In my opinion, some of your biggest strengths are also what leaves room for competitors.
For example, you focus on Silicon Valley where you are extremely well connected. Competitors could do very well by simply focusing on less glamorous, but emerging startup hubs.
You require people to relocate to Silicon Valley for a few months. This shows commitment from both parties and is a smart choice for you, but it also makes the program inflexible and unsuitable for a great deal of talented, perhaps more experienced people who cannot easily relocate. Your typical candidate is a student who is fresh out of college. Your competitors may capture the value in other demographics which have less flexibility when it comes to relocation, ability to quit their job, and so on.
Imagine an Untyped Lambda which offers similar terms to yours, but is also very flexible. You don't have to relocate (you can work remotely). Oh, and you can also apply if you are going to do this part-time, if at the moment you are employed and want to see where the startup goes before quitting your job.
You may think that this idea is grounds for a complete disaster, that such candidates might not committed, and so on - but perhaps, just maybe, such a degree of flexibility would lead to all sorts of new talent giving entrepreneurship a honest shot.
I'm not advocating that you do all that, but rather that a smart competitor may use it to their advantage.
Oh, and you can also apply if you are going to do this part-time, if at the moment you are employed and want to see where the startup goes before quitting your job.
To be honest, that doesn't sound like a very promising investment opportunity.
YCombinator isn't a charity - they need things to succeed.
That may be an edge case, but it wouldn't be the first time that someone built a great company out of a side project or an idea developed after work either. My point is that such an investor wouldn't exclude people a priori because they can't relocate to Silicon Valley. Instead it would evaluate each case and select only the most promising investments, including the outliers who happens to have little flexibility at the time of the investment.
Why would they even consider it? When you have many already willing founders to move down and give 110 percent. Also, face to face contact is a bonus especially at the start.
I would be interested in knowing the reasons why that startup was so far behind.
Is it the constant feedback about the startup/idea from mentors and other YC members that make the startups better Or the ability to solve technical issues quickly because of help from others?
Almost everything YC supplies, they missed, from specific things like face to face conversations with us and the insights of the speakers to more general ones like the contagious spirit of rushing toward Demo Day and the startup-friendly atmosphere in the Valley.
For example, you focus on Silicon Valley where you are extremely well connected. Competitors could do very well by simply focusing on less glamorous, but emerging startup hubs.
You require people to relocate to Silicon Valley for a few months. This shows commitment from both parties and is a smart choice for you, but it also makes the program inflexible and unsuitable for a great deal of talented, perhaps more experienced people who cannot easily relocate. Your typical candidate is a student who is fresh out of college. Your competitors may capture the value in other demographics which have less flexibility when it comes to relocation, ability to quit their job, and so on.
Imagine an Untyped Lambda which offers similar terms to yours, but is also very flexible. You don't have to relocate (you can work remotely). Oh, and you can also apply if you are going to do this part-time, if at the moment you are employed and want to see where the startup goes before quitting your job.
You may think that this idea is grounds for a complete disaster, that such candidates might not committed, and so on - but perhaps, just maybe, such a degree of flexibility would lead to all sorts of new talent giving entrepreneurship a honest shot.
I'm not advocating that you do all that, but rather that a smart competitor may use it to their advantage.