How Eleventy Survived: Funding, Growth, and Open Source Reality
Eleventy started as a side project. Now it’s a critical infrastructure for thousands of websites.
TL;DR: Open source isn’t broken. But the way we fund it often is. Let’s talk about what actually works.
In this episode, we sit down with Zach Leatherman, creator of Eleventy (11ty), to talk honestly about what happens after open source succeeds. From nap-time coding and nights-and-weekends maintenance to venture capital pressure, burnout risk, and the reality of funding long-lived developer tools, this conversation digs into the cultural and financial tradeoffs behind modern open source.
We cover sustainability, community expectations, funding models that don’t rely on hockey-stick growth, and why “free forever” only works if the people behind the project can stay whole humans.
Listen in: How Eleventy Survived: Funding, Growth, and Open Source Reality
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