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Episode
74
Future of Open Source | Abhishek Nayak on Appsmith and Building Open Source Projects
How is the world of Open Source faring in a landscape that is being overturned by Web3 and its ascendant new technologies? It’s an important question and not just in the realm of entrepreneurship and products. Open Source was the first promise of some kind of a technological revolution, where everyone could build and use things they want to with help and support from a real, tangible community.
Where is that promise now, what is being built out of it, and where does it stand with the advent of new technological paradigms?
That’s the topic of the conversation I have the pleasure of bringing you today.
My colleague, Prayank Swaroop, Partner at Accel, is talking to Abhishek Nayak, founder and CEO of Appsmith. Appsmith is a startup which provides an open-source low code tool that helps businesses build any custom internal application within hours. And the company has just raised its Series A of $8 million.
Summary of the conversation
16:00 - 17:57 - Why did Appsmith take the open source route?
11:44 - 13:24 - Why internal apps & not consumer facing apps?
24:50 - 25:53 - How to build an engaged community on Discord?
30:03 - 31:40 - Why aren't business users adopting open source tools?
35:10 - 37:08 - How did Appsmith acquire users?
38:52 - 40:50 - Do developers care about design?
44:18 - 46:27 - Challenges raising money for an open source project
48:24 - 49:32 - Advice for founders thinking of open source projects
There's one more Accel connection here: Abhishek was also part of the Accel team for a while.
In the podcast, we try to understand from Abhishek about where the open source world is, how far it has come, and what we can look for from it, and all of it from the lens of Appsmith.
This podcast has a lot of takeaways for founders thinking about building open source projects and companies.
Thanks to Prayank for the interview and thanks of course to Abhishek for taking time away from the grind of entrepreneurship to come talk to us!
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We’re building Passionfroot 1, an operating system for creators to manage their business.
We’re based in Europe and raised our $ 3.4m pre-seed round from Creandum and US angels such as Vlad (Webflow) and creators like Ali Abdaal.As we’re creating a new category and as the creator economy is global and mostly online, we’re building from Day 1 a global company and product that helps creators monetize around the world.
This brings a lot of complexities especially in terms of payments and taxes as our early users are based both in Europe and the US and deal with cross-border transactions.What are Do’s and Dont’s for European startups who have a global ambition and build products for a global customer base from Day 1. Anything you would do differently?
Thanks @pjbouten! Love how you’ve thought about incrementally shaping a category with a focus on product and service, and only then thinking about getting the message out there vs the other way around.
And totally agree on the distinctions and overlaps both self-serve and enterprise motions share.
Thanks, PJ, for taking the time to address questions from the great vantage of shaping Showpad into a global, enterprise SaaS brand!