Hacker in Residence at NQB8: What It Means to Build Companies from Zero to One

By Akshay Akula · October 10, 2026 · About NQB8

Since June 2026, my main job has been Hacker in Residence at NQB8. NQB8 describes itself simply: it builds, scales, runs and funds ambitious companies. It starts four or more companies a year, works with the most ambitious 1% of founders at the idea stage, and stays in the fight with those founders for good.

What a venture studio actually does

A traditional venture fund writes checks into companies that already exist. A venture studio starts earlier: it takes an idea, puts a team around it, builds the first product, and only then decides whether it becomes a standalone company. NQB8 calls this zero to one, literally. The work is less about evaluating pitches and more about shipping something real fast enough to learn whether the idea deserves to live.

What a Hacker in Residence does

As Hacker in Residence I'm the engineer who turns early ideas into working software. In practice that means prototyping quickly, testing ideas against real users, and building the technical foundation a new company can grow on. It draws directly on what I did before: founding Vonar.ai and taking voice AI from prototype to production for federal customers, shipping a recommendation engine used by Fortune 500 companies at Arkestro, and winning hackathons where the whole point is to build something credible in a weekend.

Why NQB8

NQB8 moves very fast and isn't tied to one industry. Its leadership has started and scaled companies before; CEO Auren Hoffman co-founded LiveRamp and is a general partner at Flex Capital. For an engineer who likes the first months of a company more than any other part, a studio that does those months over and over is the right place to be.

NQB8 also runs programs for builders who aren't ready to quit their job, such as weekends&nights, a selective program of nine nights of building with the NQB8 team outside Washington, DC.