Why every startup should be built on open-source... 🤔🤔

Thank you @nevodavid for this very interesting and inspiring article. It's impressive how quickly the community has grown! As for myself, I am also developing a startup based on an open-source project. Please feel free to take a look and let me know what you think!
The project : github.com/Ikomia-dev/IkomiaApi
The website : ikomia.ai

Thank you @nevodavid for this, Great Article.

for those reason @ IDURAR we are building open source erp crm : github.com/idurar/idurar-erp-crm

I’ll read this some time it’s exactly a question I needed answers too!

You've hit the nail on the head! 🚀

Starting a new venture is like embarking on an epic quest, and open source is the magic elixir for startups. Here's why:

Cost Efficiency: Open source tools and libraries save startups precious resources. It's like having a treasure trove of software without the dragon-sized licensing fees.

Community Magic: Open source projects thrive on collaboration. Tap into the wisdom of the crowd and build upon battle-tested code. It's like having a fellowship of developers at your side.

Innovation Accelerator: With open source, you stand on the shoulders of giants. Leverage existing projects and focus on what makes your startup unique. It's like wielding a legendary sword!

Transparency & Trust: Open source fosters trust. Your users can see exactly what's under the hood. It's like a transparent knight in shining armor.

So, here's to the brave startups wielding the open-source Excalibur! 🗡️

Cheers to innovation, collaboration, and the journey ahead!

Thank you @nevodavid for this article, it's truly inspiring. You just provided me with valuable insights for a product my team and I are developing. Open source remains undefeated!

This is something I've been wishing to see a lot more from companies. What I've usually seen is a desire to open-source certain parts and leave other parts closed for fear of IP theft (more so for bigger companies).

I'm a believer that a good product won't go far without a great team and great culture, things that are a much harder to copy.

What do you think about startups who fear investors will see their startup as a liability if their code is freely available? I even heard the project would not get funded if a developer worked on it without paid contract, fearing they could come and claim a portion of equity later on. When I was working with startups back in the 2010s that was what founders were saying around me, not sure what the landscape looks like today.

Thank you for saying it out loud, Nevo!

Agree 100%

I love open source but I think we fixate on GitHub stars too much. Contributions, forks, issues opened, plugins created, blog posts written would be a better metric - of course much more difficult to measure.

Thank you @nevodavid for sharing experience. It is useful to know what other OSS experience, because I hear different opinions. As usual, very useful article 👌

From my side, when I started areg project, I was not sure whether need to go to OSS or not. Then shortly understood that if you want to spread the technology, this is probably the best marketing that can work. Many people where telling me that I'll loose IP. But my agenda is not selling the technology, but the products serving the technology. I don't regret that went open source and you one more time confirmed this 😉
I would love to learn more from your experience.
Cheers 🍻

I built an SaaS startup exclusively on Open Source. When my VC fund violated our contract, refused to pay me and my employers, we just took the code and started a new company 😁

Today 5 months later the original company is worthless and we're starting to make money. If it continues according to current projections, we'll have a Unicorn in 6 months 🥳

There's one born every minute 😂

ainiro.io

While I applaud those who see the opportunity to leverage open source within their business model, I respectfully disagree with the premise that all startups should make their products open source on several grounds:

• Not all products are technically architected in a way to easily support self-hosting adoption. Some applications go beyond simply needing a host machine and a singular data store. Many require third-party paid services to operate as a means to reduce what the internal team is responsible for.
• Not all owners or investors will be onboard with open licensing of proprietary IP.
• OSS Marketing techniques are only applicable to a niche of the total market audience. Github Stars are less effective if you need to raise brand awareness to someone who works outside of engineering.
• Not all companies will have the appropriate resources (time, money, labor) to appropriately maintain their open source projects long term. Many companies struggle with a balance of support and roadmap development, making the product open-source would exacerbate that challenge.
• There has to be a level of demand for an OSS Business model to sustain operations, and that demand is not uniform across all product categories.
• Sometimes, the level of trust you need in a specific application is dependent on your employees not having direct access to the application or data. As ironic as it sounds, it's a legitimate need for certain business functions to meet requirements around anonymity or privacy.

Like many options in development and business, the OSS business model is just another tool in the toolbox that we've assembled over the course of our careers. We have to exercise good judgement to understand if it's the appropriate tool for the job and not treat every problem with a golden hammer.

As an alternative, I am very supportive of all businesses looking for ways to contribute back to the open source community. Many of us have developed quality solutions internally for mundane processes that provide no tangible market advantage for our products (beyond making the product higher quality); packaging these and pushing to public registries does help the overall ecosystem and helps build some brand awareness through the means mentioned in the article.

I may be late, but I want to join the discussion too, here are two project as my first step on the open source community. Both are on building state.

• github.com/kopoze/kpz
• github.com/hantsaniala/hStream

Good article!

This is our Open Source project: The Developer-Friendly TypeScript Framework for Server-Side Applications

Consider give us a ⭐ on GitHub: github.com/expressots/expressots
Here is the project site: expresso-ts.com/

I couldn't agree more with the idea that startups can benefit immensely from embracing open-source technologies. As a passionate advocate for open-source solutions, I've witnessed firsthand how it fosters innovation, reduces costs, and accelerates development.

At Coding Crafts, we firmly believe in the power of open source. As a leading Software Development Company in USA, we've integrated open-source technologies into our projects to deliver top-notch solutions for our clients. It's not just about cost-effectiveness; it's about tapping into a global community of developers, harnessing their expertise, and creating robust products that stand out in the market.

In fact, being recognized as the Best IT company in USA wouldn't have been possible without our commitment to open source. It has allowed us to stay agile, adapt to changing needs, and deliver high-quality software that transforms startups into industry leaders.

So, I wholeheartedly endorse the idea that startups should build on open source. It's a strategic move that can set your company up for success, just as it has for us at Coding Crafts.

Love this article! We’ve been considering open-sourcing portions of Startup Wars so that other developers can use our startup based financial calculations.

Would anyone here find that useful? Such as equity calculations, tax calculations, HR, marketing, etc as an API.