Podcast Awesome 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.
🎙️ What We Cover in This Episode
- 🧠 How Eleventy grew from a side project into a widely depended-on tool
- ⚖️ The maintainer’s dilemma: growth, responsibility, and personal sustainability
- 💸 Why venture capital and hockey-stick growth often fail dev tools
- 🔥 Burnout, boundaries, and being accountable to a global user base
- 🏡 Balancing family life with open source maintenance
- 🔁 Different funding models: donations, sponsorships, Pro tools, and tradeoffs
- 🌱 What sustainable open source can look like long-term
- 🔮 What’s ahead for Eleventy and its next chapter
⏱️ Timestamps
00:00 – Introductions and why open source sustainability matters
01:47 – Eleventy’s early days and unexpected adoption
04:32 – When a “side project” becomes critical infrastructure
06:42 – Corporate usage, expectations, and hidden pressure
10:08 – Family life, burnout risk, and personal boundaries
14:17 – Funding models: donations vs. sustainability
18:45 – Venture capital, acquisitions, and hockey-stick growth myths
23:33 – Lessons from Gatsby, Astro, and the dev tools ecosystem
26:25 – Why sustainable open source must tie to real value
30:26 – A healthier path forward for maintainers and communities
33:20 – What’s next for Eleventy
🔗 Links & Resources
🎵 Theme music by Ronnie Martin
🎹 Interstitial music by Zach Malm
🎥 Video support by Isaac Chase
Stay up to date on all the Font Awesomeness!