In-depth founder interviews, MRR journeys and post-mortems, with the real numbers.
140 posts
A composite founder diary. Four contractors, one policy bought only to satisfy a customer's insurance rider, and a premium audit that asked for certificates of insurance rather than contracts. What I found reading the California Labor Code.
OSI filed $1,093,077 for 2024 and has self-published $667,000 for 2025, a year the IRS does not have. Its accounts and its tax return disagree, and the gap reconciles exactly.
A composite founder diary. Twenty one Forms I-9, sixteen flagged, and not one unauthorised worker among them. What I learned reading 8 U.S.C. 1324a and its penalty table: the good faith defence runs one way only, and the clock that sets the fine is the one I do not control.
OTF's audited revenue hit a record $53,115,458 in the year ended 30 September 2025. In the same year its cash halved to $25,283,707 and it closed with net assets of minus $123,660. Six grant years paid for one fiscal year.
A composite founder diary. At 65K MRR a banking partner asked whether client funds ever touched our balance. Nine days in the statutes turned up a federal felony that says your knowledge is irrelevant, an exemption written for somebody else, and a civil penalty of 10,556 dollars a day that the statute itself prints as 5,000.
The Tor Project's record 2025 revenue is $12,279,993, up 68.5%. The government money went the other way: down 47.5% since 2023, to 22.62% of revenue on Tor's own method, from 53.5% three years earlier.
A composite founder diary. $58,400 left on an instruction I never gave, and the statute that decides who eats it never once asks whether I was careless. Read end to end from UCC Article 4A at $64K MRR.
The headline is correct and nearly useless. $2,248,286 of the GNOME Foundation's record 2025 revenue arrived as cryptocurrency from a single donor, was sold at a $39,828 loss, and is 85% locked behind donor restrictions.
A composite founder diary. A contractor invoiced at $26 an hour for three years asked one question, and the number everyone quotes turned out to be the escapable one. Read end to end from the statute at $63K MRR.
A composite founder diary. Our SMS vendor handled every STOP perfectly, and a customer who typed a plain sentence instead was texted again nine days later. What the statute and the regulation actually require, read end to end at $62K MRR.
The DSF raised $296,584 in 2024 and spent $277,682. The structure is the story: 97.60% of income is donations, 78.56% of spending is one contracted programme, 84.30% is booked abroad, and there are no employees at all.
