"I should do something for people my age while I can still relate. You can't do something like that without an investment, since you have to be able to support servers costing hundreds of dollars and not annoy users with ads until you can figure out the best way to make it work."
You can do something for people your age, see if they relate, and then take investment when you need to scale. Apparently, it's not hard to get investors if you're so snowed under with traffic that your servers are busting at the seams.
" Apparently, it's not hard to get investors if you're so snowed under with traffic that your servers are busting at the seams."
Yes, I know the hypothetical. However, I'm talking about reality. If YCombinator is an option, I'm going to take it.
1) I'm leaving my desktop app available so my current customers, 93% of whom of 153 survey respondents say they love it, can access it. I already know I can deliver software that makes people happy enough to pay money for it. I'm just creating a free version and getting it up to distributors to see if it can make even more people happy than I can imagine.
2) Finding cofounders on News.YC for a web-based app the team agrees on.
3) Applying to YCombinator.
4) Working as long as it takes to make a lot of users happy.
PG, Max Levchin, and other investors favor teams who are dedicated and flexible versus one specific idea.
I liked the previous (~4-5 minutes in) version of your comment better. ;-)
Anyway, I also think you're right in doing all of the above. And it looks like you'll find your cofounders, judging from other responses to your comment. Good luck with that.
I'm just saying that even if the investors (including YC) say no, you can still build something, see if people want it, and then get investment. You don't really need investors to start something, nowadays, and when you do need them they'll usually be there.
"You don't really need investors to start something, nowadays, and when you do need them they'll usually be there."
Thanks, but like I said in my post, I would rather get an exciting team together, get the legal and accounting stuff out of the way, and build a trusted relationship with an investor, and put to use what I've learned over the past 4 years. And none of those people work for free.
If it's possible to take care of all that stuff right away, it makes life very easy.
I agree with nostrademons. Make YC a sideline, not a destination or starting point. There's great power in taking charge for yourself.
If you don't feel compelled, it's because your goals aren't inspiring you. You need bigger goals. Possibly getting accepted to possibly work with unknown people on an unknown web app is not interesting enough to capture your imagination.
You have to think of something you really want, something that grabs you, especially if you don't know if you could do it or if it's even possible at all.
That said, some great ideas seemed stupid to "experts" at the time; just trust your own gut feeling, not anyone else's. If you don't have a gut feeling, then you probably don't understand what people want in that area and should switch to another one (or steep yourself in the original a lot more).
You can do something for people your age, see if they relate, and then take investment when you need to scale. Apparently, it's not hard to get investors if you're so snowed under with traffic that your servers are busting at the seams.