They built a $900K/year open-source app | Starter Story

Papermark started as a weekend project born from a single tweet. In 18 months, it grew to $75,000 in monthly recurring revenue—nearly $900,000 annually—while remaining fully open source. Co-founder I'm You (the guest) walked through how they turned an open-source document sharing tool into a real business, why the open-source model was strategic rather than ideological, and what it actually takes to build a paying customer base when your code is free.

Why open source was the right bet

The decision to go open source wasn't about generosity or community spirit. It was a calculated business move. "Being open source was the right bet for us," I'm You said, and the reasoning was straightforward: trust. Companies that share documents containing sensitive data—contracts, pitch decks, financial reports—need to know exactly where that data lives and how it's handled. With proprietary tools, they have to take the vendor's word for it. With Papermark, they can inspect the code themselves.