Hacker News Reader

Let's say you're one of the hundreds of thousands of solo devs/founders making some money - but less than $1000/month on your SaaS startup.

You don't want VC, you just want growth and the ability to do your startup full-time. Why would someone mentor you in that case? What's the benefit to them?

"paying it forward"? Getting personal satisfaction from helping others? E.g https://www.indiehackers.com/ ? I haven't spent a lot of time there but it seems to be a community of exactly the kind of founders you describe trying to help each other out.

Lots of people simply enjoy helping others when they can.

In defense of YC, many of them are previously founders of startups.

Pretty much every YC partner is a founder and builder.

The article makes this point as well.