It's a good thing that you asked here, but you need to do more homework.
YCombinator typically offers $15K to $20K (USD) for about 2% to 10% of
the company on their seed level funding.
http://www.ycombinator.com/about.html
I recall reading the average was about 3-4% of the company, but I can't
recall where I read it.
You seem to already know that the offer you received is absurd but the
YC numbers should put it in better perspective.
If you want to know what real angel investors are like, you should
read this:
http://www.paulgraham.com/angelinvesting.html
And then read over the docs/terms typically used for angel investments.
http://ycombinator.com/seriesaa.html
Everything under 50-100K is typically considered "seed funding" but the
differentiations between "seed," "angel," "super-angel," and "VC" are
somewhat blurred and undefined. If you have a viable market/product,
real investors at the various funding levels will be interested. If
you get into one of the seed funding organizations like YC or one of the
incubator programs, the most important things you get are outside
validation, mentoring/help, and access to networks of investors through
"Demo Day" gatherings and other channels. It's smart to apply.
As for the ways to look for a "better deal" the above is the best idea,
but you can also start contacting angel investors on your own through
things like Angel List and similar. Be careful on which investors you
work with and choose them carefully. As PG states in his essay, the best
angel investors are nice people, but if you also read enough of the
horror stories from founders, not all angels investors are nice.
A lot of the angel investors run their own blogs and twitter feeds (Fred
Wilson at avc.com comes to mind), so that's another way to find them. As
for learning the reputation and skills of specific angel investors,
you'll need to do a ton of searching and reading.
Hopefully, this will get you headed in a better direction.
Good Luck!
