Applied to @zfellows and @joinodf last autumn. Got rejected from both. You wake up, open your laptop, and it's just you, Claude Code, and a very long list of things that are not yet done. So yeah, these programs feel like exactly what you need. However, the rejection didn't feel like "not good enough." It felt like "not strong enough yet." So I stopped applying anywhere and focused 100% on building. January was interviews. February was prototyping. March is putting the thing in people's hands. My honest take: applying to programs before your signal is strong is probably waste of time. Their websites say "pre-product welcome", we bet on outliers, and other buzzwords. But the reality is – they get hundreds and thousands of application. You have to be serious about how you stand out. Reapplying soon. Will keep you posted. Curious to hear from first-time founders: did applying early open doors, or was it a distraction?