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Open Sourcing a Failed Startup

nirvdrum.com

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Re: Open Sourcing a Failed Startup

#101

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #51
mkremer90 wrote: post #24

Honestly, I'm not quite sure how I feel about this. I have people that ask me to open-source my current side-project all the time (one that is paid), and I find it insanely disrespectful. "Yes, let me just hand over the source code for my commercial product. How about not." I'm not trying to sound greedy, but money speaks. If these companies want the software open sourced, they should be pitching in for the cost. If…

I'm not a developer, I'm a DevOps admin, so perhaps I don't understand as well as I would if I was a developer (blood, sweat, time, all that jazz). I can see it being rude for people asking you to open source an ongoing concern side-project. But if your startup failed, your application didn't have any value in the marketplace (or you weren't able to execute). As you said: "If you don't think something is worth money,…

'The market' - which is actually not a useful catch-all way to describe a complex set of customs, traditions, power-plays, politics, and other relationships - may have undervalued something for all kinds of reasons.

Markets are not only not omniscient, they're remarkably easy to influence if you're one of the relatively few people who understand how to do effective marketing. (I'm not, but I've certainly experienced people who are.)

Ability-to-persuade usually trumps ability-to-deliver. Even in tech.

So what's the real value of a product/service?

With a failure like this, the lack-of-value may have been as much about the failure to upsell and market correctly as about a lack of practical usefulness.

Re: Open Sourcing a Failed Startup

#102

Post by evanspa »

sharkweek wrote: post #81
Kequc wrote: post #52

I'm always brought back to the time I decided to literally sell everything I had and leave the country. A few weeks before leaving I listed each item I had for extremely reasonable prices. A $400 couch for $200, table for $20, beautiful custom framed long print of an old possibly rare poster for $50. Laser printer for $20. Ridiculously reasonable prices on everything on and on. Nobody bought anything and every thing…

This just reminds me what a terrible Craigslister I am - when I see something I want at a price I like, I don't bother offering anything less, I just say I'll pay the list price. Wife on the other hand? I can't even be in the same room with her during negotiations over $40 chairs, she's ruthless and it makes me feel so awkward.

I would think you'd have a different username :)

Re: Open Sourcing a Failed Startup

#104

Post by nirvdrum »

mindcrime wrote: post #9

Luckily this is one decision I'll never have to make if we ever fail and shutdown. All of our code is Open Source, ASLv2 licensed, and has been from day 0. Well, OK, maybe not a few internal tools and things, but all of our product code is OSS already, on GitHub and ready to go. We consider this a strong selling point to our current prospects, actually. There's no fear of vendor lock-in, they can kick us out tomorrow…

Awesome. I think I could have made this more likely by going more service-oriented from the outset. It was a Rails prototype app that kept growing. Eventually new stuff was service-oriented, but far too much was locked up in a monolithic Rails app. In any event, that would have allowed me to still outsource some of the view stuff to proprietary software while being able to open up the core of it. C'est la vie.

Re: Open Sourcing a Failed Startup

#105

Post by nirvdrum »

zmillman wrote: post #82

I knew I recognized you from somewhere! For those who don't know, nirvdrum's one of the primary contributors to rubber https://github.com/rubber/rubber (it's a pretty critical part of our current infrastructure) In my book at least, you've already contributed a huge amount to open source and I wouldn't worry about needing to do more :)

Thanks. I do what I can. And thanks for your contributions to the project over the years :-)

Re: Open Sourcing a Failed Startup

#106

Post by fudged71 »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #49

" I decided to try a crowd-sourced campaign to help with the open sourcing effort. Precisely zero of the companies that have been begging me to open-source the code have contributed in any capacity." Wow, that speaks volumes. Good call on not open sourcing your code.

This is a great use case for crowdfunding!!

Re: Open Sourcing a Failed Startup

#107

Post by stevewilhelm »

Kequc wrote: post #52

I'm always brought back to the time I decided to literally sell everything I had and leave the country. A few weeks before leaving I listed each item I had for extremely reasonable prices. A $400 couch for $200, table for $20, beautiful custom framed long print of an old possibly rare poster for $50. Laser printer for $20. Ridiculously reasonable prices on everything on and on. Nobody bought anything and every thing…

Pro tip: do some precision anchoring [1] of your offer price.

If you had listed your couch as $205, table $21 dollars, etc. you would have probably received offers closer to your asking price.

Round number prices signal you have no idea what the items are actually worth prompting people to ask "how about this much."

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring#Anchoring_in_negotiat...

Re: Open Sourcing a Failed Startup

#108

Post by hyperliner »

nirvdrum wrote: post #96
thecynic wrote: post #90

Is it possible that you failed at commercialization, and now you can't bear the thought that open sourcing your creation might lead to zero stars and forks on Github? Is it possible that the "bombardment of questions" you claim was nothing more than a handful, maybe in the half-dozen or so range, of people who wanted to offer you emotional support because that is free for them to do while paying you for a product the…

The number of leading and insulting questions here lead me to believe you simply didn't read the post. Go back and take the 15 minutes to actually read it. You'll find most of it answered. And feel free to spend a modicum of effort looking me up to determine to what degree I care about stars on GitHub.

That took some restraint. You are a nice human being for not responding to that comment like it deserved.

I wish I could comment the way I would respond, but I am at work now...Good luck to you.

Re: Open Sourcing a Failed Startup

#109

Post by hueving »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #87
Flimm wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people value an open source product more than a proprietary one. Although in this case, the OP couldn't get enough funding to release it as open source.

If someone won't pay for a closed product, and won't pay to open it up, they don't value it at all.

This completely ignores customers without boatloads of cash laying around. I've worked in educational institutions where there is absolutely no budget to do something. However, people that are genuinely interested in accomplishing something will turn to open source.

They have time to contribute back through documentation, bug reports, and even bug fixes. The only thing they don't have is money. That doesn't mean they don't value the project.

Re: Open Sourcing a Failed Startup

#110

Post by stevewilhelm »

johncoltrane wrote: post #4

Open source… the dumpster of the startup world.

While this comment is poorly expressed, I would guess that the majority of Open Source projects atrophy very quickly.

Would be interesting to see how many Github projects have regular monthly updates after 12 months, 24 months, etc.

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