If you don't want to raise venture funding, you shouldn't join YC. Venture funding is rocket fuel, and if you're not building a rocket you really don't want rocket fuel.
* I will be entering this reply into "most HN comment" contest running at the end of this year
Going by the definitions stated by Marc Andreessen and some of the YC Partners, product market fit is when you don't really need to spend marketing dollars because your product is growing so organically (with minimal marketing spend) that your team is barely able to keep up with the growth.
Chatbase is a very good example for a PMF product, one that comes off my head, and that didn't require any VC funding. On the other hand, I remember a YC startup launching similar in the summer, but I don't remember its name now.
Algolia is just a search provider. Supabase is just Firebase with better UX. Figma is just a drag and drop design tool.
Definition from Paul Graham essay Startup = Growth:
A founder should get funding through selling equity (to VCs) if the risks are high. If the risks are low, the founder get funding through debt, even if you're "building a rocket". Or bootstrap, if possible.
What every VC dreams is to get equity in a low-risk venture. Because the return is high, but the risk is low. That's why there is so much marketing that convinces founders to pay with equity.
Do you want to try to go to space/the moon or whatever, for reasons like the personal glory and (mild) fame, the satisfaction of building the thing, the importance of being the person at the center of it all, the joy of changing an industry, etc?
That's the rocket: big big plans and you're kinda in it for the work.
Or, do you want a plane to a nice beach where you can relax? Because the fastest route to get enough money to relax is probably not via building a rocket these days.
Some caveats here: the successful (read: very lucky and very good) rocket builders do get the opportunity to relax, and often on a different level than the people who saved up and bought airplane tickets. But the 'great rocket builders' famously rarely "want to relax". And the vast vast majority of rocket builders don't actually directly succeed, but many do parlay it into savings for that plane ticket. But overall it's much easier for a random person to save up for a plane ticket than build a rocket.
Fantastic. :D