INSIGHTS #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 that 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.

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!

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

Check out other episodes from the Insights Podcast series at https://www.seedtoscale.com

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