Bootstrapping an Open Source Company with Matt Barker of Jetstack

Matt Barker, President and co-founder of Jetstack, has been involved in open source and Kubernetes since the early days of its development. With a long list of open source projects behind him, he decided to hone in on Jestack and with its success, share the knowledge he’s gained over the years as an OpenUK Entrepreneur in Residence.

In this episode of The Business of Open Source, Matt joins me from the State of Open Con and shares his initial vision for Jestack and reviews the projects that helped him get the company to where it is today. As Jestack is a fully bootstrapped company, Matt shares his perspective on how that impacts a founder’s decisions. We also discuss the importance of sharing your knowledge with the next generation of founders through mentorship as Matt does with OpenUK.

Highlights:

  • Matt introduces himself and Jestack (0:48)

  • Matt’s open source projects (3:39)

  • Choosing one project to focus on (8:24)

  • Matt explains why it seems easier for bootstrapped companies to niche down (10:42)

  • Matt reflects on his early mistakes as an entrepreneur and what he’s learned from them (16:40)

  • Matt explains his role as OpenUK Entrepreneur in Residence (19:30)

Links:

Matt

Chris Hill