Thanks Ben, that's useful insight. In my ideal open-core situation, I've built up sufficient adoption that I have a large pool of users to potentially sell to. The particular appeal of open core is the ability to create software and then scale at minimal marginal cost by selling licenses.
Of course, time will tell whether there is sufficient market for this, and also how much time & effort will be required to make sales. I've spoken to other projects in the same space and they found that selling the "plus" version took a significant enterprise sales cycle, which is a scenario I really want to avoid.
Well, as you say - there will surely be many lessons learned along the way to sustainability, but I'm looking forward to the challenge!
Yup. Every path is its own. We like to describe our model as a "success-based business model" where our customers' success is highly aligned with ours, and that is a principle to build off of regardless of the specifics. But companies like Shopify and AirBnB could both easily be described on these terms and I think it's a great idea for any open source organization— and then there are the details to back it all up.
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Thanks Ben, that's useful insight. In my ideal open-core situation, I've built up sufficient adoption that I have a large pool of users to potentially sell to. The particular appeal of open core is the ability to create software and then scale at minimal marginal cost by selling licenses.
Of course, time will tell whether there is sufficient market for this, and also how much time & effort will be required to make sales. I've spoken to other projects in the same space and they found that selling the "plus" version took a significant enterprise sales cycle, which is a scenario I really want to avoid.
Well, as you say - there will surely be many lessons learned along the way to sustainability, but I'm looking forward to the challenge!
Yup. Every path is its own. We like to describe our model as a "success-based business model" where our customers' success is highly aligned with ours, and that is a principle to build off of regardless of the specifics. But companies like Shopify and AirBnB could both easily be described on these terms and I think it's a great idea for any open source organization— and then there are the details to back it all up.