[Live Broadcast Review] Open Source Entrepreneurship: How to promote the project and where to find money?

From data to large model application, on November 25th, Hangzhou Yuanchuang Conference was held to share development tips.

On November 8, OSCHINA Live Broadcast - [Open Source Talk] No. 5 invited Gao Chunhui, China's first personal webmaster, Wang Chunsheng, founder of ZenTao Software Company, and Zhu Feng, founder of Jinjin Ledao, to talk about open source entrepreneurship. Topics include open source protocols, open source vulnerabilities, project donations, entrepreneurial tracks, etc.

Among them, Wang Chunsheng has given detailed answers in the article " Seven Misconceptions About Open Source Software " regarding the choice of open source protocols, the attribution of vulnerability responsibilities in open source projects, and whether to donate open source projects to foundations. In addition, " Open source software has vulnerabilities, do the authors need to be held responsible?" Yes! 》《The project was donated to the Open Source Foundation, what is left on the author’s hands? "" and other articles have also conducted detailed analysis of related issues. This article will not go into details. Instead, it will mainly focus on topics such as how to promote open source projects, how to choose an entrepreneurial track, etc.

If you want to know more exciting content, you can scan the QR code below on WeChat to watch the full live broadcast:

01 Can I use my own open source project to start a business?

Zhu Feng: How to judge whether your open source project can be used to start a business?

Wang Chunsheng: First of all, the software must be valuable and can help users solve problems. This is a major premise. No matter what the direction of entrepreneurship, this is basic.

The second is to consider the user groups for which the software is oriented. If your open source software is purely for developers, it will be difficult to achieve commercial transformation. If it is for the inside of the enterprise, there is still great potential in this direction.

There are also some good directions now, such as industrialization. Those with technology can develop in this direction. This is also a technical field that the country has "stuck" and it is possible to make money. A friend of mine has built an open source platform in simulation-related fields and received investment some time ago. There are still great opportunities in these directions in the future.

It's not that you can't do it with TO C attributes, but if you want to use it to start a business, it's best not to touch open source software with TO C attributes. Because products with TO C attributes are already being followed by major Internet companies, their style of play is completely impossible for individuals to copy.

Zhu Feng: Lao Gao, what do you think? When we first started developing ECShop (the first open source e-commerce website building software in China), there was not such a sound open source ecosystem in China. How did you come up with the idea of making ECShop open source?

Gao Chunhui: Open source can indeed attract many users. But whether the project and the company can be sustained has little to do with whether you open source or not, and has a lot to do with the health of the business model itself. One of the most interesting things at that time was that those who made website templates, that is, those who did peripheral work could make money, but those of us who made software did not make money.

The recognition of open source at home and abroad is different. In China, users most likely want to save money. If you open source, I will use your open source version. I would rather change it myself than spend money. However, foreign countries will have higher recognition of paid open source software. With the same software, someone abroad can set up a company and succeed, but it may not be so smooth in China.

We still had a big problem at the time, which was that our software was developed by our own people from beginning to end. Open source is just open source code, and there are very few people who are really willing to contribute code.

Zhu Feng: If I remember correctly, when you started ECShop, the open source ecosystem was not as good as it is now.

Gao Chunhui: Not at that time. But I think that even if there is a good open source ecosystem in China, the situation may not be much better. After the complexity of software increases, there are very few people who are really willing to take the time to understand the software and contribute to it. Most of the most popular projects on GitHub are full-time developers, so how many individual contributors can there be? Everyone is very busy, working 996 hours a day, and when we get home, we just want to sleep. You still need to be cautious when doing open source in the country.

02 What is the mentality of free users when they raise demands?

Zhu Feng: Many times, free users will make requests for functional improvements, bug fixes, technical support, etc. What is your mentality when you encounter these problems? I remember when Lao Gao was working on ECShop, there were many users who came up with various needs and urged them to get them done quickly. As a developer, do you feel a little uncomfortable at this time?

Gao Chunhui: I think my mentality is divided into two stages. The first stage is very happy because someone gives you needs. But you will find out later that once you don’t have enough resources and he talks to you in a morally kidnapping tone when making demands, you will feel unhappy. I have this thing for free, why do you force me to do this function?

There are now articles written by open source maintainers that are very discouraging. There are many reasons. First, he spent a lot of energy and time maintaining this software. Second, he was not paid. Third, some big companies used his stuff and there was no support.

Zhu Feng: What does Chunsheng think of this matter? The situation of the entire open source ecosystem today is different from what it was back then. What do you think of the demands of free users?

Wang Chunsheng: First of all, it is definitely a good thing if someone uses it. I often organize some offline business activities, and many users will tell me that they have been using ZenTao for a long time and have never paid, which is actually quite embarrassing. But I said, this is very good. If you use our software, it is the greatest support for us. He may not buy it at the time, but employees will move around and take Zen Tao to new companies, creating new opportunities. So from this point of view, there are users who come to raise requirements and bugs, and then they may even diss you and so on. I think this is a good thing. It means that someone is really using the software and someone cares about you. If you release a product and no one responds, it’s a different story.

Second, user needs must be treated differently and guidance must be provided. For the same thing, everyone's value perception is actually different. From the perspective of a user who raises needs or bugs, I have put a lot of effort into your product, spent a lot of effort discussing with you, and also helped you make suggestions and improvements. You should respond immediately and deal with these. question.

From a developer's perspective, as Lao Gao said, resources are indeed limited and there is no way to respond to all needs. I think we should keep a normal mind, because it is impossible for everyone to completely agree.

In the face of user needs and feedback, it still needs to be screened. You cannot let user feedback affect the development direction of your product. You must have your own main line. Some requirements are very reasonable and the logic is very self-consistent, but they only represent a small part of the scenarios and may not be appropriate from the perspective of general products. If the needs that have been sorted out are likely to be used by the vast majority of users, then we should respond as soon as possible and process them as quickly as possible. In addition, for some functional requirements that may not be so universal, we can also solve them through plug-ins.

03 Product manufacturing has become an outsourcing company for secondary development. What do you think?

Zhu Feng: Talking about secondary development is also a very interesting topic. Many companies that make products eventually become outsourcing companies that do secondary development. What do you think about this?

Wang Chunsheng: I think you have to resist the temptation, especially at the beginning.

Zhu Feng: But this temptation is often difficult to resist. When you have no money, and someone offers you hundreds of thousands to do it, do you think you can stop doing it?

Wang Chunsheng: We have also encountered it. This will make us constantly doubt ourselves and whether we are going in the right direction. Then we will re-firm, then doubt again, then re-firm, then doubt again, and we will always be in this process.

Over the years, customers have continued to put forward customization requirements. The order amount ranges from hundreds of thousands to hundreds of thousands, and may exceed one million. To do it or not to do it is indeed a big choice. My suggestion is that custom development can be done, but it should not affect the main line of product development, and don't be distracted by custom development projects to deflect the direction of the entire team. If the custom development project is huge, we generally won't accept it; we won't accept it if you ask for on-site presence. Manpower is limited, and a large project may drag the entire team along, which is terrible.

04 How to promote your own open source software?

Zhu Feng: How can your open source project be used by more people and participate in it?

Wang Chunsheng: First, release often, which means releasing as early and as quickly as possible. Open source software naturally has this attribute. Through rapid and continuous product delivery, it can naturally gain user attention. New products will always have early seed users who will love to try something new. This is how Zen started in its early days.

For example, a public account that uses GitHub as its content source will regularly dig out some good projects and publicize them for traffic. This is equivalent to someone doing this for you.

In addition to releasing the product as early as possible, we also had to write articles to promote it. At that time, we also did a lot of promotion in open source China, which was of great help to us. At the same time, we also do SEO optimization in other places, such as some news websites, exchange links, participate in activities, sponsor, etc. Some conventional operating methods have to be used.

Therefore, in the early days, in addition to focusing on writing products, open source software authors still had to put a certain amount of thought into operations. Some people think that after the product is built, users will come naturally. This is not realistic.

Gao Chunhui: There is no essential difference between making open source software and making a website. It is just a product. Product promotion is nothing more than looking at its use and your audience. Your audience is engaged in e-commerce, so you need to find this circle to expose your new functions and features, so that users will be curious to use them.

Back then, there were two ideas for doing e-commerce: follow Taobao or start your own website?

For traffic, everyone will choose Taobao. Only large companies are likely to build their own e-commerce websites, but maintenance is very heavy. We took over the Motorola project at that time, built a website and used advertising to attract traffic and promote sales, but in the end Motorola still chose Taobao and JD.com. Because for them, whether it is Taobao or a website, in the end, as long as they can achieve sales.

At least at that time, there was someone under his control, and the user was interested in trying it. Domestic users like to keep data in their own hands and like privatized deployment. If the relevant functions are well done, it is actually very attractive.

Zhu Feng: I think it is appropriate to establish personal influence and build your own personal brand. If you are a KOL with your own traffic, promoting your own projects will often get twice the result with half the effort. But if you are an amateur who just writes code, this may be more difficult.

Now that traffic is too expensive, it is obviously unrealistic to buy traffic and use ads to promote open source projects. So how do you keep people who trust you in your own private domain and turn yourself into a KOL? This is important.

Chunsheng also mentioned just now that he previously spent one-third of his time on development, one-third of his time on document writing, and one-third of his time on writing articles. Why does he spend a third of his time writing articles? He just wants to establish his own influence, because only the traffic that comes with a personal private domain is really your traffic, and can be converted for your current projects, or even future projects.

05 Open source software and charge for training, is this idea feasible?

Zhu Feng: A netizen in the live broadcast room asked, is it feasible to open source software and charge for training?

Gao Chunhui: The cost will be very high. Unless you are training online or using recorded courses, it will be very troublesome once the recorded courses are leaked.

Wang Chunsheng: If you ask me to give you advice, it would be don’t think about charging for technical support or training.

Gao Chunhui: Yes, you have to make money through the product itself.

Wang Chunsheng: I would like to say a few more words about this. I think many open source developers don't understand technical support correctly. Many open source software WeChat groups and QQ groups I have come into contact with are all netizens hugging each other to keep each other warm, and the official authors basically do not come out to answer questions.

The author will think that the software is free, has FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions), documents, and may even have videos. I have done everything I need to do. If you want to solve the problem, you should do it yourself. I have come into contact with many open source software authors, and they basically have this mentality. This is perfectly fine if open source authors are developing software solely for their own enjoyment.

But if you want to commercialize, you still need to treat these users as potential customers, provide them with technical support seriously and down-to-earth, let them use the product, and let them feel that you and your team are serious about building the product. Do things. Only in this way can we build trust with users and make the next step of commercial transformation possible.

Think about it, if we go into a store to eat and the clerk says indifferently, "The chopsticks are here, the tea is there, and even the stove is there, you can cook it yourself," you will definitely not be happy. Even though I'm not currently paying, how do you know I won't be paying in the future?

Therefore, our strategy is to invest a lot of manpower and resources in the open source version, and even require free users to respond to the open source version as soon as possible. Only by supporting open source users can there be a steady stream of users and demand for the paid version.

06 Have you made money from Zen Tao?

Zhu Feng: Do you make money by doing open source projects? Does Zen Tao make money? Are there any positive trends in profitability?

Wang Chunsheng: In the early days, I really used love to generate electricity and worked hard to create open source. Since the second half of 2012, cash flow has basically been break-even.

In 2011, we were a small team of more than ten people. We had already incurred a certain amount of expenses, and we did encounter the problem of insufficient funds. Lao Gao made the first payment without saying a word and was my angel investor. At the end of the year, several other shareholders also chipped in money one after another, prepared the operating expenses for 2012, and decided to start recruiting talents for sales, technical support and other positions. I made a plan at that time, and it depends on whether it will work out or not. If that doesn't work, go back to work.

In the first half of 2012, we launched the first paid version, and by the second half of the year, our cash flow basically achieved breakeven.

Zhu Feng: How did Lao Gao make money in ECShop back then?

Gao Chunhui: The software itself does not make money, it makes money by selling it. At that time, ECShop was started around 2006, and e-commerce was not yet popular in China. What to do if you have no money? I will definitely go for financing at that time. After chatting with investors for about ten minutes, they said that China's e-commerce will not have any major development in ten years. This makes me feel discouraged, so I’ll sell it.

At that time, Taobao and JD.com were growing, but no one knew how big they could be. Looking back now, the ECShop model does have a ceiling in China. Because in China, the platform strategy is adopted, traffic is taken away by the platform, and the single-store model basically does not have too many users. On the contrary, Taobao's ecological service providers will have greater room for development. But its ceiling is also very low. It can make money every year but it is limited. It is basically impossible to go public.

07 Where can I find money to start a business?

Zhu Feng: Everyone knows that the entrepreneurial market has not been particularly good in recent years, and it is especially difficult to find investors. Ask two veterans to talk to you about how to find money.

Gao Chunhui: The money I invested in Zen Taoism at that time was also scraped together from everywhere. No matter how many spring students you have, I can't afford them. It was difficult to raise money at that time, but for me, even if I lost all my money and the company closed down, I would still be fine. At that time, I felt that as long as Chun Sheng could do it seriously and make no mistakes, he would be able to make money.

As for now, I think don’t think about raising funds. Just get this thing built first. Even if you use your spare time to do it and run it, you will be much less stressed.

Never think that your stress will decrease after you take the money, and your stress will increase after you take the money. Because almost all current investments are jointly and severally guaranteed. If you ask for a VC, you can't get away with a joint guarantee. I saw a Guangdong entrepreneur say a few days ago that all the money saved for medical insurance has been frozen by investors. In theory, this is life-saving money. It’s not much, maybe tens of thousands of yuan, but you won’t even let go of the medical insurance card money. Do you think it’s easy to get this money?

Zhu Feng: Chunsheng received investment during the epidemic, and the valuation of this round of financing is not low. In this process, how do you choose these investors?

Wang Chunsheng: It was also a coincidence, introduced by a friend. Our investor is Gaocheng Capital, an investment institution in China that focuses on the enterprise services track. We all agree very much with each other: Gaocheng Capital agrees with our business methods, and we also agree with Gaocheng Capital’s investment philosophy. Hong Jing, the founding partner of Gaocheng Capital, knows the enterprise server industry very well and invests in long-term projects.

As of today, in fact, no one is very optimistic about the general direction of the enterprise server track. Affected by Sino-US relations, economic environment and other aspects, the enterprise service track is at a low point. Venture capitalists are paying more attention to hard technology and artificial intelligence, so it is not easy to get money now. Another thing is that US dollar funds have basically been withdrawn, and RMB funds are more cautious in investing.

If you want to start a business, I think this is not a good time.

Gao Chunhui: I personally think this is a good time to accumulate strength. You can do things without raising money.

08 An open source chat software with more than 4,000 stars, how to go down?

Zhu Feng: There is a question from a netizen in the live broadcast room. He has an open source project, which is a chat software with more than 4,000 stars. Can you give me some advice on how to proceed?

Wang Chunsheng: I think there is still a fee. Differentiate software functions through open source version and paid version. In China, there are often some sayings: Chinese companies are not willing to pay for software. I think this view is wrong. The customers I interact with, no matter how small, are very happy to pay for the software. But there is a premise, that is, this software needs to be very cost-effective. If someone can solve a problem for a few thousand yuan or 20,000 to 30,000 yuan, even if the company is not very large, they will still be willing to pay. Nowadays, many enterprise server track software are not easy to sell. Why? Because a person's annual authorization costs several thousand, and many consumers really can't accept this price.

A chat software has more than 4,000 stars. First of all, it has a better foundation, and you can try to promote a paid version.

Zhu Feng: So if he sells the paid version, but the income is not high, what should you do?

Gao Chunhui: He has to first think about what those people who gave him more than 4,000 stars think. Everyone has hands-on skills, so there is no need to buy the paid version. The more professional your software is, the more likely users are to pay. Your software can be easily installed and used, and there may be very few people willing to pay for it.

Wang Chunsheng: We also have a chat software called Xuanxuan. It was also open source at the beginning, but later we did not use the open source method to do it. After a year, with sporadic income, we can earn the salary of our development team with just a few dollars. I think this may have something to do with the direction, because now domestic enterprises WeChat, DingTalk, and Feishu are too strong.

But I don’t think you should be discouraged. You still need to find your own positioning, that is, what is the difference from other software, and don’t make things the same as others. What functions does Feishu have and what functions does DingTalk have? We also need to have these functions. This is not acceptable. We must have our own points of difference. We must clarify our positioning and what kind of user scenarios we are targeting. For example, if Zhuanzhuan enters the military industry, it will make the most secure private deployment software.

This is purely for reference, because we haven’t fully completed it yet and are still exploring the direction.

Second, from an operational perspective, there are indeed many things that need to be done in running a business, which require you to be patient and polish them. For example, pricing strategy. Many open source software authors are particularly programmers, and their pricing is very straightforward. You can buy a lifetime version for 100 yuan or 1,000 yuan, or you can set an early bird price of 1,000 yuan, and the price will increase later.

This pricing approach is too hasty. Pricing is tricky. For example, in a supermarket, something is more expensive, but it will make another product with a lower price very affordable. This is a strategy; another is the packaging strategy. At McDonald's or KFC, you can buy it for 20 yuan. After ordering a burger, you can get a pack of fries or a cup of Coke for an extra two or three yuan, which makes consumers feel that it is very affordable.

Some people believe that pricing is equivalent to determining life and death. Pricing determines the user groups, sales models, business models, and funnel conversion models that the product targets in the market. In the enterprise server track, some products are very expensive. One person's annual license costs several thousand yuan. Even foreign products can be sold for 20,000 yuan per person's annual license. But others can sell it, but we can’t, and the volume they sell is much larger than ours. So you still have to find your own market.

09 How to publicize negative public opinion?

Zhu Feng: When negative public opinion occurs, how do you go about public relations? This is quite important for open source software.

Wang Chunsheng: When ZenTao was released in the early years, many people indeed said that there are already many open source defect management tools and bug management tools on the market, so why should we reinvent the wheel? At that time, I had to spend some energy to respond to these doubts and complaints.

Many friends are trying to persuade me that there is no need to pay attention to this. But I say you must respond positively and explain to everyone from my perspective. The product may be unsatisfactory, but it is not as bad as you said.

The most important thing about responding positively is not to make the person agree with your point of view, but to give the "bystander" confidence. From the perspective of a bystander, if the software author does not respond positively, he will feel that there is something wrong with the product, and he will definitely lose confidence in the product. There is a saying that three words can make a difference!

ZenTao is my job and the source of food, clothing, housing and transportation for our entire team, so I will definitely respond positively to influence the users who are watching. This is quite critical.

Gao Chunhui: This reminds me of something. Strictly speaking, it is being blackmailed. He said: "I know there is a loophole in your place. Should you give me money and I will fix it for you, or should I sell it to someone else?"

Finally we admitted defeat. Fortunately, the money is not much, and the person is not expecting you to earn a lot of money for him. We also feel that there is nothing wrong with spending money to nip this problem in the bud. After all, the code may have tens of thousands of lines. Sometimes it is really impossible to cover everything, and it is difficult to find it at once. Anyone who comes to your door and is willing to talk to you is considered helping you. If it is taken into the hands of someone with ulterior motives, it may hit you even harder.