4 ms·

Whats the end game? Doesn’t taking VC money spell a similar ending to Figma (acquisition)?

by ricardobeat 4y ago

jacooper 4y ago
Well at least its fully open source
- rapnie 4y ago
  Somewhere down the line a bunch of money has to be made. For themselves and especially to make those VC folks happy (however 'patient' they are, according to their announcement). If they remain 100% open-source, their hosted servers may come with subscription (the Discourse model), and/or they may supply paid for professional templates and plugin packs. But whatever their plans are in this regards, I think it would be good if they were more clear on their planned strategy.
  - jacooper 4y ago
    SASS is the way to go for almost every FOSS startup
- jahewson 4y ago
  For now.
atoav 4y ago
What is the end game for e.g. the Blender Foundation? Looking back on a crazy good software project when the Nuclear war starts?
- Pulcinella 4y ago
  Blender doesn’t take VC money that I am aware of. They do accept donations, many of which are from large multinational corporations, but I don’t think any of those are expecting equity in Blender; they do it for ideological and/or strategic reasons. Still, it’s not like there aren’t many, many companies that make money from open source, including when it’s their own code they are open sourcing. (Honestly I wished way, way more lawyers and executives in general understood where the value their company provides actually comes from. Too many times they think their “secret sauce” is the actual code when it’s really the team and the labor that went into creating it, maintaining it, supporting it, and selling it. They aren’t being paid for the code, they are being paid to deal with it!)
victor9000 4y ago
Open core SaaS, similar to ElasticSearch
marapuru 4y ago
Good question, and exactly what popped up in my head. Is there any documentation of the type of VC money that was accepted? Does this _really_ mean that from now on the investors are in control? Or is this a type of open source funding without strings attached? I can't really see that happening.
- rapnie 4y ago
  This is a recent announcement on their community forum that provides more background and detail: https://community.penpot.app/t/penpot-our-time-has-come/1563 https://community.penpot.app/t/penpot-our-time-has-come/1563
  - marapuru 4y ago
    I’ve read through that post and think the most insightful part is this: “ Most investors will love what you have achieved but also feel strongly about creating immediate commercial results. We were excited to learn that Jon, Sudip and Dan from Decibel 28 were a different group of investors. If you want a patient investor who gets open source and community, look no further - nobody beats Decibel’s passion and care for your team’s vision and encourage you to build a strong open-source community around your company!” But the terminology used is hollow and finite. Why would they provide an open source company with $8M? Passion alone? There must be some sort of ROI they aim for. So what is that?
    - chakrabartis 4y ago
      Hi - Sudip from Decibel here. Backing oss companies is most of what we do; so, couple of thoughts fwiw. first, building an oss company is really building two companies and definitely not at the expense of one another. For the community, there has to be a free-forever, well-supported product, period. Without that, there is no community in the long run and hence, no company either. The enterprise business, when that comes, must be focused entirely on delivering value to enterprises and NOT on monetizing individual users. That’s what we strongly believe at Decibel and that’s what we have found mission-driven oss founders believe too. But, this certainly requires more patience and capital; hence, the need for complete alignment all around.

Whats the end game? Doesn’t taking VC money spell a similar ending to Figma (acquisition)?

jacooper 4y ago

Well at least its fully open source

rapnie 4y ago
Somewhere down the line a bunch of money has to be made. For themselves and especially to make those VC folks happy (however 'patient' they are, according to their announcement). If they remain 100% open-source, their hosted servers may come with subscription (the Discourse model), and/or they may supply paid for professional templates and plugin packs. But whatever their plans are in this regards, I think it would be good if they were more clear on their planned strategy.
- jacooper 4y ago
  SASS is the way to go for almost every FOSS startup
jahewson 4y ago
For now.

atoav 4y ago

What is the end game for e.g. the Blender Foundation? Looking back on a crazy good software project when the Nuclear war starts?

Pulcinella 4y ago
Blender doesn’t take VC money that I am aware of. They do accept donations, many of which are from large multinational corporations, but I don’t think any of those are expecting equity in Blender; they do it for ideological and/or strategic reasons. Still, it’s not like there aren’t many, many companies that make money from open source, including when it’s their own code they are open sourcing. (Honestly I wished way, way more lawyers and executives in general understood where the value their company provides actually comes from. Too many times they think their “secret sauce” is the actual code when it’s really the team and the labor that went into creating it, maintaining it, supporting it, and selling it. They aren’t being paid for the code, they are being paid to deal with it!)

victor9000 4y ago

Open core SaaS, similar to ElasticSearch

marapuru 4y ago

Good question, and exactly what popped up in my head. Is there any documentation of the type of VC money that was accepted? Does this _really_ mean that from now on the investors are in control? Or is this a type of open source funding without strings attached? I can't really see that happening.

rapnie 4y ago
This is a recent announcement on their community forum that provides more background and detail: https://community.penpot.app/t/penpot-our-time-has-come/1563 https://community.penpot.app/t/penpot-our-time-has-come/1563
- marapuru 4y ago
  I’ve read through that post and think the most insightful part is this: “ Most investors will love what you have achieved but also feel strongly about creating immediate commercial results. We were excited to learn that Jon, Sudip and Dan from Decibel 28 were a different group of investors. If you want a patient investor who gets open source and community, look no further - nobody beats Decibel’s passion and care for your team’s vision and encourage you to build a strong open-source community around your company!” But the terminology used is hollow and finite. Why would they provide an open source company with $8M? Passion alone? There must be some sort of ROI they aim for. So what is that?
  - chakrabartis 4y ago
    Hi - Sudip from Decibel here. Backing oss companies is most of what we do; so, couple of thoughts fwiw. first, building an oss company is really building two companies and definitely not at the expense of one another. For the community, there has to be a free-forever, well-supported product, period. Without that, there is no community in the long run and hence, no company either. The enterprise business, when that comes, must be focused entirely on delivering value to enterprises and NOT on monetizing individual users. That’s what we strongly believe at Decibel and that’s what we have found mission-driven oss founders believe too. But, this certainly requires more patience and capital; hence, the need for complete alignment all around.