Localized commercial products built around existing open-source software
Find useful GitHub projects, build a more accessible front end, localize the language, and sell the resulting product to audiences in markets where the underlying technology is less familiar.
From Chris Koerner on The Koerner Office Podcast — This Tiny AI Box Watches You Work and Does the Busywork at 30:25
Problem: Useful technical projects may be difficult for nontechnical or non-English-speaking customers to discover and use.
For: Users in countries or language markets that are not yet exposed to a particular technical product, as well as engineers seeking to commercialize existing software.
Products from this video
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Examples
- Engineers finding GitHub repositories, building nicer front ends, changing the language, and selling the products in Japan, Korea, and Vietnam; the claimed outcome is that some digital nomads are making a good living from this approach.