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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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.