"It's really provided us with a very strong network as well as advice from people who have pretty much seen it all. The structure, I think, is really beneficial to getting early traction and getting things off the ground. Seeing the progress everyone has made, that's what's most important right now."
Going through Y Combinator is like is like training to run a race that you treat as a 100 meter dash, but ends up in fact being a marathon. You're working toward a goal of demo day, which you'll later exchange for other milestones. You develop a cadence as a team, with product, growth and user interfacing that will become so ingrained to your own circadian rhythm, that by the time Tuesday dinners end, you're still in flow.
Demo Day feels like a final performance, and you hope you can hit the time you'd been able to hit in training, it's the culmination of all the hard work, just so you can make it through the next rounds and do it all over again, but faster, stronger, harder. The best lesson you learn, is to hack your Y Combinator experience to your own benefit, starting the minute you scoop your first serving of glob out of the famed Y Combinator crock pot.