Is Open Source Table Stakes for your Startup?

Building a successful open source company more complicated than building a closed source company — I’m not sure if harder is the right word, but it is definitely more complicated, because there are more moving parts and more things to focus on and get right. That’s why I generally say you should only build an open source company if you both have solid business reasons for do so and you personally like the idea of building an open source company.

But what if you’re not super stoked about open source, but you think having an open source project is table stakes in the market you want to operate in?

• Ask yourself, is it really table stakes? Why? This often comes up when talking with companies in the cloud native infrastructure space, but there are also closed source companies in that space, too.

• If you’ve determined that yes, your market is not likely to adopt your technology unless you’re open source, then you’re stuck — you need an open source strategy even if you don’t love open source.

In some ways, if your startup is dragged kicking and screaming into the open source world, that is a good thing. Unlike many founders that embrace open source because “we’re open source people at heart,’ you will have a clear business rationale for your open source strategy. That means you’ll know if your open source strategy is working or not. You will also be more motivated to invest in your open source project even then the ‘we’re open source kinda folks’ founders, because you’ve connected it to concrete business goals.

So being an open source founder might be a good route even if you’re not an open source diehard. Oh, but of course there’s a flip side: Maybe you’ll discover that open source isn’t actually table stakes. In which case, you shouldn’t feel pressured to follow an open source strategy just because most companies in your ecosystem are doing so.