Positioning is even more critical for open source companies

Whenever someone asks me how I ended up working with open source companies on positioning, a part of my answer is always that positioning for open source companies is both more complex and more important than it is for straight SaaS companies. I want to talk about the ‘more important’ part right now.

Positioning is another word for ‘product framework’

In his talk on selling open source software, Nicholas Erdenberger talks about have a product framework for your product and your project — so that it’s incredibly clear what and who the project is for and what and who the product is for. Having this in place, he says, is a prerequisite to building a sales motion.

What he describes is another word for positioning.

So the moment you have something that you want to sell, you need to get your positioning nailed down.

— in fact, I think this is a good description of the first time to really focus on positioning: When you are either preparing for the commercial offering launch or shortly have the commercial offering launch. That’s a time when you should take time to make sure your positioning is on target even if you don’t have any symptoms of poor positioning.

Having this framework in place makes it possible for you to explain to potential customers why they should pay you when you have a solution that is free. It also makes it possible to easily make product decisions, which is an under appreciated but extremely critical advantage of getting your positioning right.

It also makes it possible to design a marketing campaign that is targeted either to the open source community or towards building a sales pipeline. If your intention is to build sales pipeline, you have to have that framework/positioning in place before you start designing the marketing campaign.

I’ll continue this topic tomorrow; in the meantime, feel free to forward this email to anyone you know who's struggling to figure out the relationship between product and project. They should work on their positioning. Maybe with me.