Default Alive

You pick a market and a price, and you name the company. The garage runs on its own and stops whenever you have a call to make. Customers write to tell you why they signed, and why they said no or cancelled. When investors notice you, you choose how much to raise and whom to meet, then compare the term sheets side by side. A lower valuation with clean terms can leave you more money than a higher one, and each sheet shows what you would take home if you sold.

Three months a day

Once the seed closes, the company runs on a real clock: one real day is three months, whether the app is open or not. The team brings the calls that need a founder, from a hire to an outage. The board meets once a real day, and its deck names the causes behind the biggest change in the numbers. When the cash runs low, the clock stops and waits for you.

At $1.2M in annual revenue you raise a Series A, and at $6M a Series B, and each round gives you a card to share. Then you play on toward the Series C bar at $15M, where the company waits for the next update. A run ends with a sale, an empty bank account, burnout, or a board vote. Every ending also gives you a card, with your weeks and your revenue curve.

How it is built

One Swift core runs the game on iPhone, Android and Meta Quest, so a company plays out the same on every device. Inside Default Alive shows the code to scale, in the game’s own pixel art.

For founders, engineering managers and anyone who likes a management game. The game runs on a model of how software companies grow: each ad dollar buys fewer leads than the last, an interview is a rough signal, and funded rivals keep launching in your market. If you want a game to finish in one evening, this is the wrong one. After the seed round the company runs on its own and asks for you when a decision is waiting.