i find it happening more and more, companies that started this way: they either found a pretty-popular repo that is no longer maintained or they "inherited" a no-longer maintained popular repo and grew a business out of it.<p>wdyt?
I think it's a great idea. Do it at scale and you will probably learn a lot.<p>I think there's good odds you eventually stumble upon gold: 1) a popular open source project with a relatively simple path to monetization 2) that you are highly interested in.<p>This one would be a fun one to brainstorm about. Feel free to email me if you want to chat sometime.
I think it would be nice to do this, but maybe by offering a drop-in replacement for an old/proprietary dependency.<p>Something like a new compiler for some ancient language still in niche use? Or a "DBMS" server that speaks the same wire protocol as Sybase or Oracle... but uses cloud storage for the data?<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KspNLO9i9g">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KspNLO9i9g</a><p>A bit like this floppy disk retailer... I wonder what the software equivalents are, where there are businesses with some massive custom applications that depend and still run on platforms that are not being improved? Offering a drop-in replacement that solves some of the platform problems, but does not require reworking the application itself should have an existing market to tap into.
Somewhat related, I know of people who buy smaller companies on MicroAcquire or elsewhere, typically for some small 4 or 5 figure USD sum, then they simply monetize it with ad spend and paywalling certain features. They generate 10x revenue then they sell it again for another 5-10x multiple, rinse and repeat.<p>For example, Rob Walling, cofounder of Drip, MicroConf and now TinySeed, did this:<p><a href="https://robwalling.com/2015/12/02/what-i-learned-buying-growing-and-selling-my-startup/" rel="nofollow">https://robwalling.com/2015/12/02/what-i-learned-buying-grow...</a><p><a href="https://vimeo.com/70901901" rel="nofollow">https://vimeo.com/70901901</a><p>Now instead of buying the company, you can simply do the same for free via repackaging the open source project.
I abandoned my Pretty Diff application 3.5 years ago. It was once downloaded more than 100,000 times per month from NPM. Nearly 10,000 people per month still access it in the browser. So, you can use that.
Go look at gorilla-mux. Seriously a major project that needs a new owner. <a href="https://github.com/gorilla#gorilla-toolkit">https://github.com/gorilla#gorilla-toolkit</a>