Episode 67: Ryan Sipes and Building Community at Thunderbird

Panelists Richard Littauer Guest Ryan Sipes Show Notes Hello and
welcome to Sustain! On the episode today, our special guest is Ryan
Sipes, the Community and Business Development Manager for
Thunderbird, as well as the Treasurer on Thunderbird’s governing
body. We learn all about what Thunderbird is and an interesting
story of how Ryan ended up there. We also find out when Thunderbird
was spun out of Mozilla, the aftermath Ryan had to deal with
assuring people it was not dead, and that there were people still
working on it. Even though COVID hit this year, Thunderbird has
been super successful in obtaining donations, and Ryan shares how
they did this. Also, we learn how Ryan gives back for open source
projects that Thunderbird uses and find out what Ryan is most
excited about in the future for Thunderbird. Download this episode
now to find out much more! [00:00:46] Ryan tells us an interesting
story how he ended up at Thunderbird, how he applied for the
position, and mentions Foss Jobs as a great resource. [00:03:58]
Richard asks Ryan how large the contribution base is, how many
people he has as active contributors, and if they are contributing
on GitHub. [00:05:56] Ryan explains the governance model, where the
council fits in, and how they’ve managed to grow during COVID.
[00:08:26] We find out how many people use Thunderbird. [00:09:47]
Ryan tells us about getting spun out from Mozilla, which happened
before him, and living with the aftermath of that when he was
there. [00:12:28] Richard asks Ryan how he would have done things
differently if he was Mozilla’s leadership board. [00:13:46] We
find out when Ryan was brought on as a Bus Dev, what did he
initially start doing and what else did he did to help make sure
the project had more money in time. [00:17:27] Richard asks if Ryan
sees any differences in the kind of users who use Thunderbird and
if he’s trying to cater to them in particular, as opposed to people
who just use Gmail for their day to day purposes. [00:22:43]
Richard wonders how Ryan asks for money so effectively and if he
has any tips on how to get donations since he does it so well.
[00:29:03] Ryan tells us how he gives back for his open source
projects that Thunderbird uses. [00:31:06] Ryan talks about what
he’s most excited about in the future for Thunderbird. [00:32:41]
Find out where you can follow and find out more about Ryan and
Thunderbird. Spotlight [00:33:42] Richard’s spotlight is mailing
list by Martin Edwardes called the EAORC (Evolutionary Anthropology
Online Research Cluster). [00:34:37] Ryan’s spotlights are two
projects called EteSync and Etebase. Quotes [00:07:10] “When I was
looking at the coronavirus, I was very worried because 99.9% of our
funding comes from in-kind gifts, from donations.” [00:16:02] “One
thing that really, I guess made us successful at the level we are,
like this year we’re going to do $2.3 million in donations, and so,
that’s reasonably good. But so much of that came from explicitly
letting users, letting donors know that we need the support in
order to produce a really high-quality piece of software.”
[00:25:46] “I thought, well, maybe the thing is we just have to
ask, and be very upfront about it, and it seemed like such a small
thing but I told my team we have got to ask people as soon as they
download, and it says your download has started, and then the ask,
and we did that, and immediately donations went up substantially.”
Links Ryan Sipes Website (https://ryanleesipes.me/) Ryan Sipes
Twitter (https://twitter.com/ryanleesipes) Thunderbird Twitter
(https://twitter.com/mozthunderbird) Thunderbird
(https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/) Foss Jobs
(https://www.fossjobs.net/) EAORC (Evolutionary Anthropology Online
Research Cluster) by Martin Edwardes
(http://martinedwardes.me.uk/eaorc/) EteSync
(https://www.etesync.com/) Credits Produced by Richard Littauer
(https://www.burntfen.com/) Edited by Paul M. Bahr at Peachtree
Sound (https://www.peachtreesound.com/) Show notes by DeAnn Bahr at
Peachtree Sound (https://www.peachtreesound.com/) Special Guest:
Ryan Sipes.