Thread by @a16z

New essay on the evolution of open source and how to turn community projects into successful products with Peter Levine and @JenniferHli.

Read more: bit.ly/32YeC7W

Thread below 👇

#OpenSource

1) Open source started on the fringes. Just how fringe? The command [~}$ BIFF was named after a developer’s dog in Berkeley. Now open source is the epicenter of software and innovation. How’d it get there?

2) For years, open source valuations paled in comparison to proprietary companies. But in the last 10 years, there’s been a renaissance. Since 1991, open source businesses have raised $10B in capital. 80% of that was raised after 2005.

3) What’s behind the renaissance? A virtuous cycle of technological and business innovation. Most notably, cloud computing has paved the way for hosted open source SaaS.

4) Building an open source business in 3 steps:

1. Build a critical mass of developers
2. Create a product users want
3. Focus on what value you can provide—not what you can monetize—in a paid product (e.g. hosting, tooling, security).

5) And never forget that community is everything, including your competitive advantage and top of funnel. Enterprises want to buy from the people who wrote the software and avoid vendor lock in with a large cloud vendor.

6) In the future, the flywheel of innovation will continue with tech innovations around blockchain, AI, and open source data. And business innovation around ad-supported, crypto tokens, and data-driven revenue.

7) For the full deck and complete breakdown of how to build an open source business, go here: bit.ly/32YeC7W