E185: The Challenges with Monetizing Open Source with the Creator of Rich + Textual

Open Source Startup Podcast

Robby (MTF); Tim (Essence VC) द्वारा प्रदान की गई सामग्री. एपिसोड, ग्राफिक्स और पॉडकास्ट विवरण सहित सभी पॉडकास्ट सामग्री Robby (MTF); Tim (Essence VC) या उनके पॉडकास्ट प्लेटफ़ॉर्म पार्टनर द्वारा सीधे अपलोड और प्रदान की जाती है। यदि आपको लगता है कि कोई आपकी अनुमति के बिना आपके कॉपीराइट किए गए कार्य का उपयोग कर रहा है, तो आप यहां बताई गई प्रक्रिया का पालन कर सकते हैं https://hi.player.fm/legal।

1M ago 34:02

MP3•एपिसोड होम

In our latest episode, Robby and Tim talk with Will McGugan, creator of the Rich and Textual open source projects and founder of Textualize and Toad (not yet released), about the challenges of turning beloved open-source projects into real businesses. Despite Rich and Textual's huge adoption in the Python community, he says he waited too long to monetize, focused too much on technical perfection, and tried to build infrastructure before a killer product. He also burned himself out and wishes he had simplified and hired earlier.

McGugan believes the terminal is a neglected but essential interface, prized for speed and flow. Rich and Textual modernized terminal output, but monetizing open-core dev tools proved difficult.

His new project, Toad, aims to be a universal AI front-end for the terminal - open-source, protocol-driven, and able to plug into different agent back ends like Claude and others. The goal: seamless workflows and modern UX in the environment developers already live in.

Big takeaways: monetize early, ship a killer app sooner, don’t overcomplicate structure, and avoid grinding yourself into the ground.

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