The Business of Open Source

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 market
• Why 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 SigNoz
• How 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 resources
• The 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 offering

And 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 entail
• Why 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 plan
• Strategic acquisitions are about 1+1=3… so you have to know what your buyer’s “3” is
• Why it’s important to be self-aware and know your own goals before you sign any acquisition paperwork

And 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 go
• How his investor arranged a ‘co-founder marriage’ for Zach and his co-founder Mike McNeil
• How the transparency aspect of open source can be extremely important, especially for anything in the security space

Lastly, 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 LinkedIn

Mick 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 value
• There’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’t
• Collaboration isn’t automatic, and how to make it actually happen
• How 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 collaboration

We 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:

LinkedIn

Percona 

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 business
• Going 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 company
• Why 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 features
• Why 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 product

This 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 immediately
• Peter’s personal brand wasn’t just around MySql in general, but was very specifically focused on MySql performance optimization
• How 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 organization

If 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:

Garima

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/garimakap/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/garimakap
• Company: 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:

Federico

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/federicowengi/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/federicowengi
• Company: 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 making

In 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:

Ben

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/contactbenhaynes/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/benhaynes
• Company: 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:

Peer

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peer-richelsen-221233138/
• Twitter: @peer_rich
• Company: 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:

Birthe

• LinkedIn: 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:

Didier

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/didier-lopes/
• Twitter: @didier_lopes
• Company: http://openbb.co
• Personal 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:

Loris

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/degio/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/lorisdegio
• Company: 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:

Bob

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bobvanluijt/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/bobvanluijt
• Company: 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:

Ben

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benrometsch/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/ben_rometsch
• Company: 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:

Max

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mxcl/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/mxcl
• Company: 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:

Nicolas

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nhoening/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/nhoening
• Company: https://seita.nl/