How hard is it to start a startup? (for a hacker)

If you'll read thru blogs online you'll get mostly one answer:
very.

I read many of Paul Graham's essays about startups, and he's got some really great insights.
He has this strong opinion that starting a web startup these days is cheap than ever, and you don't need to raise that much. He actually took it to the extreme with his Y combinator giving young entrepreneurs 5000$ each +5000$ for each member of the funding team. It sums up for no more than 20,000$ for a new startup!

So if it takes only 20k$, it's not such a big deal... You can take a loan from the bank or family, and start your company, avoiding the fuss of getting funded. Not that hard, huh?
Well that's probably not a good idea in my opinion, because you have no mentoring.
Y guys claiming the money they give for startup is nothing compared to the support and consulting. I wonder if the young entrepreneurs agree with them...

So how hard is it to start a startup after you are backed with a venture like Y combinator?
What alternatives young entrepreneurs have these days?

Let me refine:
Hackers&geeks are probably coming with cool ideas for the web startups all the time. They are still young, and very technology oriented, but their experience and thinking is not business or marketing. How do they gain this experience? They can't do it over days. It takes years.
This is a big problem I'm sure many young entrepreneurs (including me...) are facing.
The options I see are:

1. Expanding the funding team with experienced marketing entrepreneur (the best in my opinion)
2. Finding an early stage investor that can consult (i.e Y combinator) - Sounds great but seems to be more for U.S students.
3. Stay with tech-oriented and hope that you are natural born business man. Probably the most common, but too scary for me.

All options are very difficult!
1. How can the hackers find these kind of business/marketing people?
2. Probably the change to get funded are about 1%
3. The chance that the hackers are so gifted is about 1%

Maybe that's the reason ~1% (my estimation) good ideas makes it into companies in the end.
Now it's your turn... What of the above 3 options is best? How to find good business co-founders?
How to get an early stage funding and mentoring?
Looking forward for your input :)