E185: The Challenges with Monetizing Open Source with the Creator of Rich + Textual
From Open Source Startup Podcast by Robby (MTF); Tim (Essence VC)
November 4, 2025 · 34 min
About this episode
The episode discusses the challenges of monetizing open-source projects with Will McGugan, creator of Rich and Textual.
In our latest episode, Robby and Tim talk with Will McGugan , creator of the Rich and Textual open source projects and founder of Textualize and Toad (not yet released), about the challenges of turning beloved open-source projects into real businesses. Despite Rich and Textual's huge adoption in the Python community, he says he waited too long to monetize, focused too much on technical perfection, and tried to build infrastructure before a killer product. He also burned himself out and wishes he had simplified and hired earlier. McGugan believes the terminal is a neglected but essential interface, prized for speed and flow. Rich and Textual modernized terminal output, but monetizing open-core dev tools proved difficult. His new project, Toad, aims to be a universal AI front-end for the terminal - open-source, protocol-driven, and able to plug into different agent back ends like Claude and others. The goal: seamless workflows and modern UX in the environment developers already live in. Big takeaways: monetize early, ship a killer app sooner, don’t overcomplicate structure, and avoid grinding yourself into the ground.
People in this episode
Hosts: Robby, Tim
Guest: Will McGugan
Topics covered
- monetization
- open source
- software development
- developer tools
- AI
- terminal interfaces
Keywords
- open source
- monetization
- Rich
- Textual
- Toad
- AI front-end
- terminal
- software development
- developer experience
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Rich, Textual, Textualize, Toad, Claude
Places: Python community
More episodes of Open Source Startup Podcast
- E197: The Evolution of Building Open Source Businesses from HashiCorp to Flox · June 9, 2026 · 40 min
- E196: Shifting Developer Portals to Agent Portals with Port · June 3, 2026 · 39 min
- E195: Taking on the New AI Attack Surface With Manifold: Runtime, Skills & Supply Chains · May 26, 2026 · 45 min
- E194: Fal's Bet on Generative Media · April 29, 2026 · 41 min
- E193: Managing 100s of Agents with Maestro · April 8, 2026 · 39 min
- E192: Creating Browser Use, Navigating Hyper Growth & Building in the Competitive Browser Automation Space · February 18, 2026 · 41 min
Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the Open Source Startup Podcast podcast page.