What Are You Doing Right Now
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@olivier said in What Are You Doing Right Now:
@scottalanmiller Careful, that's exactly that kind of talk that would destroy Open Source done by small companies. I have a lot of work to convince investors that's a possible business, same with consultant helping with business. If they read this, tomorrow every new stuff will become closed source
The biggest, most successful open source investors do so by embracing it, though. Look at Red Hat, Ubuntu and Suse. They make their "free and open" message as loud and clear as possible. They know that the money is and always has been in support, not in software. You want to sell your investors on investing in your support business. Just explain that the software is the marketing tool for your support business, not the business itself. If they are looking at your software as what you are selling, they are not very smart investors (not that dumb money is a bad thing, but you know.)
You don't want big investors who are irrational and emotional and don't understand the marketplace. That's a dangerous place to be.
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@olivier said in What Are You Doing Right Now:
XO is the software, XOA is the product. That's not a miracle, you pay for a service to enjoy XOA (turnkey, updates, QA and support). When you are running a reasonably sized company, time is even more important than a relatively small monthly fee.
He is not, very small shop that couldn't justify any support expense but could someday grow to be one.
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@scottalanmiller said in What Are You Doing Right Now:
@olivier said in What Are You Doing Right Now:
@scottalanmiller Careful, that's exactly that kind of talk that would destroy Open Source done by small companies. I have a lot of work to convince investors that's a possible business, same with consultant helping with business. If they read this, tomorrow every new stuff will become closed source
The biggest, most successful open source investors do so by embracing it, though. Look at Red Hat, Ubuntu and Suse. They make their "free and open" message as loud and clear as possible. They know that the money is and always has been in support, not in software. You want to sell your investors on investing in your support business. Just explain that the software is the marketing tool for your support business, not the business itself. If they are looking at your software as what you are selling, they are not very smart investors (not that dumb money is a bad thing, but you know.)
You don't want big investors who are irrational and emotional and don't understand the marketplace. That's a dangerous place to be.
I don't know where do you find your investors/business consultant, but everyone know that Red Hat is really the exception in that business. We aren't Canonical either (lot of money to start).
I don't want to be a "realist" and leave Open Source world, but it won't work for small companies without support of people believing in it, and not reducing the value of it.
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@olivier said in What Are You Doing Right Now:
I don't know where do you find your investors/business consultant, but everyone know that Red Hat is really the exception in that business. We aren't Canonical either (lot of money to start).
Is RH really an exception? Even EMC is doing a similar (not open, but free without support) option now with ScaleIO. Tons and tons of the best software is fully open. Look at all the big databases today, for example. Microsoft is even moving to open source at a frantic pace.
You find your investors in Silicon Valley where closed source is mostly seen as crazy and legacy.
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@olivier said in What Are You Doing Right Now:
but everyone know that Red Hat is really the exception in that business.
I don't know anyone wh thinks that. Where are you finding this Luddites that know so little about software yet have money to invest? This seems archaic.
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@scottalanmiller RH is really an exception. The way today is:
- go big (millions of $) to have enough power to be critical for millions of users
- go with Freemium model
- or die
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@olivier said in What Are You Doing Right Now:
@scottalanmiller RH is really an exception. The way today is:
- go big (millions of $) to have enough power to be critical for millions of users
- go with Freemium model
- or die
I don't believe that at all. Freemium is a death sentence, that's what you do to dupe investors to ramp up cost and bail before it falls apart. ownCloud just forked to NextCloud for this very reason. ownCloud was effectively dead overnight, NextCloud looks to be doing well. Freemium is a myth, it makes people not very interested in your product while not keeping you closed. It's the worst of both worlds... not open, but not closed.
Going big is handy, but not necessary. It's handy for any company to go big, of course, but the feeling that you have to be on an epic scale just doesn't hold up. No company does well when too small, but it's actually closed source that MUST go big to survive as customers must depend on your survivability whereas with open source, they can gamble on a smaller company that might not have a viable financial future.
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That's my opinion/experience after 2y on the Open Source business (as a primary thing for my company I mean). Feel free to not share this point of view, but it cames from the field
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@olivier said in What Are You Doing Right Now:
@scottalanmiller RH is really an exception.
If by exception you mean "early example of how to do it right that has been successfully emulated many times". I think that the biggest mistake is looking at success stories and saying "all success is a fluke and the secret to success is to do the opposite even though it is statistically not viable and logically not viable and anecdotally not likely."
Instead of looking at good companies and thinking that they don't apply to you and doing the opposite, emulate success.
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It's the same thing that we talk about with IT careers. There is a certain pattern that we see where people look at successful IT people and say "they were a fluke" or "I don't think that their path will work for me" and instead of learning from people who have had success they turn to people that have failed, not tried or have done okay but not reached the levels that they desire and ask them how they go to where they are and emulate them instead. It's crazy, but people do it, all the time.
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I don't want to make an argument from authority, but I think there is a real gap between theory and the reality. Closed Source is like the dark side: easier and faster. But in the end, it's not good.
Open Source is therefore the opposite.
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@olivier I agree here with @scottalanmiller, sticking to the freemium approach is a horrid idea. You'd got an amazing product, you've got an amazing team, you've got the market of XenServer, and possible options of Hyper-V to expand into.
To further extend your supported customers have you considered doing an MSP partnership?
This way an MSP can work to propose a solution, and put your product as the backup appliance for that solution. The support fee goes straight to you, and the MSP supports the client directly.
All information of trouble would go through the MSP, and directly to you to pinpoint any issues.
You'd still provide the software for free of course, but you'd be selling the support to the MSP.
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We are in the process of working on commercial side for the next months, with some great business specialists.
I'll keep you posted.
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And as a follow up to that, I'm sure @Minion-Queen would love to discuss that possibility with you.
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We already have a partner program @DustinB3403
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@olivier said in What Are You Doing Right Now:
We already have a partner program @DustinB3403
Do you mind if I ask with who are you partnered?
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I can't remember all the partner names (a dozen). See the program description here: https://xen-orchestra.com/#!/partner
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I see you're Citrix partners which is awesome.
Are any MSP's a part of your partner program (boot on the ground types)?
Having a partnership with Citrix is a great start as you have a spot right on their website. I ask because I would think MSP's would be able to bring customers to you.
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That's the point of being "on the ground" for a partner/reseller, I don't think we have a reseller which is not reselling "locally"
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@olivier said in What Are You Doing Right Now:
That's the point of being "on the ground" for a partner/reseller, I don't think we have a reseller which is not reselling "locally"
good point.. lol
