Building Without VC

I started the NOVC alliance to support folks like myself building without equity capital funding. Think of it like "BPA free" for software.

Software engineering seems like a precarious career path right now, yet an individual engineer has never been able to do more than we can today. I was recently laid off after 5 years working for a $1bn+ valuation YC fintech, so I naturally started on a YC application for my project. As I moved through the process I kept feeling internal pressure to make my project more and more ambitious. Honestly? I don't want to corner a market, squeeze out the competition, and grow endlessly forever. I just want to support my family and build tools that people love.

I realized I was in a position to build my project without taking VC investment. I knew that "going it alone" would be the harder path, but at the end of the day it feels great to know I will own my project top to bottom: if it fails, it's my time and money on the line. If it succeeds, I get to own all of the proceeds and build my vision. I can sidestep the pressure to enshittify that comes from the returns the VC business model requires.

I have grown less and less comfortable with VC and the actions of many of the key figures in the space over the past decade or so, and it feels good knowing my hard work isn't percolating more wealth to those folks. Note that sharing that view is not a requirement to join the alliance, there are many reasons one might want to build without VC.