The latest articles on Forem by Dean McPherson (@dean_mcpherson_4cfae03088). https://forem.com/dean_mcpherson_4cfae03088 https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=90,height=90,fit=cover,gravity=auto,format=auto/https:%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Fuser%2Fprofile_image%2F3603575%2Fd68c121f-c835-4a1e-93a3-ea0ed758a7cc.jpg https://forem.com/dean_mcpherson_4cfae03088 en Dean McPherson Mon, 10 Nov 2025 01:35:06 +0000 https://forem.com/dean_mcpherson_4cfae03088/open-sourcing-q-were-taking-on-zapier-make-and-n8n-with-no-funding-and-a-small-team-23f6 https://forem.com/dean_mcpherson_4cfae03088/open-sourcing-q-were-taking-on-zapier-make-and-n8n-with-no-funding-and-a-small-team-23f6 <p>You might say we're suckers for punishment, but we're working on an AI native workflow automation product with a small team, no funding and no intention of raising.</p> <p>I'm Dean, and I bootstrapped the online form builder Paperform from nothing to 4M ARR with my wife Diony without a drop of external funding. Our team is now working on something even more ambitious - we've just launched Stepper (<a href="https://stepper.io" rel="noopener noreferrer">https://stepper.io</a>) - our take on an automation platform, built for AI.</p> <p>The biggest roadblock we have is building third party app integrations - one idea we have to solve this is to commercially open-source all our third party app integrations, along with our app spec, and encourage the community to build, extend and improve the apps.</p> <p>Has anyone had experience with utilising open sourcing + bounties to outsource discreet units of work like this?</p> webdev ai tooling bootstrap