GTM vs Open Source

A short talk with practical observations and opinions about startups and open source projects.

Transcript

1. GTM vs Open
   Source
   Observations and opinions
   Gareth Rushgrove @garethr
   

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2. Gareth Rushgrove
   VP Product, Snyk
   

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3. Not a talk about
   open source
   software licensing
   *
   

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4. Open Source: Still not a business model
   Launch new
   open source
   project
   It becomes
   wildly popular
   Profit
   

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5. Profit
   Launch a
   new
   business
   Launch a
   new
   product
   It becomes
   wildly
   popular
   

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6. Launch a
   new open
   source
   project
   It becomes
   wildly
   popular
   Profit
   Launch a
   new
   business
   Launch a
   new
   product
   It becomes
   wildly
   popular
   

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7. “open source is a channel. Open source
   is a way that you, in a business sense, get
   the software out to the people, the
   people use the software, and then they
   become a channel, which [companies]
   eventually try to turn into money.”
   Adam Jacobs
   @adamhjk
   

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8. Launch a
   new open
   source
   project
   It becomes
   wildly
   popular
   Profit
   Launch a
   new
   business
   Launch a
   new
   product
   It becomes
   wildly
   popular
   Decisions
   made here
   Have a big
   impact here
   And
   decisions
   made here
   

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9. 1. Open source is optional
   2. Naming is hard
   3. Team organisation
   4. Analytics
   5. Self-competition
   This talk
   

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10. Launch a
    new open
    source
    project
    It becomes
    wildly
    popular
    Profit
    Launch a
    new
    business
    Launch a
    new
    product
    It becomes
    wildly
    popular
    1. Should you even open source?
    

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11. 2. What to name things?
    Company, product, project
    Same name for the
    company, product and
    project
    Same name for the
    company and product,
    different name for the
    project
    Different names for the
    company and
    product/project
    

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12. 3. How to organise your teams?
    Everyone
    To start with it’s easy
    

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13. How not to organise your teams
    Open Source
    team
    SaaS team
    Avoiding early misaligned incentives
    

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14. 4. What to do about analytics?
    People complain
    on GitHub when
    something
    doesn’t work
    Open source project
    We have real time
    data on every user
    interaction and
    insights into what
    is and isn’t
    working
    Every SaaS vendors
    “ “
    

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15. Interesting example: Homebrew
    

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16. Interesting example: Hashicorp Checkpoint
    Your version of Terraform is out of date! The latest version
    is 1.0.0. You can update by downloading from https://www.terraform.io/downloads.html
    

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17. 5. Avoid or embrace self-competition?
    All of our open
    source users will
    become paying
    customers!
    What you may think
    Status: Closed
    lost. Competition:
    Our damn open
    source project!
    Your future sales reps
    “ “
    

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18. Think holistically
    about open
    source projects
    

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19. Think about what
    long term success
    looks like
    

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20. Questions?
    @garethr
    

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