>>Some of the advice I did not take and did the opposite and it was the right decision. //
FWIW that does not mean the advice was wrong. Trivial example: "head East, there's a great bakery there", "I went West and found a place for a lovely lunch".
Unless the parent elucidates (and maybe even then) you can't tell if the advice was right or wrong.
But, as a serial entrepreneur for more decades than I like to think about, I can confidently say that there is one thing that you really do need: you need access to people experienced in business, preferable a similar sort of business to yours. You need their advice.
YC can provide that, and has paved the path for it. You can also get it through many other avenues. But whether through YC or not, your business will be more likely to succeed if you can learn from what other people have already done.
As much as I think VC is problematic: Those folks have a host of previous experience. When they share advice with you, it's a distillate of seeing lots of companies go through similar things.
And that's all any advice is - "based on what I've experienced before, here's what I see". You never should take advice unevaluated, but it's additional data that might help you to come to a better decision.
If that additional data is worth enough to you is a separate question, but there's certainly value there.
VCs are not gonna help you build your company (doesn't matter if it's YC or anyone else). As a founder, you're the only one responsible about what advice to follow or not (and very often you get conflicting advice from two very credible sources)
Because a lot of first-time founders have no idea what they're doing and other experts are at least experts whether they're 100% right or not. Anyone on Sand Hill is probably a better resource than some guy down the alley.
FWIW that does not mean the advice was wrong. Trivial example: "head East, there's a great bakery there", "I went West and found a place for a lovely lunch".
Unless the parent elucidates (and maybe even then) you can't tell if the advice was right or wrong.