The Business of Open Source

This week on The Business of Open Source, I talked with Tom Wilkie, CTO at Grafana Labs. We talked about how he had a 10-month run building a startup before ultimately joining Grafana in an acquisition — why he thought that was the right move at the time and how it’s developed since then. But Tom has also had a long career in open source businesses, and we had plenty to talk about. My favorite quote: “I’ve always seen open source as a privilege of successful businesses, so I want to be a successful business.” At Kausal, Tom’s first startup, the focus was on financial sustainability from the beginning, and they had $100k in revenue in 10 months before the acquisition by Grafana. At Grafana Labs, everything is done with an eye on revenue — yes, there are tons of open source projects and tons of investment in those projects, but it has to be tied to revenue. Some other things we talked about: Starting an open source company with the explicit goal of being a successful business, which is not what Tom sees all open source companies doingWhy you should probably start with open source code at the beginning if you intend to open source at all, because otherwise your code will get messy and you’ll be too embarrassed to open itHow integrations are the secret sauce that Grafana Labs monetizes — why that it, and how it allows so much code to stay open source without threatening Grafana’s financial successChoosing a SaaS strategy versus choosing an enterprise on-prem strategy — and how you need to be aware of what your competitors are doing when choosing which is right for you. Thanks for listening! I’m Emily Omier, a consultant who works with company on open source strategy related to positioning and product management. If you’re struggling with your strategy around open source — whether you’re unsure how to differentiate in the ecosystem or not sure what to open source — I can help. Learn more here.

This week on The Business of Open Source I spoke with Mike Milinkovich, executive director at the Eclipse Foundation. We had a wide-ranging conversation about the role of open source foundations in the open source ecosystem, especially as related to open source businesses. The existence of open source foundations, and how companies decide to engage (or not) with them, is one of the aspects of open source businesses that is truly unique. Perhaps one of the key things to keep in mind from this conversation is that a foundation’s priority is project sustainability — and that is not always aligned with the goal of increasing profits for a company. On the other hand, there are a lot of advantages to contributing a project to a foundation. But founders should be aware of both the advantages and the constraints that working with a foundation entails. Here are some of the things that stood out from our conversation: Investors want a successful business more than they want a successful project; foundations’ priorities are opposite. You have to take into account commercial/financial interests if you’re thinking about sustainability of a project, because you have to put food on the table; projects take time to maintain.The only community you get around an open source project is the one you build — contributing a project to a foundation is not a magic community pill, and building a community takes work. Running a foundation is not free, so if you’re going to contribute a project to a foundation seriously consider supporting that foundation financially.Your customers should also become sponsors or members of the foundation(s) that your project(s) are hosted under, and you should actively encourage them to do so. Listen to the entire episode for even more insights!

This week on The Business of Open Source, I spoke with Vinoth Chandar, the founder and CEO of Onehouse and the creator of Apache Hudi. We took a pretty deep dive into the relationship between Onehouse and Hudi, a topic that for me is at the heart of building a company on top of an open source project. In fact, whether or not Onehouse is an ‘open source company’ could be debatable; Hudi is an Apache project — it’s not owned by Onehouse in anyway — and Onehouse is not a ‘managed Hudi’ or ‘enterprise Hudi.’ Onehouse solves a problem that is fundamentally not the same problem that Hudi solves. Here’s some other take aways from my conversation with Vinoth: There were both technical and business reasons for the relationship between Onehouse and Hudi; Hudi is a library, and you can’t offer a library as a service. Also, Onehouse does way, way more than Hudi.Out of Hudi’s 16 project management committee members, 5 are from Onehouse. Which means both that Onehouse has a significant presence, but also that it can’t completely control the project. The disadvantage of being in a ‘hot’ market, which means there are lots of big players trying to define the narrative around data lakehouses.Starting Onehouse two and a half too late… or was it actually too early? We had a discussion about timing of starting the company, and Vinoth had arguments for why they started the company too late, but also why it might have been too early. Are you giving away too much? The Onehouse board sometimes thinks so; but what Vinoth thinks was a mistake was not spending enough time educating both Hudi users and the larger community about just how much Hudi can do, instead of letting external players define the narrative about what Hudi does. Check out the full episode for more wisdom from Vinoth!

This week on The Business of Open Source, I spoke with Joe Duffy, co-founder and CEO of Pulumi.We kicked off the conversation by talking about why Pulumi is open source in the first place — a mix of Joe’s long-standing interest in open source and a feeling like a developer tool like Pulumi just has to be open source in order to be taken seriously. But there was another reason, too: Pulumi’s founders weren’t just in it to build a company, they wanted to transform their industry and build a lasting community, and felt like open source was the best way to do that. Lots of good take aways in this episode, like: Learning from open source legends... uh, actually, learning from Microsoft. Microsoft is an open source giant, right? It’s interesting to hear Joe talk about learning about open source business strategy from Microsoft, precisely because Microsoft does not make money directly from VSCode, and also does not invest millions of dollars into R&D just to be nice. “If you’re going to try to build a business with open source, you need to be very thoughtful and very strategic about it.” The founding team at Pulumi sort of iterated on figuring out the business model, but to a large extent they just thought about it until they had an Aha! moment. On the other hand, they didn’t go public until they thought they had a winning strategy for building an open source business. In the case of Pulumi, there’s a client side and a server side, so it made sense to build in a natural division between the two. This also made it so users were less likely to feel like Pulumi was holding back essential features in order to drive sales. “The way I always view it is the thing you’re selling has to stand on its own” Pulumi started a company, an open source project and a commercial product at the same time. Joe’s not sure he would recommend that approach, but it worked for them. “Figuring out the relationship was importnat, but actually the most important thing was to have a successful open source technology.” One thing I wanted to pull out: Even though Pulumi launched the open source project and commercial product at the same time, they focused all their efforts in the first two to three years on getting the open source project off the ground. Many founders I talk to think that once the commercial product is out there, you are forced to build a GTM team… but you don’t have to. In fact, I think the strategy of having the possibility to buy the commercial product while focusing the company’s energy on the open source software in the beginning is brilliant. Result: “We were able to create this immense funnel of inbound commercial interest, even when that wasn’t really the top level focus.” Even if you’re primarily a SaaS company, you can still offer an enterprise on-prem version for customers with hard requirements to host themselves, like air-gapped environments. Just because that option exists doesn’t mean you must build GTM motion for it, though. The business value Pulumi gets from the open source project is: generating leads, building the company’s brand, and also recruiting top-level talent. The fact that developers building the tool are so close to developers in the community is also a huge advantage. Listen to the full episode, it has a huge amount of great insights!

This week on The Business of Open Source, I spoke with Tyler Jewell — for the second time, now. Last time I spoke with Tyler, he was an investor at Dell Technologies Capital, he’s since taken over as CEO of Lightbend. We talked about a lot, but there was a definite theme to our conversation: License changes. Lightbend had been running an open core model, with the open core using a permissive Apache license. The company’s open source project, Akka, is massively popular. Lightben had about $13 million in ARR. But it was spending over $20 million per year, mostly of on R&D and then GTM. And they had a churn problem; and the churn problem was that customers would stop buying Lightbend’s product, but they would stay with Akka, because it was good enough. Why did this happen? The added proprietary features weren’t valuable enough for companies to pay for, especially in the face of budget cuts. And because the community was quite mature, it often started to duplicate these capabilities. And then the company faced a near-death experience in 2021. At the same time, usage of Akka was only growing, while the company was facing potential bankruptcy. Investors saw the potential and didn’t want to give up on the company, but it was clear to the board of directors that something needed to change — and that the thing that wasn’t working was the business model. So they changed it. There’s a couple things I hope people can take away from this. If the difference in value between your commercial product and your open source project isn’t big enough, you’ll have a rough time building a profitable company. Sometimes the alternative to changing a license is bankruptcy; bankruptcy ultimately is not in anyone’s best interest, not the company, not the community’s, not the customer’s. Offering a cloud option can work, but it’s an entirely different business, and trying to build it up while the company is in a crisis and expecting it to save the company is only realistic if there’s a good overlap between the market for the cloud offering and the open source project; in this case, there wasn’t good overlap. The license options open to you depend on what the actual software does. And if you’re going to enforce the license at all, you need to have some visibility into where it’s installed, which, again, can be challenging depending on what kind of software you’re dealing with. Changing an open source project’s license is not a trivial undertaking. You have to hold copyright to the code, and you better hope that you’re structured your contributor license agreements correctly. You also have to do the change on a new release — and it’s more likely to work if the new version is different enough from the previous one that people really want to update. If you’re going to make a license change, you might get backlash, but if being transparent and honest can go a long way towards minimizing the PR disaster. So what happened? Churn went down, revenue is nearly doubled and Tyler projects that this year will be cashflow positive. This summary doesn’t do it full justice, though, so check out the full episode!!

This week on The Business of Open Source I have an episode I recorded on site at AI-Dev in Paris with Justin Cormack, CTO of Docker. We finally get around to talking about AI at the very end of the episode, but otherwise we talked business and open source and how Docker manages both. Here’s some of the take aways from the episode:There are upsides and downsides to being an open source company, and you should absolutely make sure you are leveraging the upsides. Because they don’t necessarily translate into business value automatically, you have to be intentional to make that happen. It’s often a good idea for open source businesses to create a commercial product that is complementary to their project, so that if usage of one goes up usage / adoption of the other goes up, too. This is in contrast to an open core model, where the open source project can easily end up being crippled so that people are incentivized to buy the closed source license. If you want to get to $100million ARR, you can either sell $10 subscriptions to 10 million people or you can sell $100,000 subscriptions to 1,000 people. Both get you to the same revenue number, but the business model is very different. We also talked AI and open source, given the event we were at.

This week on The Business of Open Source, I spoke with Karthik Ranganathan, founder and co-CEO of Yugabyte. This is the second time Karthik has been on the podcast, but since three years had passed I thought it’d be a good idea to catch up and see what’s changed at Yugabyte and how his perspective on the open source commercial ecosystem has changed. Some really cool topics came up in this conversation. For example: Why engineers don’t choose databases based on features (and how this is related to why so many databases are open source This was super interesting, because I’ve seen a lot of conversations in the developer tools space about how developers choose their tools based on the features the tool has, and you should therefore market/sell based on features (unlike marketing/selling to any other market). I think this is bullshit and based on a misunderstanding about the difference between a feature and a benefit. Going back to the database market, we talked about how ultimately database users need to develop an intuition around when a particular database is the best choice, and that it takes time to do so. Choosing a database is about choosing what to prioritize for a particular application, and in a way Yugabyte presents its users/customers with a way to prioritize what’s important, simplicity or flexibility. Companies that want more simplicity get something that’s fully managed (and pay for it) companies that prioritize flexibility above all else are a better fit for the open source. The database is the same, regardless of whether someone is using the pure open source version or the fully managed service — and it’s important to Yugabyte that everyone gets the same core functionality. How the role of open source and it’s value for Yugabyte as a company has changed as the company has matured, and in particular how it’s a way for people to try out Yugabyte first, and then reach out. Why Yugabyte has invested in making sure the open source user experience is excellent — because they want users to get value out of the project immediately; no one has time to spend four days figuring out how a new database works. This is part of why they think the open source project has become a lead engine. The importance of messaging in helping people understand quickly what to expect from the project and minimizing the amount of time it takes for them to get value out of it. Whether or not Yugabyte was a bit early to the cloud native party, and the pros and cons of being early. And much more!

This week on The Business of Open Source, I spoke with André Eriksson, founder and CEO at Encore. We talked about how open source develops trust, something I also discussed in the episode I recorded with Reshma Khilnani. For Encore, it’s subtly different, though. In the case of Medplum, open source is a differentiator in a market that’s used to black boxes, for Encore, open source is tablestakes in a market that won’t adopt a completely proprietary software. We talked about: Launching with a cloud platform from day one — not the open source project. On the other hand, open source is also important because often users and customers have to modify things to get it exactly right; the flexibility is a critical part of the platform’s draw. The challenge getting contributions, which André doesn’t find surprising, especially because it’s a project/product that solves problems for companies, not hobby projects. Having one brand for the open source project and the product, which can make it hard to communicate the difference between them. Ensuring that the open source project and all of the features in it are useable without being dependent on the commercial product — which is not always easy. Finding the right balance between avoiding crippleware and still having enough of a difference in value between the open source and the commercial product to sell it is a core challenge. The biggest risks from open source, which André kicked off by talking about the difference between what you perceive as a big risk and what objectively is — this is a distinction that I think is super important to understand in life and business. Ultimately he settled on a big risk just being that you build something that isn’t valuable or differentiated enough for people to pay for. Communicating the value proposition clearly is their top challenge at the moment. Check out the full episode for some serious insights into what’s working and what’s a struggle at Encore.

This week on The Business of Open Source I spoke with Saurav Pathak, chief product officier at Bagisto, about a very different kind of business relationship with open source — and open source software incubated in a larger company. There were tons of interesting nuggets in this episode, but some things I wanted to call out are:For open source projects, the tech stack that the project is built with can in fact be a differentiating feature. This is unique to open source (and has come up before, both in my consulting work and in podcast interviews). Users might want to choose a project because it’s written in the language they are familiar with, even if the functionality is exactly the same as a competing projectThe difference in needs between the merchants (who just want to get their ecommerce store up and running) and developers building ecommerce platforms, who was worried about being able to build extensions How an open source company like Bagisto fits into the larger commercial strategy for the parent company. Build a community of developers versus building a community of merchants, and why both are important for a project like BagistoHow Saurav manages the tension between adding features that people want and not building an overly bloated product, including how to manage this tension when someone wants to contribute a feature that the core team may or may not want. It’s always interesting to me to see different models for open source companies, and Bagisto certainly is a different model. Especially after last week’s episode with Tanmai Gopal, which had a much more classic story.

This week on The Business of Open Source I spoke with Tanmai Gopal, co-founder of Hasura. We talked about how Hasura grew out of Tanmai’s previous company, which was a consulting company. I like to call out examples of really novel open source businesses, but in fact the thing that stuck with me from the conversation with Tanmai was that Hasura is going the ‘classic’ route… and it’s working. What does the ‘classic’ route look like to me? It’s an open source project that targets individual developers and a commercial product that targets teams and teams of teams. It’s having additional network security features in the commercial options. It’s using the open source project as a growth engine and getting leads from companies that depend on it. It’s also using the open source project as a way to get feedback on the product roadmap. Here were some of the takeaways from our conversation: It’s a lot easier to sell a product if your customers see it as mission-critical. One of Hasura’s first inbound leads was from a Fortune 100 company who said they’d be unable to ship any software for two weeks if Hasura went down — and so they wanted to make sure the team behind Hasura was serious and also wanted to pay them to make sure they didn’t go down. For Hasura, the first clear difference between open source project and commercial product was that the open source project is for individual developers but the commercial product is aimed at the team level.Even for the cloud hosted edition, the product with ‘developer-level’ focus is free. In fact, if you go to the Hasura CE product page, the CTA asks you to use for free on the cloud. Tanmai said this is an intentional choice because they want to reduce friction for people to test it out, and the fastest way to get up and running will always be to use the cloud version, not the open source. We talked a lot about the control plane versus the data plane — all the editions have the same functionality at the data plane level. But the control plane, where people are collaborating — that is commercial only. The open source project can be a great way to stay close to your users / customers and use their feedback to constantly refine your product roadmap. In fact, this can be a main advantage of being open source, because it is the only way you stay close to your users and get their feedback — otherwise you would often only talk to the buyer, who is likely an exec with a big budget but not using the technology on a daily basis. This doesn’t mean open source doesn’t create liabilities for Hasura — it does, and those liabilities have to be managed. And Tanmai is frank about the fact that creating enough value on top of the open source project without crippling the growth engine is a tough balancing act. Pay attention to what your best customers are doing! That has informed some really important product decisions for Hasura — and it took them way to long to figure out the unique way their happiest customers were getting more value out of Hasura than other users. Definitely check out the full episode for more insights from Tanmai!

This week on The Business of Open Source I spoke with Reshma Khilnani, CEO and founder of Medplum. Medplum is an open source electronic health record development platform, and one of the things I loved about this conversation is that Reshma is so focused on the healthcare industry — a level of focus that I find relatively rare in open source companies. And not only that, when I asked her if she thought the company’s focus was too narrow, she responded that actually she often worries that it’s too broad. Another thing I really liked about this episode is that open source, for Medplum, is about trust and transparency, not growth. Medplum’s customers, Reshma said, just don’t mess around with free software that doesn’t come with compliance certificates and some kind of support guarantees. It’s a great episode to come on the heels of the episode with Adam Jacob, who talked about the difference between code, software and a product — that is a distinction that Medplum has clearly nailed. Other takeaways if you’re running an open source company: Reshma is clearly really passionate not just about developing software, but about building software for the healthcare industry. She can also clearly articulate why her customers are not well served by the standard, off the shelf development platforms that can be used by any industry. This industry-specific expertise is really powerful, and quite frankly something I don’t encounter very often. Even though there are different legal regimes in different countries, the underlying needs are pretty similar, so even for something as specific as healthcare companies it’s not particularly challenging to provide a solution that meets the needs of customers around the worldMedplum is Reshma’s third company, but her first open source company. She talked about how one of the key differences between building an open source company and a her previous companies that that the company has to pay incredible attention to the implementation details that at any other company no one would care about. Yes, you’re building a product company… but that doesn’t mean you should never sell professional services. Reshma says that one mistake she made was being too rigid about not selling any professional services at all, and ultimately they ended up offering packages of services to help customers get their implementations running. One last bit of info: Reshma compared the conversation around open source startups now with “internet startups’ in 2013. Will all startups be open source startups in 10 years? I guess we’ll see.

This week on The Business of Open Source, I spoke with Adam Jacob, founder and CEO of System Initiative and formerly the CTO and co-founder at Chef. We had a wide-ranging conversation that at times veered into the philosophical (what is the meaning for ‘strategy’?) but also has plenty of concrete, practical insights. We talked about:The difference between being the CTO and being the CEO of a startup, even if you’re a founder in both cases (and why Adam wanted to try out the CEO role this time)How Chef started out open source primarily because Adam and his co-founder really believed in open source values How they figured out a business model for Chef, but that it really felt like they were just making it up was they went along — and how he suspects that’s what most people doGetting disrupted four times, and trying out many different business models along the wayWe also talked a lot about total addressable markets, serviceable available market and serviceable obtainable market in the context of open source companies. Three key takeaways: The software is not the product. A product is the entire experience of using the software, including how it is installed, how the team is onboarded, what compliance certifications you have, what happens if you have a problem, etc. As a vendor of open source software, you need to focus on creating and selling a whole product and take the focus away from the code. You can have 100% open source code and still sell a product, because they want to have a complete experience with support and compliance paperwork etc — and because they value buying those things from the same people who are writing the code. The way to calculate TAM is to multiply the number of people who want to buy a product by the average selling price of the product. When you phrase it this way, it becomes obvious that the TAM for any open source software is zero, because the average selling price is zero. If you enjoy this podcast, please share with other founders and leadership in open source companies! And if you like the idea of open source lawyer trading cards, reach out to Adam and he’ll start a physical product company next :).

This week on The Business of Open Source, I had a very different sort of guest — Mark Boost, the CEO and founder of Civo. We talked not only about Mark’s history as an entrepreneur, but also Civo’s recent acquisition of KubeFirst. This topic caught my eye because it’s not often I get an offer to talk with an acquirer of open source companies, and I wanted to take him up on it. (Though if you missed it, I also talked to Thomas di Giacomo about this topic, and it was fabulous). The that is different about this case is that Suse is fundamentally an open source company, but Civo is not, and this was the first time that Civo had acquired an open source company. We talked about:How the relationship started long before anyone was thinking about an acquisitionWhat the 1 + 1 = 3 equation looked like in this particular caseHow it makes sense for an infrastructure company to acquire a complementary software company What it means to hire a pre-revenue open source companyIt’s a relatively new acquisition, so we did a pre-mortem on it together, and Mark talked about what could go wrong — a super interesting process. Lastly, we talked about Civo’s open source projects and what business value the company gets out of it’s relationship with open source in generalCome join me at Open Source Founders Summit if you want more conversations about building open source companies!

This week on The Business of Open Source, I spoke with Brian Fox, co-founder and CTO of Sonatype. In addition to having a really interesting discussion about the usual topic of how to build a business around open source software, we also had a good conversation about security — it was hard to avoid, because we recorded this right after the xz backdoor discovery, and software supply chain security is kind of Brian’s thing. Business-wise, though, we also covered some really cool topics. Including: The tension between an open source project that’s “too good” and yet the need for the sales team to close dealsIn some ways, the fully commercial, closed-source products in Sonatype’s product line are more straightforward… but there are challenges that go along with a pure closed-source approach, too, especially for a DevTool company. Choosing your relationship with open source depending on who your target user / target buyer isPivoting to a top-down sales motion because the bottoms-up motion just didn’t work; and how that means the features that sell aren’t always the features that get usedWhat Sonatype gets out of it’s relationship with Apache Maven and open source NexusHow do we solve real problems, and how do we solve them for real? Keeping in mind that no one buys what they need; they only buy what they want. Check out the full episode, and come to Open Source Founders Summit if you want more opportunities to talk about about business and open source.

This week on The Business of Open Source I had Rod Johnson, founder/CEO of Spring Source and creator of the Spring Framework (as well as board member of many other open source companies) on to talk about Spring, monetizing open source and what’s changed in the open source ecosystem since 2008. Key takeaways:Consulting was burning the entire team out, and that threatened the health not just of the consulting business, but of the open source project as wellAn amazing salesperson can often sell anything, but that doesn’t mean that you’ll be able scale, because your entire sales team is not likely to be incredibly brilliant Spring Source ended up not monetizing Spring at all — but rather worked on monetizing with products that were complementary to Spring. “We monetized Spring by not monetizing Spring, by using it to open the door” The moment that the company really started to see success as a product company was when the team stopped thinking about what they wanted to build and instead focused on what customers where telling them that they wanted.The risk of having a bunch of very good engineers on your team is that they’re excited about solving hard technical problems — but your customers might want something that is not very technically challenging or interesting. A major part of the job of a company leader is to talk to your team and get them on board with your plans The environment around monetizing open source projects has changed — there are things that worked in 2008 that wouldn’t work today, and things that didn’t work then that would be fine nowIf you love (insert your favorite open source project here), it has to have a sustainable economic modelIt’s really critical to have a rationale behind what functionality goes in your product and what goes into your open source projectAt the end we talked briefly about Open Source Founders Summit, a conference for leaders in open source businesses happening this May 27th and 28th in Paris.

This week on The Business of Open Source, I spoke with BoxyHQ co-founder and CEO Deepak Prabhakara. We talked about a number of things, from BoxyHQ’s relationship with its open source project, called SAML Jackson to how to build a growth flywheel and how that flywheel does and does not depend on a community. Is BoxyHQ a security company? Does it matter either way? Starting the open source project at the same time as the company, and why they did it that wayThe relationship between the user community and the customer communityBoxyHQ as the anti-platform — instead of trying to build a platform, which is the default goal for a lot of companies I speak with — they are explicitly trying to build a more a la carte experience for usersThe challenges of community building around a project that isn’t sexy and how to build community that isn’t project-focused, but rather that’s focused around a problem spaceMaking the mistake of assuming your startup is completely unique and unlike any others! We talked about much more as well, and it’s definitely an episode you should check out.

In the second episode that I recorded on-site at KubeCon EU in Paris, I spoke with Alex Olivier, CPO and co-founder of Cerbos. This was not a general discussion: It was focused on the process that Cerbos went through to figure out pricing. Here’s what we talked about:The first step of figuring out your pricing is not the number, but rather what you’re charging for. Is it API calls, or amount of data you’re processing, or monthly active users, or monthly active principles… that last one is what Cerbos is charging forWhy it’s important to have a pricing system that allows potential users to be able to roughly estimate for themselves how much using your software is going to cost themYou also want to avoid pricing models that encourage people to look for ways to hack around to find ways to lower their monthly costsWhy your pricing model should be about the value you’re providing, not about how much it costs you to run your systemDiscovering what your price anchors are / what your customers are comparing you toCheck out the full episode for more details! And join us at Open Source Founders Summit for more discussions about the specifics of pricing for open source companies.

This week, I had a dilemma: should I prioritize the episode where I spoke with one of the MariaDB co-founders, in which we discuss setting up a foundation as a way to ensure that the project continues to be open source in the future, no matter what (relevant given the Redis announcement); or should I prioritize the conversation with one of the founders of Sonatype, one of the oldest companies in the software supply chain security space, in which we talk about the xz debacle. I went with Patrick Backman, general partner at OpenOcean and co-founder of MariaDB, because it’s a little more in my lane. (The conversation with Brian Fox will have to wait for next week!). One of the main things we discussed was the relationship between the MariaDB foundation and the MariaDB company. Including: Why they decided to put MariaDB open source in a foundation, and why they created a separate foundation instead of putting it in an existing foundation The relationship between MariaDB foundation and company today, including the financial relationshipMariaDB was founded by the founders (and some key employees) at MySQL; we also discussed the lessons learned at MySQL that the team then applied at MariaDB. And we talked about customer acquisition, one of the things that Patrick thinks the team had learned at MySQL and therefore had pretty well figured it out at MariaDB. Patrick’s co-founder Monty Widenius is one of the speakers at Open Source Founders Summit — if you want to go into more details on with the lessons from MySQL and MariaDB, as well as lessons from being an investor at OpenOcean, join us in Paris May 27th and 28th at Open source Founders Summit.

This week on The Business of Open Source, I have an episode recorded on site at KubeCon EU in Paris with William Morgan, CEO of Buoyant. We had a fabulous conversation, which touched on some touchy subjects, including Buoyant’s slightly changing relationship with Linkerd. But we talked about:Being an open source mercenary, but also being dedicated to making Linkerd a ‘proper’ open source projectFeeling like open source was table stakes for a company in the space Buoyant plays in. This is an under-appreciated reason for being an open source company — you feel like it’s just expected in the market you play in, so you do. Waiting too long (or is it too long?) to commercializeStarting out by selling support, but the problem with that because Linkerd worked well and people kept saying that they didn’t need support because they never had problemsCompeting against Istio, which was backed by the Google engine and how that made Linkerd / Buoyant an underdog (or cockroach). For those of you who haven’t been following Linkerd / Buoyant… Buoyant recently announced that they would be doing edge releases for Linkerd, but not stable releases. We talked about why they made this change and how the ecosystem responded. Check out the full episode!

This week on The Business of Open Source I talked to Heather Meeker, General Partner of OSS Capital and author of From Project to Profit, How to Build a Business around your Open Source Project. We talked about some things that I entirely agree with, and then there were some points I challenged Heather on — all in all, it was fabulous conversation. Here’s what we covered:Why you should think of your project and product as two different products so you avoid thinking of your open source project as a loss leader and get your incentives rightThe differences between supplementary and complementary products, and how the relationship between project and product is often complementary, even in situations where that relationship is non-obviousWe disagreed about pricing — should COSS businesses have cheaper products than closed-source companies? Why cares about your being open source? Are open source companies more capital efficient? Heather says so, but I’m not convinced. Heather also talked about how they select companies to invest inDo open source companies by definition do a better job at paying attention to user / customer demand? Check out the episode, and check out more about Heather Meeker here: Personal websiteOSS CapitalLinkedIn

This week on The Business of Open Source I spoke with Pranay Prateek, co-founder of SigNoz. Pranay talked about why open source is important to SigNoz's business, why it's super important to deliver value quickly, even for an observability product, and why founders shouldn't think of open source just as a distribution model. We also covered: How SigNoz is differentiated in the crowded observability marketWhy Pranay thinks being open source makes it much easier for developers to play around with the project and get to know it; so for them it made intuitive sense that the company that they’d build an open source company Why Pranay also thinks open source enables much deeper integrations, which is critically important for an observability company like SigNozHow one of their first lessons / mistakes was releasing an open source project that didn’t work well on an individual developer’s laptop, because it used too much resourcesThe GTM market, and the challenge delivering value within 30 minutes of trying out the project/product for an observability tool that provides maximum value during an incident — but no one is going to be trying out a new tool during an incident situation Why their first commercial product was a cloud offeringAnd much more! And if you’re interested in more discussions of open source businesses, make sure to join us at Open Source Founders Summit this May.

In this special episode to promote Open Source Founders Summit, I went deep with Thomas di Giacomo about how open source companies can position themselves as attractive acquisition targets for strategic buyers. If you are the founder of an open source company and you have the idea of being acquired even in the back of your mind, this is a must-listen episode. Whether or not you plan to join us May 27th and 28th in Paris, though of course we hope you do join us. By the way, at OSFS Thomas is going to lead a workshop on the topic of being an acquisition target for open source companies. It will be interactive, which means you can ASK QUESTIONS. In this podcast episode, he talked about: Exits 101. You probably know that strategic buyers usually pay more for companies than other types of acquirers, but we talked about different exit strategies and what they entailWhy strategic buyers acquire businesses (in general) but also why you, as the business seller, need to understand every specific potential acquirer’s story and goals so you can see how your company fits into their strategic planStrategic acquisitions are about 1+1=3… so you have to know what your buyer’s “3” isWhy it’s important to be self-aware and know your own goals before you sign any acquisition paperworkAnd tons more… If you want the chance to ask Thomas about strategic acquisitions for OSS companies — as well as to talk about sales strategies, lead generation and more — join us at OSFS 24 in Paris this May 27th and 28th. —> Get your invite here. PS the audio was a little quiet, but so if you’re having trouble hearing turn up the volume, it’s worth it.

This week on The Business of Open Source, I spoke with Zach Wasserman, co-founder and CTO of Fleet. This was a fabulous episode for many reasons, but then again I never do crappy episodes, right? The first thing I wanted to call your attention to is that Zach talked about how he’s building an open core business because building an open source business is what he wants to do. When his previous company turned away from open source, Zach left to do consulting around OSquery and Fleet (the project). I always like to talk about how companies / founders need a solid reason for building an open source company… and “this is the kind of company I want to build” is a very good reason. (“Everyone else is doing it” on the other hand, is not a good reason). Everyone puts constraints around the type of company the want to build, and as long as you are intentionally about the decisions, there is nothing wrong about this, business-wise.Second, we talked about the tension that exists between making a great project and still leaving room for a commercial product that people will pay for, and Zach talked through how Fleet uses a buyer-based open core strategy to decide which functionality to put in the enterprise version or in the open core. We also talked about:Leaving his first company, Kolide, when the founders had divergent visions about where the company should goHow his investor arranged a ‘co-founder marriage’ for Zach and his co-founder Mike McNeilHow the transparency aspect of open source can be extremely important, especially for anything in the security spaceLastly, Fleet happens to be a former client of mine. You can check out what Mike, Zach’s co-founder, said about working with me here. And if you’re interested in more conversations like this… but in person!!! you should come to Open Source Founders Summit May 27th and 28th in Paris.

Slightly different The Business of Open Source episode today! I spoke with Patrick McFadin and Mick Semb Wever about the relationship between Apache Cassandra and DataStax — how it was at the beginning and how the relationship has evolved over the years. We talked about:— How there was a dynamic around Cassandra where many of the many of the contributors ended up being sucked into the DataStax orbit, simply because it allowed those contributors to work on on Cassandra full-time— How there can be tensions between different stakeholders simply because everyone involved ultimately has their own interests at heart, and those interests are not always aligned. — How it is actually hard to really have open discussions about new features, and how often there can be a new feature dropped in a project that clearly had been developed behind closed doors for some time, and sometimes that created tension in the community— Some open source projects are just too complex to be hobby projects — Cassandra is so complex that you won’t become a code contributor unless you’re working full-time on Cassandra, because that’s the level of skill you need to keep up. — How the relationship between a company and a project often changes as the technology matures. — The importance of addressing tensions between company and community head-on, as adults, when they occur — as well as why you need to remember to treat people as humans and remember that they have good days, bad days, goals and interests. Patrick on LinkedInMick on LinkedIn

In this episode of the Open Source Founders Podcast, I talked with Frank Karlitschek, CEO and founder of Nextcloud. Frank is going to be talking specifically about lead generation at Open Source Founders Summit, but in this episode we took a slightly wider view and talked about go to market, for open source companies in general and specifically for Frank’s experience at Nextcloud. A couple other things to pull out as takeaways. First of all, Frank talks about how he originally planned to target big companies who wanted to keep their data private — but as it turned out, most big companies don’t really care deeply about keeping their data private. On the other hand, the public sector and universities really do care, and those have ended up being a huge part of Nextcloud’s customers. Frank also talked about the rather obvious differences in needs between home users and big organizations. Nextcloud has some customers with millions of users — their needs are different from a home user. And as far as home users go, Frank says these users are obviously never going to pay Nextcloud anything. On the other hand, they have built mechanisms into the software to nudge open source instances with over 1,000 users to get in touch to talk about a commercial relationship. He also talked specifically about the importance of really talking with your customers and your users — and incorporating their feedback into your product roadmap. For open source companies, you have so much more information and feedback than proprietary companies, and you should take advantage of that to inform your go to market strategy. We also talked about how the millions of home users who will never pay Nextcloud are still extremely valuable to the company — and why Frank think it’s really wrong to think of pure open source users as just leads to be converted. And much, much more. If you’re the founder or leader at an open source company, and you want to be a part of more discussions like this, join us at Open Source Founders Summit May 27th and 28th in Paris!

This week on The Business of Open Source, I spoke with Percona CEO Ann Schlemmer. This episode was recorded on site at State of Open Con in London, outside in a van! There’s a ton of great info in this episode, too. First of all, Ann talked about being a ‘suit’ in a geek’s world and her career trajectory that led her to lead Percona. She also set the stage around the constraints that Percona has chosen for itself: To be completely open source and only sell services, and to be completely bootstrapped. And what the ramifications of those decisions are for the business. Here’s some concrete takeaways:The key to thinking about managing the tension between creating a project that’s high quality and still being able to sell services on top of that is to ensure that the services really create valueThere’s a difference in profile between happy anonymous users and happy customers — often customers are operating at scale or are working in companies that simply always have to have support for critical software. But just as importantly, customers are often not database experts —they just need a database that works, and can turn to Percona to be their database experts. Founders are often more emotionally attached to aspects of the company that a non-founder CEOs like Ann can sometimes be more analytical about what’s working and what isn’tCollaboration isn’t automatic, and how to make it actually happenHow Ann decides what problems to collaborate with others on, what they don’t collaborate on and when in the project / feature lifecycle they look for collaborationWe also had a bit of a random conversation about controlling status in relationships — the book we talked is Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre. And talked about how founders who are ready to step down as CEO can find a replacement and manage the transition. Ann’s links:LinkedInPercona

In this episode of The Business of Open Source, I talked with four-time entrepreneur Mike Schwartz, CEO and founder of Gluu as well as the host of Open Source Underdogs podcast, about his long career in entrepreneurship. Here’s some particularly interesting things to take out of this episode:“Beware an entrepreneur’s second company.” — Mike says his second company was a disaster because he tried to apply the lessons from the first company in the second, and often those lessons aren’t right for the new businessGoing all in on being a product company — the toughest year in Gluu’s history was when they decided to stop consulting and make it or break it as a product companyWhy it’s a good idea to look at the market analytically and start a company in a market you’ll be able to compete in without a huge number of featuresWhy Gluu actually has more features in the open source version than the enterprise edition — because the open source distribution gets features that are in beta whereas the enterprise customers need a product that is 100% fully baked. Why Mike doesn’t believe in making the enterprise product more ‘scaleable’ — the open source project should be just as scaleable as the enterprise productThis episode was recorded on site at State of Open Con 24, outside in a media van!

As part of the preparation for Open Source Founders Summit, I’m interviewing both our speakers and our attendees for a special podcast that’s hyper focused on one thing. In this episode I spoke with Peter Zaitsev, founder of Percona, about sales. We talked about the specifics of sales as a bootstrapped company — which means sales are exceptionally critical from the beginning, and how sales changed as the company moved from a consulting model to a support model on the open source software that Percona creates. Also, this episode was recorded on site at OpenUK’s State of Open Con! Here’s the concrete takeaways from this episode: Even before starting the company, Peter had built up a personal brand as a MySql expert — this is what made it possible for him to get consulting gigs pretty much immediatelyPeter’s personal brand wasn’t just around MySql in general, but was very specifically focused on MySql performance optimizationHow a growing team meant that the sales process had to get much more disciplined — and deal sizes had to get bigger so that it’s worth the sales team’s time How to align sales incentives with your business goals — how it’s important to adjust sales quotas and incentives so that sales people don’t oversell, which can hurt your reputation long-term, and don’t sell long-term agreements at too much of a discount. Why it’s important to separate out your revenue that comes from new customers and your revenue that comes from customer renewals, and how to do so in the organizationIf you want more opportunities to go in-depth on sales for open source companies — and to discuss sales and other aspects of business development with other founders, join us May 27th and 28th in Paris at Open Source Founders Summit.

Garima Kapoor, COO and co-founder of MinIO, joins me to share her journey from investor and advisor to co-founder of MinIO and the wealth of knowledge she’s amassed along the way. In this episode, Garima explains how her experience in finance and belief in the power of open source helped MinIO to break into the data storage market. She also reviews the challenges she faced as a first-time founder and what others can learn from her mistakes and take away from some of their own. Since Garima started her journey with MinIO as CFO, she outlines that role for me and explains how she thinks a CFO should operate in an open source company. In reviewing mistakes she’s seen from other founders, Garima states some principles that create the “foundation for any open source business.” - “You should always be very honest to your community. You should always be very transparent to the community”Highlights:Garima introduces herself and explains why she and her co-founders started MinIO (1:31)Garima describes how the MinIO founders honed in on a problem they wanted to solve (3:55)How the MinIO founders used open source crack the market (6:37)What triggers a user to purchase a commercial license for the product (10:33)Garima explains why she and her cofounders were set on their open source strategy from day one (11:35)Garima explores the differences between being an investor and advisor for other companies and starting her own. (13:25)Garima shares go-to-market advice for other founders (15:21)Garima outlines her strategy for building on small successes (18:38)Garima explains why she started as CFO for MinIO and breaks down the role a CFO can play in a new company (21:46)Why Garima thinks a CFO’s role remains the same in an open source company as compared to a proprietary company (27:17)How to avoid competing with your open source product when you also have a commercial offering (34:06)Links:GarimaLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/garimakap/Twitter: https://twitter.com/garimakapCompany: min.io

Today I’m joined by Federico Wengi, who is a Partner at SquareOne VC. In this conversation, Federico sheds light on the conversations he’s had with many companies who consider making the pivot from a closed-source business strategy to an open-source strategy. Federico explains why it’s so uncommon for businesses to make that pivot, and lays out the challenges businesses face when they consider taking on such a change. Federico also gives a great example of a company that did successfully complete the pivot to open source, and the choices they made that led to their success. Federico and I discuss why this is one pivot you can’t take back, and also why it won’t solve all your problems. Despite all that, Federico shares his optimism for the value of open source and the importance of at least considering this strategy when you need to make a change. Highlights:Intro (00:00)I introduce Federico, who is a Partner at SquareOne (00:59)Federico describes his role at SquareOne and the areas of investment they focus on (01:28)What Federico typically sees when companies move from closed source to open source (04:42)How important conversations come up about business strategy and open source versus closed source (07:40)Why many companies end up not pursuing an open-source strategy (11:17)Federico tells the story of a company he worked with that made the leap from closed source to open source (15:03)The most critical things businesses have to do in order to utilize an open-source strategy (16:23)What decisions led to success in the company Federico helped shift from closed source to open source (18:09)The psychological challenges leaders face when considering making a pivot to open source (23:54)Federico shares the advice he would give to a founder who’s considering an open-source strategy (26:40)How you can connect with Federico (31:40)Links:FedericoLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/federicowengi/Twitter: https://twitter.com/federicowengiCompany: https://squareone.vc/

How can we get founders of open source companies together to share ideas, share strategies and tactics and build a community not just of open source practitioners, but of open source business owners? We create a conference/summit/retreat to bring them together to learn and to work on their businesses together. At least that is the bet that Remy Bertot and I are makingIn this episode, I talked with Remy about Open Source Founders Summit, a summit they're organizing on May 27th and 28th, 2024 in Paris, France — we each shared our motivations for organizing the event, and talked about why we think it's important for people to come together in person. You should listen to the episode, but if you don't want to, the bottom line is that we think there needs to be a space for all open source founders (not just the DevTools, not just the VC-backed) can come together to share business ideas — a place where business, not tech, is the focus. Listen to the episode, and join us in May!

Ben Haynes, the Founder and CEO of Directus, created an open-source project while working at his own agency in 2004. In this episode, we explore how he went from maintaining an open-source project to building an open-source company with a solid product-led growth strategy, and how he’s achieved success in the enterprise segment even as a small organization. Ben expands on how he feels open-source is the best way to start a business, and also reveals why timing and transparency can be both your greatest assets and the areas where you have the most regrets if not done right. We also discuss the value of optimizing you product and business for working with government agencies as an open-source company. Highlights:Intro (00:00)I introduce Ben Haynes, who is the CEO and Founder of Directus (00:59)How the Directus platform has evolved over time (02:33)Ben tells the story of what happened after the initial release of the Directus project in 2004 (06:06)The strategy Directus has used to land enterprise customers as a small company (10:20)Ben and I discuss the importance of early-stage open-source companies optimizing to work with government agencies (13:59)Ben describes the SaaS business model that he chose for Directus (16:38)Why Ben feels that open-source is the best strategy for starting a company (25:19)How Ben landed on a product-led growth strategy for Directus (27:39)What Ben learned about mistakes he made in timing his product and company (31:23)The advice Ben would give to another open-source founder (33:52)How listeners can learn more about Directus and connect with Ben (39:32)Links:BenLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/contactbenhaynes/Twitter: https://twitter.com/benhaynesCompany: https://directus.io/

Peer Richelsen is the Co-founder of Cal.com, an open-source calendar scheduling tool. This week, Peer and I discuss his personal experience with needing a customizable scheduling tool, the big leap from taking donations to running a profitable business, and the thought process behind seeking VC funding. Peer also talks about the major advantage of starting with only a paid version of the product in order to build a small community of super users. Lastly, I pick Peer’s brain about how he feels being constantly compared to non open-source scheduling products.Highlights:Intro (00:00) I introduce Peer Richelsen, the Co-founder of Cal.com, and he discusses the company and its calendar scheduling tool (00:59)Does Peer think about Cal.com as a dev tool (2:09)What is Cal.com’s business model (03:57)The lack of customizability in the scheduling tool marketplace (06:15)Switching from accepting donations to selling a profitable product (09:48)Launching without a free version (12:50)The human cost of freemium usage (16:20)The decision to raise VC funds (17:41)What business value being open source brings to the company (20:48)How Cal.com positions itself in the market (24:13)Interesting mistakes Peer has made as an entrepreneur (28:22)How “free” is the software (30:57)Peer’s parting words (32:27)Where listeners can connect with Peer and learn more about Cal.com (33:04)Links:PeerLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peer-richelsen-221233138/Twitter: @peer_richCompany: https://cal.com/

Birthe Lindenthal is the Co-founder and CMO of OpenProject, a web-based project management system. On this episode, Birthe and I discuss the inception of the company, how being open source directly benefits both the business and its customers, and why the connection to their community is so strong. Plus, Birthe talks about the motivation she feels when contributing to something larger than herself, including the joy of knowing NGOs use her product for free. We also discuss the unique challenges of marketing an open-source product. Highlights:Intro (00:00)I introduce Birthe Lindenthal, the Co-founder and CMO of OpenProject, and she gives us her background along with the company’s history (00:59)How OpenProject used custom developments to fund the business (02:42)The pros and cons of not taking VC funding (04:15)Ways in which being open source benefit the business and the customers (06:09)How OpenProject was able to monetize the user base (08:34)The division of revenue and users between on-prem and cloud versions of the software (10:24)Who are OpenProject’s customers and users (13:57)The most interesting mistakes Birthe made along the way (16:44)Merging branding between the free and paid versions (18:52)Why Birthe got involved with open source (22:38)Marketing challenges and strategies specific to an open-source product (24:47)The surprising difficulty of creating a glossary of company terminology (29:11)Birthe’s advice for founders of open-source companies (31:02)Where listeners can connect with Birthe and learn more about OpenProject (32:05)Links:BirtheLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/birthe-lindenthal/Company: https://www.openproject.org/

Didier Lopes, Co-founder and CEO of OpenBB, joins me to share the story of how OpenBB went from receiving 4000 GitHub stars in the first 24 hours of the project to a fully funded company launching new monetization initiatives. Didier and I chat about his background, what led him to start OpenBB in his spare time, and his vision for the company's future. He shares the story of teaming up with his co-founder, why he loves working in the open source ecosystem, and how his team continues contributing to OpenBB's success. Highlights:Didier introduces himself and recounts his background and what led him to start OpenBB (1:20)Why Didier didn't know OpenBB would become a business when he started the project (6:47)Didier affirms my thought that part of what makes OpneBB's origin interesting is that the idea was unrelated to his day job. (10:13)Didier tells the story of how his co-founder, James, came on board once the project went viral (16:36)How OpenBB has changed since the project began (19:16)How open source has shaped the development of OpenBB (21:35)Didier outlines the current monetization plans for OpenBB (24:44)Didier's vision for the future of OpenBB and the democratization of investment research (26:30)What Didier learned from his most interesting mistake - believing users know what they want. (29:45)Didier emphasizes the importance of building a cohesive team with shared values (32:58)Links:DidierLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/didier-lopes/Twitter: @didier_lopesCompany: http://openbb.coPersonal Site: https://didierlopes.com

Loris Degioanni is the CEO and Founder of Sysdig, an open-source company working to make cloud deployment more secure through the use of runtime insights. Loris and I sit down to discuss the bet Sysdig is making to position itself as a leader in cloud security, how Loris leverages the power of a useful tool to create a brand, and the framework he uses to decide what should be open source and what should be paid for. Loris also shares an in-depth history of his previous company, Wireshark, and his excitement for building open source projects that outlast their business and creators.Highlights:Intro (00:00)I introduce Loris Degioanni who is the CEO and Founder of Sysdig, and he provides a little bit of context about himself and his company (01:00)Loris gives an overview of his previous company, Wireshark (01:57)Ways in which Loris was able to commercialize Wireshark as a tool for open-source end-users (04:30)How Loris used open-source as a marketing tool to create a profitable business model (07:28)The difference between Sysdig and Wireshark in their relationship to open-source (08:57)The bet that Sysdig is making and how that positions the company to become a leader in cloud security (12:36)Loris and I discuss Wireshark’s continued longevity (15:14)Where the inspiration for Sysdig came from and its journey from open-source project to commercial product (19:41)How building something useful replaces the need for a sales and marketing team (24:22)Closing the gap between the Sysdig project and the Sysdig platform (27:52)The framework for deciding what is offered open-source and what needs to be paid for (30:21)Loris’s most interesting mistakes in entrepreneurship and building Sysdig (33:20)How listeners can connect with Loris and learn more about Falco and Sysdig (36:31)Links:LorisLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/degio/Twitter: https://twitter.com/lorisdegioCompany: https://sysdig.com/

Bob van Luijt is the CEO and Founder of Weaviate, an open-source vector database company that helps contribute to the advancement of AI technology. Throughout this episode, Bob and I discuss the complexities of moving from an open-source project to building an open-source company, and the challenges that come with monetization strategies. Bob shares insightful anecdotes around why it’s important to be careful that you’re measuring the right things for the right reasons, and also emphasizes the importance of determining the best approach to profitability. Highlights:Intro (00:00)I introduce Bob van Luijt who is the CEO and Founder of Weaviate, and he provides a little bit of context about himself and his company (01:00)Bob gives us the run-down on Weaviate’s operations, including fundraising, staffing, and monetization data (02:04)How the Weaviate project became the company it is today (04:03)The value that open-source brings to Weaviate’s business model (11:21)Bob and I discuss the disadvantages to building a company around an open-source project (17:55)The complexities of having an open-source project that is used within other companies and products/projects (20:19)How Bob and Weaviate have approached monetization (22:18)The most interesting mistakes Bob feels he’s made along the way in his journey to build Weaviate (24:37)Bob tells us more about his decision to shift from professional services to a product-led approach (25:50)Bob and I discuss the complex catch-22 of focusing on either profitability or growth as an open-source founder (28:39)How Bob filtered through product feedback and feature requests when first shifting to a product-led approach (32:19)Bob’s advice to people who want to be a part of the open-source ecosystem (37:54)How listeners can connect with Bob and learn more about Weaviate (39:13)Links:BobLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bobvanluijt/Twitter: https://twitter.com/bobvanluijtCompany: https://weaviate.io/

Ben Rometsch is the CEO and Founder of Flagsmith, an open-source feature flagging platform. In this conversation, we explore how he landed on the idea to develop an open-source feature flagging project and how that has snowballed into running a full-time SaaS company. Ben describes the challenges of creating a SaaS company from the ground up, especially when it comes to pricing and monetizing. We also discuss the importance of understanding and choosing the right licensing for your product. Highlights:Intro (00:00)I introduce Ben Rometsch, who is the CEO of Flagsmith, a commercial open-source feature flagging and remote conflict platform (01:00)What made Ben want to build an open-source feature flagging project (01:29)How the open-source project Ben started led to building a company around Flagsmith (03:39)Why Ben feels licenses are so important and how he learned that through early licensing choices at Flagsmith (09:10)When Ben started to monetize Flagsmith (13:24)How Ben’s understanding of what features users wanted to pay for has evolved (15:36)Why caring about the developer experience has set Flagsmith apart for enterprise customers (20:51)When revenue started to take off and why it took external expertise (23:12)Why pricing can be such a frustrating challenge to get right (26:47)How Flagsmith is currently remotely structured (28:57)Ben shares his thoughts on how open source contributes to his business (33:04)How listeners can connect with Ben and learn more about Flagsmith (38:05)Links:BenLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benrometsch/Twitter: https://twitter.com/ben_rometschCompany: https://www.flagsmith.com/

Max Howell is the CEO of Tea, a revolutionary open-source project that is seeking to help open-source contributors get paid for their work through crypto. Throughout our conversation, Max explains how he’s created some prolific open-source projects but was still unable to monetize them to the point where open source could be his full-time job, and how that provided the inspiration for Tea. Max and I discuss the importance of re-framing open-source projects in business terms of value, and not simply referring to supporting projects as charity work, and Max also shares valuable insights into the world of open-source crypto development. Highlights:Intro (00:00)I introduce Max, the CEO of tea.xyz, and he explains his career background and how he started Tea (01:00)Max and I discuss the shift that open source needs to make from relying on charity to speaking in business and value terms (09:39)Max describes how Tea is representing the existing value of open source and translating it into monetary form (12:32)The administrative challenges of paying for open-source tools that are business-critical and how Tea helps solve them (14:36)Tea’s business strategy for monetizing their own open-source project (18:05)How Max’s goal of being able to work on the open-source projects he loves full time has played out with Tea (24:06)Max describes how he successfully pitched Tea to investors (25:21)Tea’s relationship with the rest of the crypto industry (27:32)The biggest challenge Max and his team are working on at the moment (29:06)What Max wishes he would have done differently and what he’s learned from the mistakes he’s made (31:59)Where you can go to learn more about Tea and connect with Max (38:53)Links:MaxLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mxcl/Twitter: https://twitter.com/mxclCompany: https://tea.xyz/

Nicolas Höning is the Co-Founder and CEO of Seita, an open-source energy optimization and digitalization company. Nicolas took an unconventional path to founding an open-source startup, and throughout this episode he describes how creating a greener world through open-source software is more than a business endeavor for him - it’s a personal mission. Nicolas describes perfectly the challenges that open-source founders face, and is transparent on the decisions he’s still weighing when it comes to choosing an open-source product model and the benefits and challenges of being a boot-strapped startup. I was particularly interested to learn how his company’s project, V2G Liberty, helps individuals who are looking for a greener way to optimize the charging of their electric vehicles, and why Nicolas doesn’t market his other products to individual users. Highlights:I introduce Nicolas Höning, who is the Co-Founder and CEO of Seita, an open-source energy digitalization company (01:00)Nicolas describes the unique nature of building open-source software for the energy sector (03:34)How Nicolas wound up developing software for the energy sector (05:30)The mission at Seita and how it’s also reflected personally in Nicolas’ life mission (06:57)Why open-source was an important part of the delivery of Seita’s mission (09:25)Nicolas describes the challenge of identifying his users and customers (11:28)Why Nicolas doesn’t focus on individual users (14:36)Nicolas describes his project V2G Liberty, which helps individuals optimize their EV charging (17:42)How Nicolas initially funded Seita and his commercial strategy moving forward (19:51)Why Seita launched a commercial product before launching an open-source project (23:30)What Nicolas has been considering when deciding between an open core and open source product model (26:35)The biggest challenge Nicolas is facing right now at Seita (32:43)How listeners can connect with Nicolas and learn more (33:57)Links:NicolasLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nhoening/Twitter: https://twitter.com/nhoeningCompany: https://seita.nl/

Jono Bacon’s passion for building communities has been a driving force in a career taken him from Canonical to GitHub to founding the Community Leadership Core community accelerator. In this episode, Jono shares his definition of community, how a community can create a movement and the differences between the two. We also get a bit of insight into how he developed his passion for building communities and why he continues helping companies build and support theirs through the Community Leadership Core. When Jono speaks about communities he is involved with, he uses “we” instead of “I” to describe their achievements, so I had him dig into that a bit more as we explored the power dynamics that have a huge influence on the success of a community or movement. Highlights:I introduce Jono, who is the founder of Community Leadership Core (0:28)Jono shares more about his passion for building communities and why he started Community Leadership Core (0:51)Jono goes into his background, discovering how Linux was created, and finding connection to others through open source (2:47)Jono reflects on his time at Canonical and what he learned (10:46)How Jono defines and thinks about “community” (13:10)The difference between building a community and creating a movement (15:50)Using “we” vs “I” in communities to encourage collaboration (18:05)Where Jono sees companies missing the mark in community building (20:03)Jono explains what delivery looks like in the context of community (22:31)Jono shares examples of successful communities (27:05)Communities Jono enjoys participating in (28:44)How to start a community from scratch (31:22)A quick summary of the Community Leadership Core (32:40)Links:JonoLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonobaconTwitter: https://twitter.com/jonobaconCompany: communityleadershipcore.com

Michael Cheng is an M&A Specialist who has had an extensive career that includes a former stint at Facebook as a Product Manager and his current role as a Lawyer. In this episode, Michael returns to the show to have an in-depth discussion around acquisitions. Michael shares his thoughts on why most acquisitions leave everyone involved feeling unsatisfied, and what he thinks should be done by both parties to mitigate the high failure rate of acquisitions. We also chat about the common grievances founders have after going through an acquisition, and the approach Michael recommends to mitigate those regrets. Michael also shares insights on why it’s harder on an open-source company to be successfully acquired if they are in between being a purely services-based or SaaS company. Highlights:I introduce returning guest Michael Cheng, whose illustrious career spans roles as a Product Manager for Facebook, a Lawyer, and an M&A Specialist (00:22)Michael gives some background on his career history and why he’s pursued so many different roles (01:00)Michael and I discuss the bird’s eye view of the steps it takes to get acquired (02:23)Why most acquisitions fail (06:11) The common grievances that sellers have after going through an acquisition (08:11)Michael’s thoughts on the likely outcomes for acquisitions of open-source companies (10:28)What open-source founders can do to favor a successful outcome when approaching an acquisition (13:32)How Michael thinks success should be measured when evaluating the outcome of an acquisition (17:56)Why looking at the open-source community of companies being acquired is so crucial and often overlooked (22:13)How the due diligence process is different for an open-source startup versus a SaaS company (25:20)Michael describes how each core function in a company is affected by an acquisition (28:12)The advice Michael would give to founders to help them make peace with the outcome of an acquisition (33:42)How you can connect with Michael to learn more (37:02)Links:MichaelLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/priorart/Twitter: https://twitter.com/SYOTFSCompany: https://www.aalyria.com/

Lars Kamp is the Co-Founder and CEO of Some Engineering, the makers of Resoto. In this episode, Lars describes what he’s learned from founding and working at multiple start-ups, as well as the main differentiators he’s experienced founding his first open-source startup. Lars describes his though process when it comes to selecting co-founders, and illustrates why it’s even more important to be discerning when selecting investors. Lars and I also discuss the advantages that open-source gives to founders who are focused on the distribution strategy for their product, and Lars reveals why he is a big proponent of having docs be a part of your product-led growth strategy. Throughout our conversation, Lars’ insights create a detailed picture of what second-time founders think about and how SaaS startup experience relates to open-source business strategy. Highlights:I introduce Lars, who is the CEO and Founder of Some Engineering (00:23)Lars describes what he does at Resoto and the user groups they work with (00:47)How a tweet by Jeff Barr inspired Lars and his co-founders to start working on Resoto (01:37)What it was like for Lars to start a company with co-founders he didn’t know very well (05:03)Why Lars went from working with closed-source SaaS companies to founding an open-source company (07:26)The main differences Lars has found between founding a SaaS startup and an open-source company (09:24)Lars describes the value he sees in investing in really good docs (10:44)Why Lars focuses more on distribution than product as a second-time founder (13:19)What third time founders think about and what they don’t (16:18)Lars’ advice to founders (18:40)Why Lars sees a big advantage in open-source business models, especially when it comes to distribution (20:09)The advice Lars would give himself if he could go back in time to the early days of Resoto(28:31)How to get in touch with Lars (32:23)Links:LarsLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/larskamp/Twitter: https://twitter.com/l1rsCompany: https://some.engineering/

Amanda “Robby” Robson is a Partner at Cowboy Ventures and the co-host of the Open Source Startup Podcast. In this episode, Robby shares insights on what she’s looking for in open-source founders to potentially invest in, including the importance of being able to manage both your community and your paid model simultaneously. Robby and I also discuss the importance and pitfalls of choosing a monetization strategy, as well as the dangers of having too many monetization models too soon. Throughout our conversation, Robby highlights the specific challenges that open-source founders face, and how she’s seen successful founders either avoid or overcome them. Highlights:I introduce Robby, who is a Partner at Cowboy Ventures and the co-host of the Open Source Startup Podcast (00:22)Robby gives some insight into how she evaluates startups from an investment perspective, and the peculiarities that go into evaluating an open-source startup (00:45)The nuances of evaluating the market opportunity for an open-source company (05:20)A common mistake Robby seeks early stage founders make when evaluating their market size (08:06)Robby shares what she’s learned about best practices for seed-stage startups who are looking to determine their monetization strategy (10:02)The dangers of having too many monetization models as an early stage startup (13:22)Traits that Robby feels are most valuable for an open-source founder to possess (14:48)Robby reveals the common traps that open-source founders fall into (17:13)Why Robby feels that successfully monetizing an open-source company has more to do with resources than timing (19:46)Robby’s thoughts on whether she would ever found an open-source company and how she would approach it (21:18)How Robby’s thoughts have changed on whether open source projects need to intentionally become a company or vice versa (23:44)What it’s like to advice against the open-source business model as a venture capitalist (29:10)Links:RobbyLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanda-robson-7227685b/Twitter: https://twitter.com/amanda_robsCompany: https://www.cowboy.vc/

Daniel Izquierdo is the Co-Founder and CEO at Bitergia, an open-source company that provides software development data and analytics. In this episode, we connect at the Open Source Summit in Bilbao to discuss how he went from working in academia to co-founding an open-source company. Throughout our conversation, Daniel shares interesting anecdotes on the unique journey he’s taken to build Bitergia, including why they haven’t focused on growing fast so much as they have focused on growing in a way that supports their employees and customers. He also shares insights into how to measure an open-source community, and the knowledge gaps that he sees in people who can’t contextualize the data they’re getting on their community. Daniel also walks us through the other open-source business models Bitergia tried before discovering what worked for them.Highlights:I introduce Daniel, who is the Co-Founder and CEO at Bitergia, as he joins me at the Open Source Summit in Bilbao (00:24)Daniel describes the work that he does at Bitergia (00:41)The story of why Daniel helped to co-found Bitergia during the finalizing of his PhD (01:38)How Daniel and his co-founders got by as they transitioned from academia to founding an open-source company, and what the first year of running Bitergia was like (03:28)Daniel explains how Bitergia makes money as an open-source company (06:04)The main types of customers that Bitergia works with (07:50)The metrics that Daniel feels are critical when measuring an open-source community (08:50)Daniel describes the knowledge gap he observes in clients who can’t contextualize the data they get on their community (11:16)The story of how Bitergia tried other open-source business models before finding what worked for them (13:41)Why Daniel feels it is a disadvantage to have his company based in Spain (16:07)Daniel shares his growth philosophy for Bitergia (18:47)The challenges facing Daniel and his team at the moment (20:21)Daniel’s advice to aspiring open-source founders (21:53)The most interesting mistake Daniel feels he made in building Bitergia (23:57)Daniel shares what he feels is the main difference between starting a company with and without an open-source component (25:33)Links:DanielLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dicortazar/Twitter: https://twitter.com/dizquierdoCompany: https://bitergia.com/

Leszek Manicki is the Engineering Manager at Wikimedia Germany. In this episode, we connect at the Open Source Summit in Bilbao to discuss what he has learned being a part of Wikimedia movement and how that inspired his talk at the summit, How Not To Make Open Source. Throughout our conversation, Leszek describes the challenges Wikimedia has experienced in trying to get more contributors to their projects while also having a high security standard and a complex architecture. He also describes what he has learned from these challenges, and gives recommendations for other organizations to consider as they look to get more contributors to their own projects. Leszek also shares his experience representing a non-profit organization that seeks to offer free knowledge at an event that features more commercialized open-source offerings, and how he hopes this will bring about a positive socio-economic change.Highlights:I introduce Leszek, who is the Engineering Manager at Wikimedia Germany as he joins me at the Open Source Summit in Bilbao (00:23)Leszek describes his role at Wikimedia movement and what brings him to the Open Source Summit as a speaker (00:39)The number one thing that Leszek believes open-source organizations shouldn’t do (03:41)How Wikimedia has attempted to get more external contributors to their projects and what they learned from their successes and failures there (07:17)Leszek describes the relationship between the creation of knowledge and the creation of software in the Wikimedia organization (12:57)How Leszek and his team are increasing collaboration with external sources to build software (15:43)Why Leszek advocates for simple architecture when you’re building a project that will seek external contributors (17:38)The inherent value that Leszek sees in having a community of contributors on a project (18:52)Leszek reflects on his experience attending the Open Source Summit and his hopes for the future (20:20)Links:LeszekLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leszek-manickiCompany: https://www.wikimedia.org/

Brian Proffitt is the Senior Manager of Community Outreach at Red Hat’s OSPO. In this episode, we connect at the Open Source Summit EU to discuss how Brian uses events to drive both lead generation and community-building efforts. Throughout our conversation, Brian describes how measuring the ROI of an event can be tricky and why it’s important to look at events as a long game strategy. We also discuss why events provide some of the most valuable feedback when testing your positioning and messaging, and what can be done to increase the odds that your events are successful and produce good outcomes.Highlights:I introduce Brian, who is the Senior Manager of Community Outreach at Red Hat’s OSPO as he joins me at the Open Source Summit EU (00:28)How Brian categorizes the different types of events he attends and hosts (01:55)The primary metric and objective for lead gen events, and what can be done to increase the odds that your lead gen events bear fruit (05:18)Why events are such a valuable part of testing your positioning and messaging (09:14)Brian delves into the value of community events and what the ROI for those looks like (12:50)The strategy Brian employs for getting the most out of community events when ROI can be difficult to measure (15:40)Brian shares why he feels that events are more of a long game strategy (23:24)The advice that Brian would give to an open-source founder or start-up that is looking to get the most out of their events strategy (25:28)The best ways to learn more and connect with Brian (31:34)Links:BrianLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianproffitt/Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheTechScribeCompany: https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/channel/red-hat-open-source-program-office

Kim McMahon is the leader of Open Source Marketing & Community at Outshift by Cisco, which is Cisco’s emerging technologies and innovation unit. We recorded this episode at Open Source Summit EU, and talked about Kim’s strategies and tactics related to helping guide users to the correct edition of your product — ie, decide whether the open source option or a commercial option is best for them.Kim talked about the tricky balance open-source companies must strike between embracing open-source principles and driving revenue as a business, Kim’s tactics for community building and why it’s so important to be clear on why you want to build a community and the outcomes you expect from your investment in community building. Highlights:I introduce Kim, who is the leader of Open Source Marketing & Community at Outshift by Cisco, as she joins me at the Open Source Summit EU in Bilbao (00:25)Kim gives an overview of the talk she is giving at the Open Source Summit, which is on the topic of self-identifying when to shift to a managed version of open-source products (01:35)Kim and I discuss the different personas of open-source software users, and the role that product-led growth plays for open-source companies (03:07)Why Kim feels it’s critical to not treat your community as a sales database but rather to provide educational content to drive sales of open-source products (09:10)Kim and I discuss the challenges of marketing an open-source project and whether positioning truly falls under marketing (10:49)How Kim created a feedback loop on her team between sales, marketing, and product to ensure alignment when bringing open-source products to market (13:31)Kim walks through her thought process for community building from scratch (17:23)How Kim evaluates if a community-building strategy is working or not (24:34)What Kim learned about being a part of a community by being a member of a food co-op (28:09)Where to connect with Kim and learn more about her work (34:44)Links:KimLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimmcmahonco/Twitter: https://twitter.com/kamcmahonCompany: https://eti.cisco.com/

Alexander Krüger is the Co-Founder and CEO of United Manufacturing Hub, an open-source company that develops software for the manufacturing industry. Throughout our conversation, Alexander describes the unusual path he took in going from a services-based consulting company to a product-led company. He also describes the opportunities and challenges of selling open-source software to an industry that has historically been slow to adopt new technology, as well as his choice to hone a go-to-market strategy before exploring fundraising. Highlights:I introduce Alexander, and he gives some background on his company United Manufacturing Hub (00:22)How Alexander decided to develop open-source software for manufacturers (01:39)Alexander describes the early days of launching United Manufacturing Hub and how he got his first customers (04:06)How long it took to go from a consulting firm to a product-based company (06:57)Why it’s important to Alexander that United Manufacturing Hub is an open-source company (08:20)Alexander describes the go-to-market strategy at United Manufacturing Hub and how it impacts their fundraising efforts as well as their monetization model (11:06) Alexander describes an interesting mistake he made and what he learned from it (19:10)How different it is to sell open-source software in the manufacturing space versus other industries (21:31) The biggest challenges facing United Manufacturing Hub today (22:35)Alexander describes the pros and cons of going from a services company to a product company (25:44)Where people can go to learn more about United Manufacturing Hub and connect with Alexander (29:38)Links:AlexanderLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexander-krueger/Twitter:Company: https://www.umh.app/

This week I’m chatting with Steven Renwick, CEO of Tilores. As you’ll hear in the episode, we connected when I mistook Tilores for an open-source company. Steven graciously agreed to come on the show to discuss why they decided against making the product open source — which is actually a conversation worth having, and one that open source founders should probably have more often. There are a few options for companies building SaaS tools to solve problems for engineers and enterprises, from open source and open core all the way to completely closed source. In this episode, Steven and I discuss some of these options and why his company decided that going closed source would be the option that provided them the greatest opportunity for growth. Steven himself thought they would start the company as an open-source company, but upon further examination, realized they weren’t leaning in that direction for the right reasons. Listen to hear the journey from the beginning of their search for funding, to heading into the end of their second year in business as a closed-source company.Highlights:I introduce Steven, tell the story of how we met, and he fills us in on the origin of Tilores. (0:32)Steven delves deeper into how Tilores started and why they decided against open source. (1:47)Steven and I discuss how companies sometimes get into open source before they fully understand all of the licensing options and how it will effect their business. (6:05)I point out that transparency is a commonly appreciated value in open source projects and Steven agrees that while it hasn’t been an issue so far, that is something that may push Tilores to open source in the future. (8:58)In seeking funding for Tilores, Steven found investors hesitant to buy into an open source company, so he explains why he thinks that is. (10:37)Steven and I discuss the many reasons going closed source keeps things simple. (14:27)Steven and I debate the idea that being open source implies a grander vision or hope of becoming the standard of service. (16:01)I mention that companies have gone from open source to closed source, which leads us to how open source can make it difficult for a company to become profitable. (19:43)We then dive into what the difference in vision between making boatloads of money, hoping to become the standard of service, and hoping to serve a particular niche. (21:06)If you don’t have a really good reason to go open source, maybe you shouldn’t. (24:15)Steven recalls a mistake in the early development of Tilores. (27:12)Steven shares his advice for folks making a product for engineers. (29:22)Steven reviews Tilores’s biggest challenge now. (30:58)Steven shares some final thoughts on open source. (34:07)Links:StevenLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenrenwick/Twitter: @Major_GroovesCompany: tilores.io/