Don't be an underpants gnome

Too many people get into open source businesses thinking that a big user base, or a big community, will be easy to monetize.

It’s like underpants gnomes, except:

Phase 1: Collect users

Phase 2: ?

Phase 3: Profit

Investors often push this narrative, which does founders no favors. A project that people love does not guarantee a product that people will pay money for. Project-market fit in no ways guarantees product-market fit. You have to think about both user/community growth and how that growth is going to translate to revenue.