The Good and the Bad of Starting an Open Source Company

They hired every full-time employee directly from their open source community. Here's how.

#1about 2 minutes

Introducing Formbricks as a privacy-first survey tool

Formbricks is an open-source, self-hostable survey solution that found its market niche by focusing on privacy and on-premise deployment.

#2about 3 minutes

Joining the GitHub Accelerator for funding and networking

The GitHub Accelerator program provided crucial funding and invaluable networking opportunities, offering diverse perspectives on business models like VC funding versus bootstrapping.

#3about 4 minutes

The importance of choosing the right open source license

Selecting a copyleft license like AGPL is crucial to prevent others from rebranding and selling your code, a lesson learned from Plausible's experience with the more permissive MIT license.

#4about 5 minutes

Transitioning from a free to a paid open core model

Monetizing an established free project is challenging, so planning an open core model from the start by identifying enterprise-level features like SSO avoids community backlash later.

#5about 6 minutes

Leveraging community contributions for hiring and development

Open source contributions provide a direct pipeline for hiring proven talent, as contributors who demonstrate strong skills and familiarity with the codebase can be onboarded seamlessly as employees.

#6about 5 minutes

Why the core team handles community management directly

The core team rotates community management duties so that every developer directly engages with users, leading to a deeper understanding of issues and a more secure product.

#7about 3 minutes

The most effective ways for new people to contribute

Beyond starring the repository, the most valuable contributions are detailed bug reports, and the ideal scenario is when a contributor also submits a pull request with the fix.

#8about 2 minutes

Gaining traction and applying for accelerator programs

Gain initial traction through platforms like Product Hunt and Hacker News, then confidently apply for accelerator programs and actively network to boost your project's visibility and growth.

#9about 3 minutes

Navigating the founder mindset and planning for future growth

Founders must balance pitching a grand vision to investors with managing personal self-doubt, a process that helps refine the company's path forward toward growth and hiring.