You're already in one of the best communities there is: Hacker News. Don't underestimate what you can learn just by carefully reading the threads here.
I went from "idea in my dorm room" to interviewing and hiring executives in their 40s and 50s within 24 months. The best lesson I learned is that there are way fewer "rules" than you think, and smart, disciplined, focused entrepreneurs can accomplish way more than they assume. It's reasonable to reflect on your inexperience in order to prevent mistakes, but you should never feel intimidated by it, or let other people intimidate you. The world (and YC's portfolio) is full of "inexperienced" people like you who have built billion dollar companies that disrupted industries and became pillars of the economy.
If you post contact information in your profile, I'm sure at least a few people with relevant experience would reach out and offer to be a resource for more specific advice. I've done that a few times here with mostly successful results.
> The best lesson I learned is that there are way fewer "rules" than you think, and smart, disciplined, focused entrepreneurs can accomplish way more than they assume.
Isn't it like this?
* A great idea can succeed despite mediocre execution
* A mediocre idea can succeed if the execution is great
* A bad idea can succeed (for a while) if you're a con artist (WeWork, Solar Roadways etc.)
One thing I noticed is that the YC batch tend not to post or comment much here. Except for hiring and show posts. My guess is that they are heads down working!
That's not accurate. BF is great but it's not a parallel HN where a secret world of similar discussion is going on. To overgeneralize a bit, topics there tend to be narrower and oriented around specific concrete situations. A lot of it is about hiring, offices, things like that. There are a lot of Launch posts, especially by startups in the current batch who don't feel ready to go to a bigger format yet.
Actually I think YC would probably like BF to become more HN-like and may find ways to encourage intellectually richer discussion (I've been asked a few times to advise about that). But if YC founders aren't posting to HN, it's not because they're busy participating in an alternative-universe HN. It's more likely as the GP said, that they're busy working—as they should be.
I would caution that Hacker News is both fairly biased towards a developers view of the world, and also often unrealistic when it comes to things outside of technology. As the technical founder the best thing you can do to grow is actually to spend time learning about management and also the non-technical aspects of running a business. I wouldn't rely on Hacker News for these things. Instead look for local entrepreneur round tables or social groups and hang out with the non-technical roles.
Counterpoint, the threads about parler were a dumpsterfire as HN users around the world tried to create 1:1 comparisons between US current events and BLM protests in the Summer in order to support Parler's complete contempt for both moderation and open debate.
HN is pretty relentlessly negative, and compared to the market in general overindexes on technology/security/privacy and underindexes on distribution/marketing. Some of the top upvoted advice on certain threads (not all) is just bad, usually because it's not pragmatic enough, and should be taken with a large grain of salt.
I went from "idea in my dorm room" to interviewing and hiring executives in their 40s and 50s within 24 months. The best lesson I learned is that there are way fewer "rules" than you think, and smart, disciplined, focused entrepreneurs can accomplish way more than they assume. It's reasonable to reflect on your inexperience in order to prevent mistakes, but you should never feel intimidated by it, or let other people intimidate you. The world (and YC's portfolio) is full of "inexperienced" people like you who have built billion dollar companies that disrupted industries and became pillars of the economy.
If you post contact information in your profile, I'm sure at least a few people with relevant experience would reach out and offer to be a resource for more specific advice. I've done that a few times here with mostly successful results.