只需申请YC。理由如下：
只需申请YC。以下是原因（即使你已经晚了）：
我在6月30日辞去了工作，给自己60天的时间来构建，30天的时间来获取客户。在进行到四分之一的时候，我意识到我不小心重现了YC的三个月时间线——所以我将8月4日的截止日期作为我的强制动力。
到目前为止的结果：
- 37天的15小时工作日
- 建立了一个可以立即购买的可用SaaS平台
- 注册了特拉华州C-Corp，解决了跨境税务问题（我是加拿大人），申请了商标
- 产品既美观又实用
- 我的优势：在技术领域有8年的各类角色经验——BDR、QA、开发、CSM、销售工程师、高管。在我的第一份初创公司工作中，我在5个月内为他们争取到了与五角大楼的会议，达成了数百万美元的交易。后来建立了一个CSM项目，以高效管理200万美元的年经常性收入，并实现了超过20%的年增长率。
这种多样的背景意味着我可以用客户的语言与他们交流，然后立即转化为技术解决方案。随着大型语言模型证明上下文是关键——我在整个技术栈上的背景就是我的护城河。
现实是：目前还没有客户，我在YC的成功几率很小。但我之前曾高瞻远瞩，取得了显著的成果。在决策日之前，我将拥有一个快速运转的反馈飞轮，以便有效扩展。
无论如何，申请YC都是值得的：
申请过程迫使我变得更加敏锐。最初我说“我正在构建一个AI工具”，后来变成了“我正在构建一个可以替代五种不同工具的AI驱动平台。”仅仅这种清晰度就值得我花时间。
更重要的是——YC的“你需要客户”要求促使我在第45天就开始与客户对话，而不是我原计划的第60天。这15天非常重要，它们成为我清除所有剩余bug并尽快完成法律用户协议的强制动力。我昨天已经设置好了Stripe Connect Marketplace，这算是一个不错的胜利。
（是的，我知道——应该在第一天就开始与客户交流。但在过去的8年里，我听到了来自数十位潜在客户的相同痛点，我确切知道该构建什么。有时候，领域专业知识让你可以跳过某些步骤……坦率地说，我需要专注，因为我是独立创始人，需要快速构建出至少与竞争对手的核心功能相当的产品，并且要有我自己的差异化优势，让我值得与之合作。）
我在8年前的第二年辍学，放弃了生物化学和计算机科学，转而进入技术行业。在我去过的每个地方都建立了优秀的部门，但从未感到满足。对我来说，必须是构建，否则就什么都不是。最近在客户成功领域工作时，听到客户的问题却看不到解决方案以我希望的速度到达客户，这让我感到沮丧……现在一切都掌握在我手中，快速的执行将定义我的公司。亚伦·爱泼斯坦在说他们想看到一家员工不足10人的1000亿美元公司时可不是在开玩笑。为什么不呢？你拥有自计算机发明以来人类所拥有的最佳力量倍增器。
下周将转向客户获取。让我们看看会发生什么。
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Just apply to YC. Here's why (even if you're late):<p>I quit my job June 30th and gave myself 60 days to build, 30 days to get customers. A quarter of the way through, I realized I'd accidentally recreated YC's 3 month timeline - so I used the August 4th deadline as my forcing function.<p>Results so far:<p>37 days of 15-hour days<p>Built a working SaaS platform that can be purchased today<p>Incorporated Delaware C-Corp, figured out cross-border taxes (I'm Canadian), filed trademark<p>Product is beautiful and functional<p>My edge: 8 years doing every role in tech - BDR, QA, dev, CSM, sales engineer, exec. At my first startup gig, I landed them a Pentagon meeting for a multi-million dollar deal 5 months in. Later built a CSM program to manage $2M ARR efficiently with over 20% YoY growth.<p>This diverse context means I can talk to customers in their language, then immediately translate to technical solutions. With LLMs proving context is everything - my context across the entire stack is my moat.<p>The reality: Without customers yet, my YC odds are slim. But I've aimed high before with remarkable results. By decision day, I'll have a feedback flywheel spinning fast enough to scale effectively.<p>Why applying to YC was worth it regardless:<p>The application forced me to get sharper. What started as "I'm building an AI tool" became "I'm building an AI-powered platform that replaces 5 different tools." That clarity alone was worth the time.<p>More importantly - YC's "you need customers" requirement pushed me to start customer conversations on day 45 instead of my planned day 60. Those 15 days matter and they are a forcing function for me to clear every remaining bug and get legal user agreements done ASAP. I already got Stripe Connect Marketplace setup yesterday so that was a good win.<p>(Yeah, I know - should've been talking to customers day 1. But after 8 years hearing the same pain points from dozens of potential customers, I knew exactly what to build. Sometimes domain expertise lets you skip steps.. and frankly I've needed to focus since I'm a solo founder and needed to build fast enough to have something worth using at least on par with competitors with core features and with my own differentiators that make me worth doing business with)<p>I dropped out of biochem and computer science in my second year, 8 years ago to work in tech. Built great departments everywhere I went but never felt fulfilled. It has to be building for me or nothing. Having been in customer success most recently it was frustrating to hear customer problems and not see solutions getting to the customer as fast as I'd like.. now its in my hands and lightning speed will define my companies. Aaron Epstein wasn't messing around when they said they wanted to see a $100 billion dollar company with less than 10 employees. Why not? You have the best force multiplier humanity has ever had since the invention of the computer.<p>Shifting to customer acquisition, next week. Let's see what happens.