In terms of meeting your requirements, Ryan Hoover is a perfect example. I don't believe he'd sold a startup before, he isn't an ex-Facebook or Google employee, and he didn't go to Stanford. I'd randomly found him on Twitter roughly a year ago and suddenly I read a TechCrunch article about how a product he'd made is in YC. He came out of nowhere, so to speak.
Which to me, is the most fairest way to sell your idea to YC. If you have an idea people actually want and you have some work done, sell it. But the other two are certainly true. You are from Stanford, you probably can leverage some connections outside of YC.
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In terms of meeting your requirements, Ryan Hoover is a perfect example. I don't believe he'd sold a startup before, he isn't an ex-Facebook or Google employee, and he didn't go to Stanford. I'd randomly found him on Twitter roughly a year ago and suddenly I read a TechCrunch article about how a product he'd made is in YC. He came out of nowhere, so to speak.
He is hitting hard the second criterion with hundreds of thousands of visitors. It is either track record, or traction. Traction trumps everything :)
Which to me, is the most fairest way to sell your idea to YC. If you have an idea people actually want and you have some work done, sell it. But the other two are certainly true. You are from Stanford, you probably can leverage some connections outside of YC.