Position to survive the next 12 months

Your positioning is not your vision. Your vision is grandiose. It’s what inspired investors to see a $1billion company in your powerpoint presentation.

Your positioning is what is going to get you from 0 to 1, or 1 to 2. It is how you move one level up, or even just survive to play the game another year. It should not be grandiose. It should be strategic, narrow, and focused on the here and now.

As an open source startup, you’re already splitting your focus between a project and at least one commercial offering. Positioning everything as tightly as possible ensures you won’t waste money on features neither your open source users or paid customers care about, that your growth initiatives will actually work and that you’ll get as much mileage as possible from the runway you have.