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I think this is more a situation of a small group of individuals looking to fund their development of FOSS scheduling software by offering a hosted solution, ra

by gen220 4y ago

I think this is more a situation of a small group of individuals looking to fund their development of FOSS scheduling software by offering a hosted solution, rather than a company using open source to grow faster. AFAICT, their goal isn't to monopolize a hosting solution for their software, just to provide a path of minimal resistance to normal people using their software, and fund their lives along the way. https://cal.com/about https://cal.com/about lays it out. Looks like they're a team of 15ish people who raised a Series A, but it seems they've gone about it in a pretty thoughtful way (15 years of runway, atm)

candiddevmike 4y ago
They're venture backed, it's a growth hack: https://cal.com/about https://cal.com/about Expect the usual tension of open core shenanigans to eventually play out.
- gen220 4y ago
  I mean, when we read that page, it doesn't leave a bad taste in my mouth -- saying this as somebody who's generally very skeptical of VC-backed FOSS. It seems like the founders have their heads and their hearts in the right place, to the extent that calling it a growth hack feels wrong to me, personally. But yeah, in the long term I agree with you, it'll probably fall apart in the way you expect within 10 years. It's hard to outlast the financial interest of investors, even if they're you're friends.
- moneywoes 4y ago
  Yep, note how the title is "Open Source" not Open Core. They know what they're doing
singron 4y ago
This is pretty cool. They are outside of the US, but even if they paid typically higher US salaries, they would still have many years of runway. It looks like there might be some funny business with MAU and Total Customers. MAU is only 3,500, but they somehow have 50k Total Customers? And they have a free tier? If only 7% of your paying customers use your product, they aren't going to renew. I expect that this doesn't include churn or is actually some kind of cumulative integral counting customer months or something.

by gen220 4y ago

candiddevmike 4y ago

They're venture backed, it's a growth hack: https://cal.com/about https://cal.com/about Expect the usual tension of open core shenanigans to eventually play out.

gen220 4y ago
I mean, when we read that page, it doesn't leave a bad taste in my mouth -- saying this as somebody who's generally very skeptical of VC-backed FOSS. It seems like the founders have their heads and their hearts in the right place, to the extent that calling it a growth hack feels wrong to me, personally. But yeah, in the long term I agree with you, it'll probably fall apart in the way you expect within 10 years. It's hard to outlast the financial interest of investors, even if they're you're friends.
moneywoes 4y ago
Yep, note how the title is "Open Source" not Open Core. They know what they're doing

singron 4y ago

This is pretty cool. They are outside of the US, but even if they paid typically higher US salaries, they would still have many years of runway. It looks like there might be some funny business with MAU and Total Customers. MAU is only 3,500, but they somehow have 50k Total Customers? And they have a free tier? If only 7% of your paying customers use your product, they aren't going to renew. I expect that this doesn't include churn or is actually some kind of cumulative integral counting customer months or something.