Is your OSS a growth machine? Part 1

One of the most common reasons founders give for building an open source startup rather than a proprietary one is that the open source is a growth machine. If that’s the case, how do you know if that growth machine is working? Before you can even start evaluating, here are some basics to have in place:

  • First, the basics. You can’t know whether or not your project is the growth machine you want it to be unless you also have a commercial offering and some revenue. That’s because the ultimate goal is revenue, and you can’t be sure that growth in open source users will translate to growth in revenue until you have at least one revenue stream.

  • How much visibility do you have into who uses the open source project? If you have none, it’s really hard (though not actually impossible) to know to what extent the open source is driving conversion to paid customer.

  • Open, intentional communication with both users and commercial customers. By intentional, I mean you’re proactively building relationships, not sitting back and waiting for them to contact you.

More on this topic on Monday, in the meantime, have a great weekend!

Emily Omier