The Business of Open Source

Akriti Dokania, a heavyweight in the venture capital business, is a partner at Ridge Ventures. With a background in computer sciences and building a B2B company from the ground up, it is no wonder Dokania is an expert in the complexities of developing software and understanding the lifecycle of a start-up. On this week's episodes of the Business of Open Source, Dokania shows her wealth of knowledg...

Stefan Avram, Co-Founder and Head of Growth at WunderGraph , is taking the open source world by storm. With his company specializing in full stack and workflows through API composition, it is no wonder he has fostered a vast community of developers around WunderGraph. On today's episode, Avram delves into the story and creation of WunderGraph. He also recounts how he organized a massive discord co...

Emre Baran is a man on a mission to simplify authorization protocols for software developers. With his company Cerbos, Baran has put in years of dedication to easy authorization and helping build the authorization databases of over one hundred EU companies. In this episode of The Business of Open Source, Emre Baran goes through the history of his company Cerbos. He also talks about telemetry chall...

Tyler Jewell is an enterprise technology investor and managing director of Dell Technologies Capital , with a hand in many open source companies. A returning guest to the podcast, Jewell shares with us his foresight and knowledge about the past and current history of the open source landscape. Hear about the inner workings of Lightbend and how far Akka open source projects have evolved over the ye...

From software engineer to leading developer products at Facebook, Ron Efroni was familiar with the challenges facing developers. His co-founder recognized the power of Nix to remove the boundaries of development, and together they started Flox to reduce the barriers to the adoption of Nix. In our final episode from the State of Open Con in London, Ron Efroni, CEO and Co-founder of Flox, joins me t...

Sometimes it seems like our devices can read our minds. While that can occasionally be helpful, it can raise concerns about how much of our personal data is collected. Gael Duval, CEO of Murena, noticed this issue in 2017 and has been working on solutions ever since.  In this episode, Gael joins me at the State of Open Con in London to discuss the origins of Murena and how you can protect your dat...

Peter Zaitzev, the founder of Percona, is an expert on open source strategy and database optimization. With his level of experience in the world of open source, Peter enjoys challenging himself and going against the grain in order to come out on top. On this episode of The Business of Open Source, Peter breaks down his thought process on how he approaches open source for businesses as a consultant...

Frank Karlitschek has worked in the open source software space since the late 90s when he contributed to KDE. Since then, he’s managed multiple teams and start ups and used his influence to make the internet a better, more secure place.  In this episode, Frank joins me at The State of Open Con to share his passion for open source and improving the internet. We discuss his early involvement in open...

Matt Barker, President and co-founder of Jetstack , has been involved in open source and Kubernetes since the early days of its development. With a long list of open source projects behind him, he decided to hone in on Jestack and with its success, share the knowledge he’s gained over the years as an OpenUK Entrepreneur in Residence. In this episode of The Business of Open Source, Matt joins me fr...

In the first of my series of interviews from the State of Open Con in London, I’m chatting with Rob Taylor, CEO of ChipFlow , about the intersection between open source software design and hardware design, bringing community into the hardware space, and how geopolitics could shape the future of open source.  In this episode, Rob shares his fascinating hardware and software design background, inclu...

Josh Thurman, Co-founder and Head of DevRel at Uffizzi, joins me to chat about his journey from Navy Seal to tech startup Co-founder. In this episode, Josh and I discuss his background as a Navy Seal, how he dove into tech and started Uffizzi, and the mistakes and failures he overcame along the way. We also dig into open source as a development model, creating vs. capturing value, and the importan...

Nikhil Nandagopal, Founder and CPO of Appsmith , joins me to chat about building trust, the importance of starting as an open source offering, and how the community continues to shape the future of Appsmith. In this episode, Nikhil and I discuss the origins of Appsmith, building a business edition as well as a community one, and the challenges he and his team encountered along the way. We compare...

Adi Gelvan, Co-founder and CEO of Speedb , joins me to share his experience in moving Speedb from a closed source proprietary company to open source with an enterprise offering.  In this episode, Adi and I explore moving from a proprietary to an open source strategy. From pros and cons, pushback from team members, and mistakes along the way, listen to hear how Adi and his team handled those challe...

Heather Meeker, General Partner at OSS Capital, joins me to discuss the legal elements of open source, including options for licensing and business structure. In this episode, Heather and I explore the intersection of law and open source by reviewing licensing options, challenges, and common mistakes startups make early on. We also get into less common licensing and business models and what might...

Sam Richard, Head of Growth at ngrok, joins me to talk about product-led growth in open source and ngrok’s history in open source. In this episode, Sam and I discuss product-led growth - how it differs from a traditional sales model, what metrics founders can use to track their development, and how to find your activation metrics. We also review what kind of companies would benefit from a product-...

Georg Link, Director of Sales at Bitergia , joins me to chat about how open source startups can use metrics to keep their communities healthy, why he approaches his role as an educator first, and how a company’s culture impacts the way they sell for open source.  In this episode, Georg and I discuss how he started the CHAOSS (Community Health Analysis Open Source Software) project to evaluate the...

Jonathan Reimer, CEO & Co-Founder at Crowd.dev , joins me to chat about community-led growth and cultivating a community around an open source startup. In this episode, Jonathan and I discuss the differences between community-led growth and product-led growth, review the meaning of community, and explore the challenges of building a community around an open source startup. We also get into how...

Brian MacDonald, Manager of Technical Editing at DigitalOcean joins me to discuss the importance of writing efficient documentation for any product. In this episode, Brian and I chat about his talk at All Things Open entitled Verbs Not Nouns and covering the importance of writing documentation that instructs your users on how to use your product to solve the problem it intends to solve for them. W...

Joseph Jacks joins me to share his enthusiasm for Open Source and what he calls Commercial Open Source Companies, how the idea of Open Source is changing with new technologies, and what that means for the definition of Open Source. In this episode, Joseph gets specific about the definition of Open Source and new technologies building on the original concept while sharing his excitement about the d...

Jon Gottfried, Co-founder of Major League Hacking , joins me to chat about community building, open source as a career accelerator, and how Major League Hacking began. In this episode, Jon and I discuss the role of open source in Major League Hacking and the lessons maintainers can learn from new developers and vice versa. Jon also shares his thoughts on community, sharing responsibilities, and ti...

Brian Douglas, CEO of OpenSauced, joins me to discuss insights - how they’ve been provided in the past, how OpenSauced is different, and how he hopes to contribute to the future of open source.  In this episode, Brian and I explore the origins and future of OpenSauced, including his hopes for how providing different insights can help contributors find worthy projects and maintainers find worthy co...

Matt Butcher, CEO of Fermyon, joins me to discuss the ethics of open source and how to keep your company's health in mind when growing your business. In this episode, Matt and I dig into the ethics of open source and how his background in philosophy influences the decisions he makes as a CEO. We also cover how you can intentionally create and maintain your company values and culture. Finally, Matt...

Henrik Rosendahl, CEO of Spiio , joins me to chat about his experience as an entrepreneur and what he’s learned about building successful companies.  In this episode, Henrik and I cover the many aspects of building startups. From the top mistakes new founders make to the best way to monetize your open source business. Listen to learn Henrik’s thoughts on entrepreneurship, including monetization, t...

Today I’m talking with Fabian Pinckaers, CEO and Founder of Odoo , a suite of business apps to manage all of a business’s activities, about his passion for open source and knowing how and when to pivot as a start-up. In this episode, Fabien and I discuss the highs and lows of running a start-up as he details his history with Odoo. From its inception as a service offering for auction houses to its...