{"id":7539,"date":"2017-03-16T10:12:15","date_gmt":"2017-03-16T09:12:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chartmogul.com\/?p=7539"},"modified":"2023-08-10T12:58:05","modified_gmt":"2023-08-10T10:58:05","slug":"ghost-founder-ceo-john-onolan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chartmogul.com\/blog\/ghost-founder-ceo-john-onolan\/","title":{"rendered":"Ghost CEO John O\u2019Nolan: How we built the non-profit, distributed SaaS company of our dreams"},"content":{"rendered":"

A SaaS business with a mission<\/h1>\n

“Trying to create good technology to facilitate\u00a0media organizations at a time when media orgs are haemorrhaging cash and staff is something that I care deeply about.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ghost may look like a typical SaaS blogging platform at first glance, but if you look a little closer you\u2019ll see that things are very different. The company is a non-profit organization, originally funded through kickstarter and subsequently bootstrapped through to profitability. Ghost shares its financial metrics openly – you can see them at ghost.org\/about<\/a> – and the technology behind the platform is 100% open-source.<\/p>\n

\"ghost
The Ghost public dashboard, built on ChartMogul’s API. (source: ghost.org\/about)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A founder’s vision<\/h1>\n

“We’re hoping to use technology to level the playing field of modern media and power some of the greatest journalists in the world.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"ghostIt\u2019s obvious that there\u2019s a strong, clear vision behind Ghost<\/a> \u2014 one that I wanted to understand in more detail. I spoke to Founder and CEO John O\u2019Nolan (@JohnONolan<\/a>), who started the company way back in 2012 after a single blog post outlining his idea went viral. (I still remember reading this post at the time, and the subsequent excitement in the community).<\/p>\n

In many ways Ghost is an embodiment of John and his beliefs and philosophy on the future of journalism \u2014 something he cares about deeply. The other part of the story (which is equally as captivating) revolves around John\u2019s aspiration for building a sustainable company with distributed employees, and that supports his and his employees goals of living around the world and leading a rich life while working on something he cares about.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s so much here to learn from, and I wish we had more time to talk.\u00a0But for now, get the full episode below, or on iTunes<\/a>, SoundCloud<\/a>, Stitcher<\/a>\u00a0or by searching for us\u00a0in your usual podcast player.<\/p>\n

Any thoughts or discussion on the conversation? Join me where I’ll be hanging out in the comments section, further down the page. Enjoy!<\/p>\n

\n

https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/chartmogul\/ghost-ceo-john-onolan\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From blog post, to Kickstarter, to sustainable SaaS business: We spoke to globe trotter founder John O’Nolan to understand what’s behind his mission for open source blogging platform Ghost.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":7546,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[93,12],"tags":[237,98,239,238,66,21,118],"class_list":["post-7539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-funding","category-gtm","tag-ghost","tag-interview","tag-non-profit","tag-open-source","tag-podcast","tag-saas","tag-saas-open-mic"],"yoast_head":"\nGhost CEO John O'Nolan: Building the non-profit, distributed SaaS company of my dreams<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"From blog post to Kickstarter to SaaS business: I spoke to founder John O'Nolan to understand what's behind the mission for blogging platform Ghost.\" \/>\n<meta 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