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Comment by anindha | Hacker News Reader

There should be more ways to get help if you are at a pre-YC stage. I'd imagine there are a lot of startups that fail before they get to a YC stage.

Startup School is good but it's not ongoing. Most VC firms have been more helpful than YC in the early stages personally.

For example, I've had VC firms write me a letter of recommendation for a visa when that's not something YC would do.

I can see YC is trying to increase flow. Why not make it more organic?

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YC does write letter of recommendations for visas once they get to know you (ie once they've funded you). I'm sure individual partners do this as well for founders they know personally and are outside YC, I doubt VC firms do that without knowing you personally.

In fact I sign all of YC visa recommendation letters so just want to give a +1 on this comment :)

This was pre-funding and I had warm introductions. I didn't know them personally.

Look out for something new from YC very soon: https://twitter.com/sama/status/821538708943880193

That is helpful for someone that is really early or thinking about starting a startup but there is a huge void between that and getting into YC.

My assumption is that if someone I know is at a stage that they'd get into YC that they already know about YC and are able to make a better decision to apply or not than me.

I've told people about office hours in their city. Something that is helpful and they might not know about.

I hope you'll be pleasantly surprised by what we release. It's going beyond a traditional MOOC.

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