I expected a different outcome.

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The lesson is simple: don’t just dream about success. Go out and meet it.

For me, I was lucky enough to meet Anthony Nemitz and Tom Steinacher, two talented young developers who I immediately recognized as being special. I knew I wanted to work with them one day, even if I wasn’t sure how yet.

Focus on Pulling the Levers that Matter
I’ll fast forward to the death of my first startup, Supercool School (R.I.P.).

I tried six times to get into Y Combinator with that idea. All I had to show for it was six rejections.

After years of banging my head against the wall trying to make it work, I was finally honest with myself and admitted defeat. As soon as I let go of my first idea, I felt like a weight had been lifted. I was free to return to the drawing board, wipe it clean, and start over. Immediately, I had a new idea I was excited about.

For my next startup, I partnered with Anthony and Tom, the two talented developers I had met in the Bay. The result was SwipeGood: a charitable giving app that lets users round up their transactions to effortlessly donate to the charity of their choice.

With this new idea, I didn’t waste time with all the bullshit that uae telegram data had slowed me down before. I had made enough painful mistakes to know which were the right levers to pull to make real progress.

Those levers were:

An idea that worked: SwipeGood wasn’t going to change the world, but it did provide a practical solution to a charitable giving problem.
A strong team: With Anthony and Tom aboard, I had talent ready to build an early version of the app. A strong team takes idle daydreams and turns them into practical solutions.
Rapid prototyping: You can’t expect to impress Y Combinator with just an idea. Rapid prototyping will teach you the most important lessons quickly: what works, what doesn’t work, and what it’s going to take for your product to succeed.
Real user feedback: With a prototype in place, you can take your product to users. What are the blind spots you can’t see? User feedback will shore up your weaknesses by the time you apply.
Will all of these levers pulled, I had something my first idea had been lacking: momentum. By the time I applied to YC with SwipeGood, the rapid iteration and working proof of concept meant I was finally a serious contender.