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Financial contributions

Firefly III is built by "James Cole" and all contributors, for free. It's free software, both in the sense that it doesn't cost anything, and free software in the sense that it's free to edit, change or use it as you wish, under the terms of the AGPLv3 license. I am however, not adverse to a donation or a sponsorship.

Donations

I talk about the ability to donate on the introduction page of each repository, such as the Firefly III repository.

Donations are a great way to support me and the work I do. Many people have donated to me over the years, and I'm very grateful for that. It's a great way to show your appreciation for the work I do. The money goes towards hosting costs, domain names, and various other expenses. It also goes towards the time I spend on the project.

If you feel Firefly III made your life better, please consider contributing as a sponsor. Please check out my Patreon and GitHub Sponsors page for more information. You can also buy me a ☕️ coffee at ko-fi.com or use LiberaPay to sponsor me.

Donations are the only form of compensation I receive, apart of course from all your compliments and support. Thank you for your consideration.

VC money and capital injections from commercial organizations

TL;DR

TL;DR: I will not be accepting VC money and capital injections from commercial organizations

A few companies have approached me about turning (a part of) Firefly III into a commercial venture, a start-up. The "personal finances"-space such as it is, is rife with opportunity. Many people struggle financially and that's an interesting bandwagon to jump on. Getting people into your finance related platform has some advantages over other platforms (i.e. social media, calendar management, etc.):

  • You get loyal customers instantly, because if they trust YOU with their finances, they're not apt to switch quickly.
  • An onboarding process that feels complex but is surprisingly simple binds them to your platform (sunk cost fallacy).
  • You know their most intimate details (their finances) so their personal information can be sold for lots of money.
  • You can sell them financial products, like loans, insurances, mortgages, etc.
  • You can sell them other products, like cars, houses, etc.
  • You can sell them services, like financial advice, tax advice, etc.

Your customers require just a marginally better insight in their finances than what their bank offers to make the switch. And if you can offer that, you're golden.

It's not a surprise then that many companies are interested in this space. I've been approached by a few of them. I've always declined, although I've considered it. But ultimately, I'm not interested in turning Firefly III into a commercial venture. Firefly III will not be turned into a commercial service or a VC-backed start-up. It's entirely possible to do this by the way, even without my consent. As long as you keep all your code open source, nothing is stopping you from building a commercial platform based on Firefly III. But I won't be the one to do so.

I started Firefly III with a single customer (me) and I will probably end up with a single customer (me). That's fine. I'm doing this for the fun of it. If your donations can give me half a day or more dedicated time to work on Firefly III, all the better.

Commercial support

I've considered opening up the floor for commercial support. I.e. you pay me and I help you faster. But it's not something I get joy from, so that's probably not going to happen. I'll keep doing it for free on my own pace.

Free stuff

Because I work on open source software, several organisations give me access to products and product tiers which are usually reserved for paying customers.

Thank you all, for your support :-).

More questions?

If you have more questions about this, please let me know.