Wildest dreams of making profit on open source at DeveloperWeek 2024

Transcript

1. DEVELOPER WEEK 2024 IRINA NAZAROVA CEO @ Evil Martians WILDEST DREAMS OF MAKING PROFIT ON OPEN SOURCE
2. DEVELOPER WEEK 2024 2 OPEN SOURCE
3. DEVELOPER WEEK 2024 3 Web technologies dominate software development...
4. DEVELOPER WEEK 2024 4 Web technologies dominate software development... ...thanks to open source
5. DEVELOPER WEEK 2024 5 COMMERCIAL OPEN SOURCE SUCCESS STORIES Only those that match my color scheme…
6. DEVELOPER WEEK 2024 6
7. npm-stat.com Jan 2017 Oct 2023 What’s the red line? 7
8. npm-stat.com Jan 2017 Oct 2023 PostCSS, built by Evil Martians 8
9. Internal COSS: Product development consulting for dev tools 9
10. DEVELOPER WEEK 2024 10 MAINTAINER’S GUIDE TO COMMERCIAL OPEN SOURCE
11. DEVELOPER WEEK 2024 11 11
12. DEVELOPER WEEK 2024 12 There is no guide
13. DEVELOPER WEEK 2024 13 Three passions to help you
14. DEVELOPER WEEK 2024 14 PEOPLE PASSION #1
15. DEVELOPER WEEK 2024 15 THE #1 HUMAN IN YOUR LIFE How to fi nd one?
16. DEVELOPER WEEK 2024 Сoworker, ex coworker, classmate, friend, spouse, collaborator, co-maintainer, customer, fan, hater, competitor 16
17. DEVELOPER WEEK 2024 17 TECH IS FOR HUMANS Technology can be awe-inspiring, but it will only change lives when turned into a product. Project vs. product
18. DEVELOPER WEEK 2024 18 CUSTOMERS VS. CONTRIBUTORS Recognize your customers as a new audience, not equal to contributors, and how it a ff ects: – product – documentation (guides, wizards) – marketing
19. DEVELOPER WEEK 2024 19 YOUR AUDIENCE – people whom you know and have empathy for – people who know you and recognize you as an expert
20. DEVELOPER WEEK 2024 20 Fall in 💜 with your audience NOT YOUR PRODUCT
21. DEVELOPER WEEK 2024 21 HOME ASSIGNMENT – Create a calendar link with fi xed # slots per week and send to your potential or current users to learn from them. Don’t pitch, listen. Learn their pains. Let them surprise you. Take notes. – Use their words to describe your value proposition to the next user, but also on website, repo, documentation, marketing, etc. – Build for them, and not only for yourself.
22. DEVELOPER WEEK 2024 22 UNCERTAINTY PASSION #2
23. DEVELOPER WEEK 2024 23 OPPORTUNITY IS RISK Entrepreneurs are professional risk takers. You learn it by doing. Embrace it and enjoy it!
24. DEVELOPER WEEK 2024 24
25. DEVELOPER WEEK 2024 25 EXPERIMENT An experimentation framework, like Lean startup, helps navigate the uncertainty.
26. DEVELOPER WEEK 2024 26 LEAN STARTUP Plant a bunch of “seeds” to collect a bunch of learnings.
27. DEVELOPER WEEK 2024 27 BUILD AN MVP MVP is a tool to validate a product hypothesis quickly without an upfront investment. 👩🎤 🍏 👩🔬
28. DEVELOPER WEEK 2024 28 BUILD AN MVP MVP is a tool to validate a product hypothesis quickly without an upfront investment. 👩🎤 🍏 👩🔬 〔👩🎤 🍏 👩🔬〕
29. DEVELOPER WEEK 2024 👩🎤 🍏 👩🔬 20 people you know Figma prototype Meet them for co ff ee and give them your laptop Readers of a subreddit Landing built with Framer Record sessions with PostHog, track signups Attendees of a meetup Presentation Track signups and questions Emails of CTOs of speci fi c companies GitHub page Track signups and responses EXAMPLES 29
30. DEVELOPER WEEK 2024 30 NEXT STEP: PAID PRODUCT 👩🎤❗ 🤚🍏🤚 💸
31. DEVELOPER WEEK 2024 31 NEXT STEP: PAID PRODUCT 〔👩🎤❗ 🤚🍏🤚 💸〕
32. DEVELOPER WEEK 2024 32 VC FOR RISK SHARING
33. DEVELOPER WEEK 2024 33 VC FOR RISK SHARING Most VCs at early stage are looking for: – Team, ideally repeat founders – Big market: a small chance to build a billion-revenue business – Velocity: quick iterations, growth and buzz (OSS metrics) – Revenue potential: you tried selling and it worked
34. DEVELOPER WEEK 2024 34 1 BN REVENUE? 2023 revenue: MongoDB $1.3 bn GitHub $1 bn est. Elastic $310 mn Gitlab $150 mn
35. DEVELOPER WEEK 2024 35 SPEED PASSION #3
36. DEVELOPER WEEK 2024 36 WEEKLY IS TOO SLOW Run several experiments per week.
37. DEVELOPER WEEK 2024 37 WEEKLY IS TOO SLOW What are you learning this week? 1. Marketing. Is the pain big enough? Convert users of OSS into paid product. Iterate on marketing/sales. 2. Activation. Is the medicine easy to take? Are people activating? Simplify, remove friction. Simplify signup, docs, let them get value. 3. Retention. Does the medicine work? Are people using the product for anything, do they still use it after 1 month? Iterate on the product–not to perfect it, but to create value for at least one but real use case.
38. DEVELOPER WEEK 2024 38 Microsoft used to have a 10 minute rule in the old days: in 10 minutes a customer had to unwrap the CD with the software and do something useful or exciting with it.
39. DEVELOPER WEEK 2024 39 OSS METRICS
40. DEVELOPER WEEK 2024 40 COMMIT TO VELOCITY Useful mechanisms: – Launch week every 3 months – Weekly newsletter/stream – Build in public
41. DEVELOPER WEEK 2024 41 BUT FOR WHOM? You can also bootstrap at your own pace: – charge for special features, custom solutions and integration of your open source, and broader consulting – keep your day job – keep learning
42. DEVELOPER WEEK 2024 42 KEEP GOING 🏃
43. DEVELOPER WEEK 2024 43
44. DEVELOPER WEEK 2024 44 ARE YOUR DREAMS WILD ENOUGH?
45. DEVELOPER WEEK 2024 https://discord.gg/KSvyCTrFSA Follow/DM on Twitter: @inazarova 45 JOIN THE DEVTOOL FOUNDER COMMUNITY DEVTOOL FOUNDER COMMUNITY