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Starting an open source company

unusual.vc · 2,980 words · saved by 1 readers

Learn about the critical steps to starting an open-source software company, including primary approaches and what to look for in a co-founder. ‍ ‍ ‍ The path for building a new company based on open-source software (OSS) shares similarities and differences with the steps described in the Unusual Field Guide. In this playbook, we cover these nuances when it comes to OSS companies: ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ This OSS Field Guide highlights the key issues that open-source founders must think about and best practices they can apply in the early stages of company-building to lay the foundation for success. We draw on our firsthand experiences of founding and working with companies that have a proven track record in open-source communities. We also include insights from the founders of more than a dozen leading open-source companies, including Vercel, Elastic, Cockroach Labs, Grafana Labs, DataStax, Temporal, Astronomer, Styra, Heptio, Sysdig, InfluxDB, Neon, and PostHog. ‍ If you are an OSS founder, we welcom

Starting an open source company - Unusual Starting Your Company Starting Your Company Finding PMF Finding PMF Building your GTM machine Building your GTM machine Hiring & Leadership Hiring & Leadership Fundraising Fundraising 12 min read Starting an open source company Intro Intro 12 min read Starting an open source company TL;DR OSS companies prioritize project adoption and community growth over traditional go-to-market functions, often seeking funding for Series A before establishing a repeatable sales motion. Key reasons for starting an OSS company include broad distribution, self-serv

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