Philippe Humeau on Creating Fair Exchanges in Open-Source Business Models

Philippe Humeau is the CEO and Co-Founder of CrowdSec, an open-source security company with a very unique business model that doesn’t fit the usual open source patterns. Philippe talked about how to focus on providing a fair exchange of value between maintainers / open source companies and users, and how to monetize a project that is providing value for free.

Philippe also talked about why he thinks open-source founders are under more pressure to get their business model right at the start, tips on making the right hiring decisions, and how to communicate with the community in an effective and transparent way. I also liked Philippe’s cynicism: why he views open source as primarily a pragmatic choice for his business, given the type of company he wanted to build.

Philippe also shares the logic behind his uncommon view that only making certain features available to paying customers isn’t a truly open-source business strategy.

Highlights:

  • I introduce Philippe, who gives some background on his career journey and what he does at CrowdSec (00:22)

  • Philippe explains why it seems that security companies are underrepresented in the open-source space (03:19)

  • The most common mistake Philippe sees when people start an open-source business (05:03)

  • Why Philippe believes that open-source companies are under more pressure to get their business model right the first time (09:26)

  • How Philippe came up with Crowdsec’s unique business model (16:15)

  • The pushback that Philippe got when he presented his business model initially (19:33)

  • Why Philippe views open source as a means to an end, and how that’s affected his choices at CrowdSec (25:10)

  • The most interesting mistake Philippe has made since starting CrowdSec (27:28)

  • Why Philippe believes open source business models are more promising than closed source (31:19)

  • The advice that Philippe would give to an open source founder who is looking to build a successful company (34:11)

  • Why Philippe feels that having certain features behind a paywall is not a truly open-source business model (35:53)

  • Where you can learn more about Philippe and connect with CrowdSec (40:11)

Links:

Philippe

Chris Hill