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I'm currently experimenting with this directly. Specifically trying to make Open Source sustainable but for a consumer project. I think Open Source really wor

I'm currently experimenting with this directly. Specifically trying to make Open Source sustainable but for a consumer project. I think Open Source really works for infrastructure projects and it's possible to do really well either working on a system like Kubernetes or Elasticsearch. Not so well for projects that are more focused on consumers. My app, Polar, is focused more on consumers and is an app for people to managed their reading and notes. Similar to Evernote but also has spaced repetition support like Anki and we're working on collaboration features too: https://getpolarized.io/ https://getpolarized.io/ I wanted Polar to be Open Source but we've had almost zero source code contributions in the last six months. Most of our contributions from users have been from people suggesting features, filing bugs, suggesting architecture changes or product/market fit issues. These have been very helpful of course. However, to date, we've only raised about $500. To be clear I'm working on Polar full time so I've probably made about $0.15 per hour... I think there's a lot of reasons for this actually but if I were to narrow it down. 1. Consumers hate paying for software. The plan with Polar is to go with a freemium model so we need 100k or so users. 2. There's a big of a 'tragedy of the commons' here with the donations aren't coming in because everyone assumes someone else will donate. This is really a bad situation in a lot of ways for the 'self hosting' crowd. They want quality apps but they're not willing to pay for them. We're polling our users about why they haven't donated and here are the current results: https://i.imgur.com/cOUy10f.png https://i.imgur.com/cOUy10f.png I think my next main goal is to do some sort of Kickstarter and try to raise $150k or so. Either that or focus on raising grants or VC.

dman 8y ago
Thanks for doing this and sharing the survey results.
simonh 8y ago
It looks like it works as a service. Aren’t you concerned someone could fork you, spin it up on AWS and compete you into the dust? What benefits do you think the project and users will gain from it being open source?
- burtonator 8y ago
  Possibly ... not right now though. First I need it to be successful before I start worrying about those issues. If someone were to do that now I would be amazed... honestly and would just want to work with them :) The license is GPL and the backend infra might not be open. Trying to still figure that part out. It depends on whether the community steps up and wants to keep it open.
robenkleene 8y ago
Some really quick unsolicited feedback (while I acknowledge upfront I know nothing about your business except what I gleaned from 10 seconds on your website): You say your model is "freemium" but I don't see a way to pay for anything on your website? That's not freemium, that's donationware. I'm not aware of any business like yours (consumer-focused desktop software) that's been successful as donationware, are you? If not don't expect to be the first. I wouldn't read into the survey results, while better than nothing, look at what people do, not what they say they'll do. The survey results are great if you want to dig into the subconscious rationalizations people have for not donating, but it's not going to help actually get people to pay. Instead look for real-life examples of products like yours that people are paying an amount for that you'd be satisfied with (if you have examples like these I'd love to see them, I'd love for the model you're trying to actually be viable, I've just never seen it succeed). Finally, the business model for this product seems obvious to me: Charge a subscription for users that want to use sync more X than some threshold Y.
- burtonator 8y ago
  > Some really quick unsolicited feedback go for it... really appreciate it. > You say your model is "freemium" but I don't see a way to pay for anything on your website? That's not freemium, that's donationware. Most apps that are freemium allow the user to use the app for free first and then convert later. Right now the app will prompt you to upgrade once you hit a threshold. Right now one of the challenges (with freemium) is that since we're a new app many people haven't fully integrated it into their work flow so asking them to pay for something which they are unsure about or uncommitted is a tough sell. > nstead look for real-life examples of products like yours that people are paying an amount for that you'd be satisfied with (if you have examples like these I'd love to see them, I'd love for the model you're trying to actually be viable, I've just never seen it succeed). Freemium has succeeded (github, evernote, etc) and OSS + freemium has too (Wordpress.org vs Wordpress.com). > Finally, the business model for this product seems obvious to me: Charge a subscription for users that want to use sync more X than some threshold Y. Yes... right now most of the users are still early so aren't actively using the sync feature. I might step this up though and require more users to pay earlier than later. Honestly the biggest challenge right now is distribution and user base. We have a smaller user base (1500 active users, 4-5k monthly users) and I need to get this 10x at least. This is my goal for now. Without the larger user base all this other discussion is worthless honestly. The challenges there have been around distribution. Improving our SEO, getting into the app stores, etc. It's not as easy as it would seem. Takes a lot of science and testing unless you've had a ton of experience here before.
scarejunba 8y ago
> There's a big of a 'tragedy of the commons' here with the donations aren't coming in because everyone assumes someone else will donate. Have you tried the "progress bar to this month's target" strategy? May even be worth it to count your contribution in to that to seed the bar so it's not zero.
- burtonator 8y ago
  Yes.. actually... I'm considering gamifying it like this as you suggest. I'm planning on hitting a usability milestone first as I have a few big changes planned (new webapp, some important features, new chrome extension, etc). Then I'm going to make a pitch for this and include a fundraiser bar in the app.
dpau 8y ago
I've been building & running a niche website since 2015 that requires around 20hrs/wk in support, social media, and continued software development (all code gpl on github). It's become one of the most (if not the most) used software resources in my community, and users seem appreciative of my efforts. But I very rarely get donations. Previous appeals on social media for donations have resulted in small bumps that quickly fade, so I'm focused more on trying to get subscription donors. Lately I've had some luck finding two business sponsors and now my Patreon at least covers the server costs. I think it's true what others said- in order to persuade these businesses I had to add a "sponsored by" section on the site with their logos. Ads, basically. The 'tragedy of the commons' is definitely a thing. I'd be happy if people at least contributed new entries, photos, reviews, and comments to the website, but less than 1% of users actually do so. Anyway, my next steps are to cold-call more potential business sponsors as well as to try selling merchandise related to the domain. If I can't get to about $1k/mo. this year I might need to just pull myself away from the project for my own financial stability and sanity.
- burtonator 8y ago
  One issue I thought of, if you're going to pull yourself away anyway, is to just put up a banner saying essentially: "This app requires community sponsorship and we're trying to raise $20k in April 2019 or there will be no new releases and we will close the project." One way to look at it is that if people can't pay or won't pay then they don't deserve it or they don't care.
  - krageon 8y ago
    While this may work, and would work on me if I really did love the project enough, I think the fact that a lot of companies use big, scary language like this (the most notable example is Wikipedia) means that this isn't a well-received option anymore.
- ketzo 8y ago
  This is speculative, but I think you have a real advantage being in a niche community. You say users seem appreciative of your efforts -- let them know who they're appreciating and exactly how they can best show their appreciation! I think a Wikipedia-style open letter or banner as another commenter suggested could really serve you well. If you let your community know, honest and ugly, that you can't continue to do this without support, you might get more traction.
Folcon 8y ago
How are you soliciting code contributions? Do you have a strategy?
vharuck 8y ago
Have you thought about selling support contracts? Any enhancements developed for one customer would benefit another, but they get the guarantee of bug fixes and custom features. Sure, they could hire any coder to do this, but who better to trust than the developer?
cellularmitosis 8y ago
> but also has spaced repetition support like Anki Oh wow, this is fantastic. Could you highlight this a bit more on your splash page? I missed it completely the last time I visited getpolarized.io.
jondubois 8y ago
Compared to infrastructure projects, I think that consumer-facing open source projects are much easier in terms of finding users but much harder in terms of monetization. My infrastructure pub/sub project is relatively popular https://socketcluster.io/ https://socketcluster.io/ but I can definitely see quite a few monetization opportunities (in addition to doing occasional consulting on the side) but I haven't capitalized most of the big opportunities yet - In a large part because my focus is still very much on adoption (which is often at odds with monetization). I think it will be possible to monetize it later through optional commercial plugins and performance optimizations. In terms of adoption, it's been steady linear growth since the beginning so it feels like constant struggle but at least it doesn't seem to be stopping; in fact it appears to be getting easier as time passes. I deal mostly with companies, startups and blockchain projects. That said, I've known authors of very popular back end software projects that have had a really hard time monetizing but I think this is because they were more like standards-compliant libraries than 'infrastructure'.
quickthrower2 8y ago
To me that seems like the kind of product that should be proprietary so you can make a living. You could then invest money in marketing this to students etc. You could then open source parts of it, but keep the full product paid for.

dman 8y ago

Thanks for doing this and sharing the survey results.

simonh 8y ago

It looks like it works as a service. Aren’t you concerned someone could fork you, spin it up on AWS and compete you into the dust? What benefits do you think the project and users will gain from it being open source?

burtonator 8y ago
Possibly ... not right now though. First I need it to be successful before I start worrying about those issues. If someone were to do that now I would be amazed... honestly and would just want to work with them :) The license is GPL and the backend infra might not be open. Trying to still figure that part out. It depends on whether the community steps up and wants to keep it open.

robenkleene 8y ago

Some really quick unsolicited feedback (while I acknowledge upfront I know nothing about your business except what I gleaned from 10 seconds on your website): You say your model is "freemium" but I don't see a way to pay for anything on your website? That's not freemium, that's donationware. I'm not aware of any business like yours (consumer-focused desktop software) that's been successful as donationware, are you? If not don't expect to be the first. I wouldn't read into the survey results, while better than nothing, look at what people do, not what they say they'll do. The survey results are great if you want to dig into the subconscious rationalizations people have for not donating, but it's not going to help actually get people to pay. Instead look for real-life examples of products like yours that people are paying an amount for that you'd be satisfied with (if you have examples like these I'd love to see them, I'd love for the model you're trying to actually be viable, I've just never seen it succeed). Finally, the business model for this product seems obvious to me: Charge a subscription for users that want to use sync more X than some threshold Y.

burtonator 8y ago
> Some really quick unsolicited feedback go for it... really appreciate it. > You say your model is "freemium" but I don't see a way to pay for anything on your website? That's not freemium, that's donationware. Most apps that are freemium allow the user to use the app for free first and then convert later. Right now the app will prompt you to upgrade once you hit a threshold. Right now one of the challenges (with freemium) is that since we're a new app many people haven't fully integrated it into their work flow so asking them to pay for something which they are unsure about or uncommitted is a tough sell. > nstead look for real-life examples of products like yours that people are paying an amount for that you'd be satisfied with (if you have examples like these I'd love to see them, I'd love for the model you're trying to actually be viable, I've just never seen it succeed). Freemium has succeeded (github, evernote, etc) and OSS + freemium has too (Wordpress.org vs Wordpress.com). > Finally, the business model for this product seems obvious to me: Charge a subscription for users that want to use sync more X than some threshold Y. Yes... right now most of the users are still early so aren't actively using the sync feature. I might step this up though and require more users to pay earlier than later. Honestly the biggest challenge right now is distribution and user base. We have a smaller user base (1500 active users, 4-5k monthly users) and I need to get this 10x at least. This is my goal for now. Without the larger user base all this other discussion is worthless honestly. The challenges there have been around distribution. Improving our SEO, getting into the app stores, etc. It's not as easy as it would seem. Takes a lot of science and testing unless you've had a ton of experience here before.

scarejunba 8y ago

> There's a big of a 'tragedy of the commons' here with the donations aren't coming in because everyone assumes someone else will donate. Have you tried the "progress bar to this month's target" strategy? May even be worth it to count your contribution in to that to seed the bar so it's not zero.

burtonator 8y ago
Yes.. actually... I'm considering gamifying it like this as you suggest. I'm planning on hitting a usability milestone first as I have a few big changes planned (new webapp, some important features, new chrome extension, etc). Then I'm going to make a pitch for this and include a fundraiser bar in the app.

dpau 8y ago

I've been building & running a niche website since 2015 that requires around 20hrs/wk in support, social media, and continued software development (all code gpl on github). It's become one of the most (if not the most) used software resources in my community, and users seem appreciative of my efforts. But I very rarely get donations. Previous appeals on social media for donations have resulted in small bumps that quickly fade, so I'm focused more on trying to get subscription donors. Lately I've had some luck finding two business sponsors and now my Patreon at least covers the server costs. I think it's true what others said- in order to persuade these businesses I had to add a "sponsored by" section on the site with their logos. Ads, basically. The 'tragedy of the commons' is definitely a thing. I'd be happy if people at least contributed new entries, photos, reviews, and comments to the website, but less than 1% of users actually do so. Anyway, my next steps are to cold-call more potential business sponsors as well as to try selling merchandise related to the domain. If I can't get to about $1k/mo. this year I might need to just pull myself away from the project for my own financial stability and sanity.

burtonator 8y ago
One issue I thought of, if you're going to pull yourself away anyway, is to just put up a banner saying essentially: "This app requires community sponsorship and we're trying to raise $20k in April 2019 or there will be no new releases and we will close the project." One way to look at it is that if people can't pay or won't pay then they don't deserve it or they don't care.
- krageon 8y ago
  While this may work, and would work on me if I really did love the project enough, I think the fact that a lot of companies use big, scary language like this (the most notable example is Wikipedia) means that this isn't a well-received option anymore.
ketzo 8y ago
This is speculative, but I think you have a real advantage being in a niche community. You say users seem appreciative of your efforts -- let them know who they're appreciating and exactly how they can best show their appreciation! I think a Wikipedia-style open letter or banner as another commenter suggested could really serve you well. If you let your community know, honest and ugly, that you can't continue to do this without support, you might get more traction.

Folcon 8y ago

How are you soliciting code contributions? Do you have a strategy?

vharuck 8y ago

Have you thought about selling support contracts? Any enhancements developed for one customer would benefit another, but they get the guarantee of bug fixes and custom features. Sure, they could hire any coder to do this, but who better to trust than the developer?

cellularmitosis 8y ago

> but also has spaced repetition support like Anki Oh wow, this is fantastic. Could you highlight this a bit more on your splash page? I missed it completely the last time I visited getpolarized.io.

jondubois 8y ago

Compared to infrastructure projects, I think that consumer-facing open source projects are much easier in terms of finding users but much harder in terms of monetization. My infrastructure pub/sub project is relatively popular https://socketcluster.io/ https://socketcluster.io/ but I can definitely see quite a few monetization opportunities (in addition to doing occasional consulting on the side) but I haven't capitalized most of the big opportunities yet - In a large part because my focus is still very much on adoption (which is often at odds with monetization). I think it will be possible to monetize it later through optional commercial plugins and performance optimizations. In terms of adoption, it's been steady linear growth since the beginning so it feels like constant struggle but at least it doesn't seem to be stopping; in fact it appears to be getting easier as time passes. I deal mostly with companies, startups and blockchain projects. That said, I've known authors of very popular back end software projects that have had a really hard time monetizing but I think this is because they were more like standards-compliant libraries than 'infrastructure'.

quickthrower2 8y ago

To me that seems like the kind of product that should be proprietary so you can make a living. You could then invest money in marketing this to students etc. You could then open source parts of it, but keep the full product paid for.