$500k is a lot of money but arguably not enough (for most things not strictly SaaS). So either the idea is small enough that it seems you don't need $500k and c

$500k is a lot of money but arguably not enough (for most things not strictly SaaS). So either the idea is small enough that it seems you don't need $500k and could probably bootstrap yourself or you're too big for YC and will never happen anyway. The privilege is assuming that your experience with SWE projects maps to everything worth doing.