Building a $7m non-profit tech company - John O'Nolan
MAY 23, 202448 MIN
Building a $7m non-profit tech company - John O'Nolan
MAY 23, 202448 MIN
Description
John O’Nolan is the founder of Ghost, an independent publishing platform. John sees Ghost as an experiment in doing the opposite of what every other tech company does. They haven’t raised VC, instead setting Ghost up as a non-profit that can never be bought or sold. The core product is open source, with a simple SaaS model to fund future development. John is opinionated and outspoken but with many views that are hard to argue, so I can’t wait to dive into some of those today.Timestamps00:00 Intro00:48 From music to software01:50 The benefits of anonymity06:44 Launching Ghost as a non-profit14:26 Why launch on Kickstarter19:12 Is the longevity of blogging susprising?22:25 What companies is venture capital right for?23:40 Should more companies follow the non profit model?25:50 John's approach to making great products27:45 How John views competition29:41 How do they ship at Ghost36:38 The fediverse and ActivityPub42:15 John's favourite newsletters43:41 John's hobbiesAs always thanks for being a listener of the Make Lemonade show. Hosted by @jrfarr & @jmckinven— brought to you by LemonSqueezy.com. If you're looking to sell digital products online, be sure to check out Lemon Squeezy or follow us on Twitter @lmsqueezy.