If you are a software developer, the risk of committing to one year (three months at least partially in Mountain View) doesn't sound that scary to me. If you le

If you are a software developer, the risk of committing to one year (three months at least partially in Mountain View) doesn't sound that scary to me. If you leave on good terms with your current employer you could probably just get your job back if you failed at your startup. It sounds like you have a great potential business. The size of the addressable market will determine whether or not you could have a startup [0] as defined by PG. Generally speaking, YC only wants to fund startups in their main program, which would be the one that would give you enough capital to actually make a run at it. When we did YC (S13) we had three cofounders that all had families and single incomes. We made it work. We rented an apartment and lived/worked together for a few days during the week, and returned to our home offices the rest of the time. You could find a room to rent somewhere if you are a solo founder. Some used credit cards to float things. You'll have to get uncomfortable... Part of doing a startup is about sacrificing bits of your life for your business. Investors (including YC) want to make sure you are all-in. I would be surprised if you would be able to raise any capital from experienced startup investors while working part-time on the project. They typically want you to have already dove into the deep end. If you don't have a startup on your hands, but instead have a great small business, there's nothing to be ashamed of there and you can probably find some investment from local high net worth investors if you do some networking. You can test that with pre-orders or LOI's or something of that sort. However, those investments are probably going to be more "Shark Tank," full of onerous terms and potentially much more dilution for you as a founder. [0]: http://www.paulgraham.com/growth.html http://www.paulgraham.com/growth.html