Unify your open source and commercial product brands

Some really tactical advice today. If you have an open source project, a commercial offering, and a company (this makes you an open source company!), you should make sure they branded in such a way that they are obviously connected.

For example:

XYZ Company, with the following products:

XYZ Community Edition

XYZ Enterprise Edition

XYZ Cloud

Make sure there is an easy-to-find link to the project’s GitHub page, too — I’ve spoken to enough people who will assume the open source claim is BS unless they see that GitHub link right way to know that this is important.

If you want the get any business benefit from your open source project, people have to a) know it exists and b) know that it is connected to your company.

A lot of open source companies get really into creatively naming their open source projects and then creating different brands for their companies/projects. This is a waste of time and unnecessarily confusing for users/customers.

There are loads of things that are complicated in open source startups. Keep it simple when possible.