I can’t say for certain what compelled the founders to choose this business model, but in my experience when you start something as a side project to scratch an itch, it feels like a default choice as an engineer to start with something open source, so that others can benefit. Incidentally, it turns out it’s a great way to initially build a community around a project and grow it organically both in terms of its capabilities as well as its usage.
I don’t think it was much different from how you’d do this in any other instance. Set meaningful and ambitious goals, iterate and test hypotheses. A slightly controversial perspective I might hold is to not focus so much on whether you hit a goal you set some time ago, but whether or not you had the impact you’d hoped for. Sometimes the goals you set at the beginning of a quarter lose relevance shortly after you start building or get customer feedback!
Hi Liana, happy to be here!
I can’t say for certain what compelled the founders to choose this business model, but in my experience when you start something as a side project to scratch an itch, it feels like a default choice as an engineer to start with something open source, so that others can benefit. Incidentally, it turns out it’s a great way to initially build a community around a project and grow it organically both in terms of its capabilities as well as its usage.
I don’t think it was much different from how you’d do this in any other instance. Set meaningful and ambitious goals, iterate and test hypotheses. A slightly controversial perspective I might hold is to not focus so much on whether you hit a goal you set some time ago, but whether or not you had the impact you’d hoped for. Sometimes the goals you set at the beginning of a quarter lose relevance shortly after you start building or get customer feedback!
Awesome - thanks for the answer and insight!