenue you could qualify for a loan from any number of banks. Most banks have a small business division and would be very eager to start working with you. Just go in with your current Stripe dashboard and a simple plan of what you'd spend the money on (marketing, development, etc). It doesn't need to (and shouldn't) be complicated, a single page is enough. More than likely, you'll be offered many different types of financing and the terms are almost guaranteed to be better than any VC could offer. If they decline you, they'll give you directly actionable requirements, which, once you've full-filled you can re-apply and they will give you the money as long as you have met those requirements. Unlike a VC, who may have been out the night before drinking and simply decline you for no other reason than their own hangover. Banks make their money in interest, they want to lend you money, they stay out of your business. They do not make money by holding a percentage of your company hostage and pumping up the value (real or imaginary) and then selling to the next guy (which is exactly how a VC operates).<p>Or look for funding and mentorship in the software community in which you are operating -- from Adobe or one of the other video editing software companies. Start attending conferences attended by people in the video production industry. You might be able to find a niche for your product in a large video production company that could optimize their process or save on licensing costs. One or two of those deals is really all you need.<p>And the value of the YC network is greatly overstated. If you're building anything other than run-of-the-mill SaaS software, it's almost useless. They can give you money, but they can't write code for you or (in my experience working with other VC's) help you with recruiting, beyond having someone send out blind emails on LinkedIn and adding you to their jobs page.