Speaking

I speak at conferences and events, primarily those geared towards the open source community, open source startup founders and entrepreneurial engineers. Or, even better, all three. Here are some of my favorite things to talk about:

  • Applying business fundamentals and strategies to grow pure open source projects

  • Building financially successful companies around open source projects, especially the complexities around revenue strategies, positioning, and sales

  • The interplay between product, marketing and sales in an open source company

If you have an event coming up and would like a talk focused on the above topics, reach out. I enjoy both being on and moderating panels on the above topics.

Some upcoming talks:

Capitole du Libre, “Project-Led Growth Pour les Projets du Logiciel Libre,” Toulouse, Nov. 18th and 19th

Open Source Experience, “Project-Led Growth Strategies to Supercharge your FOSS Community,” Paris, December 6th, 2023

Open Core Summit, “Lessons from 3 years of Interviewing Open Source Founders, Operators and Investors,” San Francisco, December 7th, 2023

Some past talks:

All Things Open, Raleigh, NC, October 15th to 17th. “Is your project a good fit for monetization.” (video to come!)

Kubernetes Community Days, Munich, Germany, July 17th and 18th. “Why open source projects need better marketing fundamentals . (Video to come!)

FOSSY, Portland, OR, July 13th to 16th, 2023. Growth strategies for open source projects with Matt Yonkovit, and a talk on July 14th on positioning strategies for commercial open source companies.

Applying the principles of product-led growth to open source projects, at Open Source Summit NA 2023.

Panel: Connecting community activity to your commercial product, at HeavyBit’s DevGuild: Open Source conference May 4th, 2023 (video coming soon).

Do more awkward interviews, at FOSDEM 2023.

How do you know if your project is any good? With Avi Press, at All Things Open 2022.

How to talk about your open source project so people get it, All Things Open, 2022

Panel: Marketing is essential (and not sleazy) for open source projects, with Nithya Ruff, Jana Iris and Matt Yonkovit, Open Source Summit NA 2022

Positioning developer and open source products, BoldStart Ventures Speaker Series

 
 

Work with me

Are you the founder of an open source company struggling to figure out your revenue model, make your existing revenue sources more profitable or position your project and product(s) in the market? We should talk.