Before this case, I had another who was a hopeless alcoholic. 15-16 years ago she took herself off methamphetamine, then the anxiety started. Her doctor gave a prescription for Xanax, then some other parents at her son's hockey game shared their Vodka/grape juice. Her thinking then was, "What do I need Xanax for, when I have Schmirnoff?" I met her about 3 years ago. She'd tried to stay sober after 2 years in prison for her 3rd DUI. But then life happened, she couldn't handle it, and started drinking again. She is doing quite well now.
I do have other things going that I haven't mentioned here. I manufacture a few niche-market items. One weekend I had a flood of orders - a radio show host had told his audience to search for a specific term that my site is on the 1st page of results for. The HN audience is not my target market, so I don't want to link there now. ("A startup should give its competitors as little information as possible." - http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html )
Years ago I tried manufacturing the supplement that's been helpful for my girlfriend, but I didn't know how to market it, and what I'd manufactured wasn't quite as good as the original version sold by someone else. I gave a bottle away to a woman who needed it. When I called a few days later, she said "THAT STUFF REALLY WORKS!" When I called back months later, her sister said that she was in the state's psychiatric hospital. Supplements don't fix everything, especially when poverty is a factor.
I want to file an New Drug Application (NDA) with the FDA, so I could manufacture that supplement as a gel-cap, and then get FDA approval for a little claim, such as "improves memory", or another claim that is very valuable to a certain target market. Then I'd branch out into other uses.
The $20,000 for this HN fellowship is not a lot of money. I'd buy a camera, a wireless microphone, and probably spend most of the funds on travel expenses. Access to the ycombinator platform would be much more valuable, and is not available at any price.
I would also leverage the fellowship to solicit some people I know as investors. I'd want the corporation set up before I go around asking for money.