Moving from Open Source to a Commercial Endeavor with Sam Bhagwat

Sam Bhagwat, Co-founder & Chief Strategy Officer at Gatsby, joins me for a conversation about his work. Gatsby is an open source project using React with a focus on building web sites, and not just web apps. As CSO Sam tracks the trends in the modern web development space and helps Gatsby to stay on the innovative edge. From the origin of the open source project in 2015, to the establishment of the company in 2017, Sam and Gatsby’s contributions have only grown exponentially since then.

Sam talks about the history of Gatsby’s rise to prominence and their shift from open source into a proper business. Sam dives into how and why they’ve leaned on investment into the company to help them better address the needs of the web site development ecosystem. From the first service they charged money for, Sam’s take on open source and commercial crossing paths, to Gatsby’s global focus, Sam offers up a lot for consideration!

Highlights:

  • Introduction to Sam and Gatsby (00:00)

  • Moving from purely open source into a business (03:20)

  • Sam’s perspectives on open source and commercial offerings (08:20)

  • Open source as not only a DevTool (12:03)

  • Building websites and brining multiple parties on board (15:16)

  • Sam’s advice to others starting open source projects (21:06)

  • Where to find Sam (25:40)

Links:

Sam

Chris Hill