# John O'Nolan

> John O’Nolan is the co-founder and CEO of Ghost, the open source publishing platform he launched with Hannah Wolfe in 2013. A former WordPress UI contributor and freelance designer, he built a nonprofit foundation supported by paid hosting, with no founder equity and a constitution that prevents a sale. His public writing explores publishing independence, design, remote work and software experiments including the Alcove RSS reader.

- **Role:** Co-founder & CEO at Ghost
- **Organizations:** Ghost Foundation, WordPress open source project, Rediverge, Alcove
- **Nationality:** British
- **Education:** Brighton Institute of Modern Music (now BIMM University)
- **Known for:** Co-founded Ghost with Hannah Wolfe in 2013., Raised £196,362 from 5,236 Kickstarter backers for Ghost., Built an independently funded nonprofit publishing organisation with a free open source core and paid managed hosting.

## Career timeline

- **2004–2006** — Studied music and music business at BIMM in Brighton; building and promoting websites for musician friends led into technology.
- **Before 2012** — Worked as a freelance designer and developer, with clients including Microsoft, Nokia and Virgin Atlantic; contributed to WordPress and became deputy lead of its UI team.
- **2011** — Founded travel publication Travelllll.com, according to his 2012 travel interview.
- **2012-11** — Published the Ghost concept in a blog post.
- **2013-04** — Co-founded Ghost with Hannah Wolfe and launched its Kickstarter campaign on April 29.
- **2013-05** — Kickstarter campaign closed with £196,362 pledged by 5,236 backers.
- **2013-10** — Ghost became generally available on October 14.
- **2016** — Drew early membership and subscription concepts for Ghost.
- **2019-10** — Ghost 3.0 launched integrated memberships and subscription revenue.
- **2024-10** — Published governance proposals including a roughly 50-person team limit and an expanded trustee board.
- **2025-08** — Ghost 6.0 launched native analytics and social web integration; publisher revenue passed $100 million cumulatively.
- **2025-12** — Announced Alcove, an RSS reader side project.
- **2026-03** — Described building the ghst CLI for Ghost and experimenting with AI-assisted voice workflows.

## Achievements

- Co-founded Ghost with Hannah Wolfe in 2013.
- Raised £196,362 from 5,236 Kickstarter backers for Ghost.
- Built an independently funded nonprofit publishing organisation with a free open source core and paid managed hosting.
- Ghost 6.0 reported more than $100 million in cumulative publisher earnings in August 2025.

## Latest updates

- **2026-03** — Published I built a CLI for Ghost on March 23, describing ghst and experimenting with AI assistants to perform publishing tasks.
- **2026-02** — Published Open Source in the age of AI on February 26, considering how inexpensive code replication may affect software businesses and licensing.
- **2025-12** — Announced the Alcove RSS reader on December 5.
- **2025-08** — Reported $36 million in cumulative hosting revenue and $100 million in cumulative publisher revenue on August 18.

## Links

- Website: https://john.onolan.org/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnonolan/
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/johnonolan
- GitHub: https://github.com/johnonolan
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfgQ94JiO45CeFkQHUR1f3Q
- Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/johnonolan.bsky.social
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/johnonolan/

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/john-onolan
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-10-13