The first five paragraphs—particularly the multiple pivots, bringing on a woman co-founder in hopes that it might look good, and spending an inordinate amount of time researching everything about getting into YC—really surprised me. I would think you'd want to get into YC because you have a (hopefully) marketable vision and YC is simply a means to an end in getting that vision shipped.

It looks like the OP finally realized that towards the end, but is the first part a common way to approach YC, where it's an end in and of itself? If so, is the central idea that "well, now that I've been a part of YC, everything will just fall into place"?