open-source Startups

Ghost is an open-source, nonprofit publishing platform founded by John O'Nolan that evolved from a WordPress alternative into a comprehensive creator economy platform enabling audiences to become sustainable businesses through memberships and subscriptions. Bootstrapped from a $300k Kickstarter with zero percent payment fees and a commitment to never be acquired or sold, Ghost has competed against heavily-funded competitors by focusing on long-term reliability, strong engineering, and a compelling story of independence and decentralization.

Marko Saric joined Plausible Analytics as a late co-founder and bootstrapped the open-source, privacy-focused analytics platform to over $1.2M in annual revenue. The company found success on Hacker News and managed to survive competition from major players like Google Analytics by focusing on simplicity, privacy, and user control.