Genuine question: the OP had been unemployed for a year, probably with student loans on top. Where would the OP find the money for a venture that, statistically speaking, has an 80% chance of failure? And how about the bills they already have?
Genuine question: the OP had been unemployed for a year, probably with student loans on top. Where would the OP find the money for a venture that, statistically speaking, has an 80% chance of failure? And how about the bills they already have?
She's an MIT Course 6 grad. She can literally cold message any VC on LinkedIn and she will get an opportunity to pitch [0] despite having 0 revenue or customers because our heuristic is "if you can get into MIT you are smart enough to be molded into a founder for an idea we have, or deployed as an operator in an existing portfolio company".
YC also runs startup session specifically for Harvard and MIT students when you can have a personal chat with partners. Same with A16Z SpeedRun.
Additonally, MIT students and alums have access to Engine@MIT [1] and the Harvard I-Lab [2] who help connect students and alums to angels and VCs.
Just being an MIT alum, saying you started "ideating" a year ago, joining Engine or I-Lab, and building a basic prototype will 99% guarantee you a YC interview (especially based on what I've seen in the YC 2025 classes - honestly very lackluster for the valuations being asked, but hey you gotta deploy dry-powder somewhere).
[0] - Am a VC and did CS in the other side of Cambridge
[1] - https://innovationlabs.harvard.edu/
[2] - https://engine.xyz/