1) yes
2) depends on the investor, you mean YC partner or third-party?
3) depends on the follow up investor, none for YC. becoming ramen-profitable is always a recommendation
4) I don't know. I also doubt a lot. Some YC Alumni do YC again :)
5) people do YC for a lot of reasons

I think our market (Magic) was very niche, something they usually not get pitched (imagine how many SaaS / Devtools apply vs a marketplace for Magic). Both my cofounder and I are "hackers" from the very young ages and we love Magic: The Gathering which basically shows a strong founders/market-fit. We've applied with some revenue but also had a scalable business model and a decent initial market size.

That's my speculation.

depends on the scope, project and contractor. definitely pricier than fiverr and usually targeted towards seed-stage or series A startups

never thought about it. I could only guess

i think a holistic view on the problem of our industry and pushing us away from a "technical solution focus" to a consumer focus. also to keep burn incredibly low and only raise if you really need to

Not really. I doubt the acceptance rate changed. What has changed is that the batch is running remote right now, not sure when it'll comeback to in-person.

We had a previous app that signed up a lot of users (single player app) and later introduced the marketplace. Later we used a lot of influencer marketing, word of mouth marketing and mostly social media

both left before my batch so I cannot say how it was, however the current partners are all amazing to work with.

Bookaycteam.com which soon rebrands to leanhire.com

It was Mage App Inc. (W19). We've been going for about 3 years previously and had to shutdown after 4 years due to COVID-19 and total fallout of revenue with no promised recovery anytime soon.

We've had some revenue, but not exciting and then did a hard pivot in YC (from computer vision for Magic: The Gathering to ecommerce marketplace for Magic: The Gathering).