Unifying your narrative

Most ‘tech’ startups have only one product, and their product and company are essentially positioned exactly the same way. There’s no complicated relationship to worry about or suite of products that could get confusing.

Startups in the enterprise / commercial open source space have it a little different. If you have an open source project plus a support contract plus and enterprise version of the OSS, you actually have three products, each with it’s own feature set, benefit set and value set. This is can be challenging even when you’ve already had success with one product, ie the way most startups grow. It is even more of a challenge for a small company.

For open source startups, the key is to have clear, unifying positioning and point of view behind your suite of offerings that makes sense. There also has to be alignment between the products and services you provide — there has to be a way to communicate the larger goal that they all help users, contributors and customers reach. There has to be a clear through line from the open source software to the commercial offering that is in line with the company’s articulated mission.

Do you have a couple offerings that seem disconnected from each other? Reach out to see it working on positioning would be appropriate.