After thinking about this for a while and getting rejected twice as a single founder, here's what I've come to believe: Apply anyway. Bust your balls to be successful regardless of the outcome.
If you try too hard to find a co-founder, there's a good chance you will find the wrong one. Plus, YC hates newly wed co-founders almost as much as single founders (probably even more). And regardless of acceptance into YC, you don't want to end up with the wrong co-founder. It's better to go it alone.
The deadline for checking all the boxes to be a YC founder was three years ago. You could have met a co-founder in the normal way, in the way that lovers meet. You could have built cool shit to prove you're a hacker. You could have moved to Silicon Valley to work at some hot startups and build connections.
If you didn't, hard luck. Startups are hard, do it anyway.
If you try too hard to find a co-founder, there's a good chance you will find the wrong one. Plus, YC hates newly wed co-founders almost as much as single founders (probably even more). And regardless of acceptance into YC, you don't want to end up with the wrong co-founder. It's better to go it alone.
The deadline for checking all the boxes to be a YC founder was three years ago. You could have met a co-founder in the normal way, in the way that lovers meet. You could have built cool shit to prove you're a hacker. You could have moved to Silicon Valley to work at some hot startups and build connections.
If you didn't, hard luck. Startups are hard, do it anyway.