Marketing advice from an open source founder
Let's face it, if you want your open source project to become a business, you're going to have to put some effort into marketing it.
This doesn’t mean a few empty articles with eye-catching headlines, but to clearly convey the features of the product to users and help them easily discover the benefits of the product.
This article is mainly aimed at commercial open source software (COSS), because if you want to rely on open source projects to make a living, it is not enough to get stars on Github.
1
Focus on product positioning
This is the cornerstone of marketing strategy.
Who is your target user?
How do you start a conversation with them without knowing this?
Mikael Nida from Lotus, founder of an open source tool that allows you to optimize, test, and deploy pricing packaging models, said: "Take the time to understand your product positioning properly. It is very important to understand your Getting real users and helping you build a better product is critical. Positioning is the key to marketing, and I recommend that other founders focus on that.”
Ask questions of early users or prospective target users. Their feedback is critical because founders can easily get caught up in their own thoughts, getting too intimate with the product to remain objective.
You need this kind of unfiltered feedback, and as unpleasant as it may sound, it will save you a lot of time in the future if you spot a pattern in the questions or feedback users ask.
Ask specific questions. Avoid asking questions that can be answered with yes or no. Do you find our products useful? Which feature of our product do you think is the most useful? Are our products saving you time on the job? For which task did [product name] save you the most time?
Use these questions as icebreakers, then drill down based on the responses you receive. The goal is to find out what is unique about the product and repeat the experience with other potential customers.
2
Clear profit strategy
If you have a big picture for your open source project, you have to find a way for it to survive. A recent letter from Adam Smith, founder of the open source project Kite, makes this point very clearly. Despite a user base of over half a million software developers, the product failed to generate the required revenue.
The most important revelation of the letter is what Adam said: "We didn't build a business because our product wasn't profitable, and it took too long to realize that."
In most cases, the long-term success of an open source project depends on its funding. When choosing a monetization model in an open source project, be as transparent as possible about your monetization plans in your marketing materials.
Large organizations expect the open source tools they use to be continuously maintained, so be honest about pricing so users don't feel cheated in the future.
3
Post on Hacker News
The key to marketing is to get your product in front of the right people. People who focus on technology are more likely to see the benefits of open source and want to try it out for themselves. Therefore, Hacker News can be used as an important channel for your product release.
Metlo is an open source security API platform that lets you inventory, test, and secure your APIs. I spoke with Shri Sukhani from the Metlo project. Shri emphasized the importance of properly launching on Hacker News and shared with me the YC Hacker News Publishing Guide to help them prepare for this.
The following key points are included in this guide:
Avoid marketing jargon, or the Hacker News audience will berate you for it.
Speak as you would explain to a friend, without technical jargon, and try to be concise and clear.
Highlight what you think is the most interesting and let the audience draw their own conclusions without trying to force a sell.
Seeking truth from facts, introducing the development process and thinking of the product.
Remove barriers to trying your product, and since you want feedback, make it as smooth as possible for people to try your tool.
Clear pricing, people always expect open source to be free, this is the burden that open source has always had. If you're going the open-core route, be honest about product pricing or future charging plans.
When asked when they thought the project was ready to be promoted on Hacker News, Shri shared:
"I think in many ways, even now, we're not quite ready for a massive launch. But the most important thing about a startup is to start fast so that you can actually get user feedback and iterate. So, Looking back, I think we should have released the product earlier. I think that when the product was usable, it was ready to be released. Although the product at this time may have problems in some extreme cases, as long as users can Sign up and get started, and you're ready to publish."
4
Always provide valuable content in your content strategy
When some people hear the word "blog," they think of articles catering to search engines or boring long-form guides. However, this approach doesn't work well when it comes to marketing open source tools. Most of the time, your target audience is a technical crowd, so you need to write valuable content. Jan Cizmar from Tolgee, an open source app localization tool, shared their content strategy:
"What works best for us is to build the product publicly and share about it. For example, we write articles about the technology we use and the methodology we follow".
Technical audiences need to see valuable content, otherwise they will dismiss you as fake marketing. You can use the following strategy to find topics for your blog posts: Look at the questions you receive about your product. Don’t simply answer questions, but elaborate on your thought process, why the product is the way it is, or what future plans you might have, and the thinking behind delaying adding a feature. Of course, it would be nice to have a short summary at the top of the article for those who just want a quick answer.
5
think like a developer
When it comes to open source tools, developers can have a lot of influence on whether or not their company decides to use your product. You need to step outside the box of traditional marketing channels and get your tools in front of the right audience. Jannis Gebauer, who alone founded and eventually sold the open source tool pyup.io, took a very interesting approach.
"When thinking about how to expose this tool to a technical audience, I came up with a very practical way to make the tool visible to other developers interacting with the project. I automatically created pull requirements for the project's dependency updates (pull request). It turned out to be the most effective mechanism for attracting paying corporate clients and promoting my project."
When marketing to developers, think about how you can bring value, not rhetoric or branding yourself as "the best in the world".
6
Don't be an open source project
Open source has grown in popularity, and organizations of all kinds are now realizing the importance of open source to global operations. Countries like Germany have even committed to making their software development open source. A decisive factor that many development teams focus on when choosing whether to use open source tools is the continuity of the project.
Is it possible for this tool to continue to develop? An open source tool's best chance of success is getting it in front of the right audience, so don't delay your marketing efforts and start early.
Article source: https://hackernoon.com/open-source-founders-advice-on-marketing-that-you-should-not-ignore
Author丨Alex Cannon
Translation Series丨He Jiangyuan, Wang Jiajun
Proofreading丨Zhuang Biaowei, Li Siying
Edit丨Zhang Kexin
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