How to get into Y Combinator as a Solo Founder | BEST Startup Accelerator | No Cofounders

So I was told that this is really rare to do, and I did it. So today I'm going to give you all of my secrets on how to do it yourself. Hello and welcome back to my channel. My name is Catherine and I am the founder of Anja Health. I was in Y Combinator's Winter 2022 batch. I scaled the business to a million and a half ARR and profitability, and I raised five million dollars in venture capital funding from Y Combinator, Alexis Ohanian's Fund 776, Balaji, the ex-CTO of Coinbase and the CEO of Ro, amongst many other investors. And one of the most frequently asked questions that I get is how I got into YC as a solo founder. And I think a lot of people ask this because YC is notoriously somewhat against solo founders. And I think that it's actually pretty justified that they are against solo founders. I think most investors in general, if they know any experienced solo founders, they know that those solo founders have to have the resilience and grit to be able to build a business without network support, vision, a thought partner and so many more. There are just so many disadvantages to being a solo founder. So it's hard to get really bullish on solo founders in general. Nevertheless, I did get into YC as a solo founder and a female founder. So I'm really proud of that. So today I'm going to tell you why I think I got into YC as a solo founder and what I think you can do too in order to get in as well. So big tip number one is honestly to act like you are a founder with a co-founder and just not worry about the chip on your shoulder. So I know this might seem obvious, but I think not enough founders really embrace this advice. But I think that the key to getting in as a solo founder is really demonstrating confidence and almost not even being aware of the chip that might be on your shoulder as a solo founder. When I applied to YC, I was relatively new to Silicon Valley in the startup scene, and I honestly didn't know that being a solo founder was a disadvantage. And as a result, I walked in completely oblivious to the fact that I had a disadvantage because I was a solo founder. And I think that this genuinely helped me. I think the fact that I did not acknowledge that I was a solo founder or speak to potential weaknesses around that really demonstrated the true confidence that I have. Solo founders can really only survive building a business if they are confident because they do have to have the confidence to reach out for help when they need it. Since they don't have a co-founder, they need to have the confidence to trust their own decisions day to day because they don't have a checks and balances system with a co-founder. So you really just have to build confidence in your own decisions and move forward with it. It's almost a forcing function for you to be confident day to day because you just have to trust your own decisions. If you seem like you're faltering with your own decision making process that could demoralize your team and ultimately be toxic to your business. So overall, having confidence is one of the best cures to solo founder syndrome in terms of failing as a founder because you're a solo founder. The next tip that I have is that you should be seeking out as many founder communities as you can, because then you can actually build the confidence that you have a support system that a co-founder would normally give you. So I think in the application and interview process for YC and generally when you're pitching investors, you just want to walk into the room with confidence. If someone brings up the fact that you're a solo founder, you can just mention the fact that you do have a support system. For me, that was a therapist, an exec coach, a family member served as a mentor to me and was a longtime founder. I was a part of many, many communities. Now I'm a part of Versi in New York City. I wanted to be in Y Combinator because I wanted to be part of a community. I was a part of Launch House, which I have another video on, although they're a little controversial these days. I'm a part of other organizations like Interact and I'm continuously trying to get myself into more tech communities because I'm aware of the fact that I'm a solo founder and I want to have as much support as I can around me at all times so that I have people to bounce ideas off of, gain mentorship from, and really just overall build that confidence that I do have basically equivalent to a co-founder's worth of support around me at all times. And I think that a lot of my friends have told me that one of my strengths is asking for help and just overall being unabashed about doing so. And I think that that is another key to success for being a solo founder. So you just overall have to know that you're worth it and you have to lean into communities. If you can get into communities, whether you live in wherever you live, you just want to be looking for IRL communities, especially because I think the best relationships are, of course, built IRL. So just any type of community that you can dip into in order to find mentorship and have people that you can call at a moment's notice when you're facing a crisis. I think that is really important. At all times, I maybe have three or four founders that I know I can call for help and I regularly rotate them so that they don't feel like I'm bothering them all the time. But I'm really, really unafraid to ask for help because the other option is that I just live with ignorance. And that is not a good option. And then lastly, Guy Raz, the co-host of The Business, How I Built This, he has a question at the end of each of his episodes that asks, how much of your success do you think is attributed to hard work versus luck? I think everything that was aforementioned was hard work. I just tried really hard to compensate for the fact that I didn't have another co-founder with me. And then number three, if you are pitching VCs in general, I would try to find VCs that have a story similar to yours. This may be out of your control if you're interviewing for YC, for instance, but in my case, it actually works in my favor. But I think the lucky part was that I had some ignorance around the prejudices against solo founders. And I think another piece of luck was that one of my interviewers for YC was Serby Sarna. She has an amazing book, by the way, called Without a Doubt, that gives a really detailed description of how she ran her startup for many years and sold it for $275 million. So quick plug. But she started a women's health company at around my age, in her early 20s, and she was a solo female founder. And so I often tell people that I think part of my luck was getting her as an interviewer. She's never told me this, but I would think that she saw herself in me and maybe that's why she accepted me. So yeah, I think that's part of my luck. So yeah, those are my three tips on how to succeed as a solo founder and get into YC. And in general, I think this could be applied to VCs if you're currently fundraising and have a chip on your shoulder about being a solo founder, you just need to be confident. Fake it till you make it. I have another video on how to be confident, and that one is not as startup-y, but more motivational. But I still think everything applies. So definitely go check it out.