Why I'm Not Raising Funding (Yet)

Every week someone in the stream chat asks some version of: "Have you thought about raising money?" The answer is yes — constantly. Here's where I've landed.

I'm building a social app. Social apps are notoriously hard to monetize early, and they live or die on network effects. A VC would want to see a growth plan that involves spending money to acquire users fast — paid ads, influencer deals, maybe a PR push.

I don't want to do that. Not because I'm opposed to spending money on growth, but because I think it's the wrong approach for this specific product at this specific stage.

The app is built for builders and creators. That audience doesn't respond to ads. They respond to authenticity, to seeing real work, to being part of something from the beginning. The build-in-public approach I'm taking — streaming every session, publishing every build log — is the growth strategy. It's working. 4,800 waitlist signups without spending a dollar on acquisition.

If I raised money right now, I'd be under pressure to show metrics that justify the valuation. That pressure would push me toward shortcuts that would undermine the thing that's actually working.

Here's what I'm planning:

Free tier: Core features, limited to following 200 accounts, standard feed algorithm.

Creator tier ($8/month): Unlimited follows, priority feed placement, analytics dashboard, monetization tools (tipping, paid communities).

Team tier ($24/month): Everything in Creator, plus collaboration features, shared analytics, and API access.

I think 3–5% of active users will convert to paid. At 100K active users, that's 3,000–5,000 paying subscribers. At $8 average, that's $24K–$40K MRR. Enough to run the business and keep building.

There are two scenarios where I'd seriously consider raising:

1. If the network effect kicks in faster than I can handle. If we hit 50K users in the first month and the infrastructure costs are outpacing revenue, I'd raise to cover the gap rather than throttle growth.

2. If a strategic investor offers something beyond money. A distribution partnership, access to a creator network, or a technical co-founder situation — those would be worth dilution. Pure capital, probably not.

I'm also just not sure I want to run a VC-backed company. I've watched a lot of founders take money and spend the next 5 years optimizing for the next round instead of building something they're proud of. I want to build something I'm proud of.

That might mean staying smaller. I'm okay with that.

I'll revisit this publicly when the app launches and we have real revenue data. Subscribe to the newsletter to follow along.