Presented at: Open Source 101 - Columbia 2019 Presented by: Peter Zaitsev, Percona April 18th, 2019 Columbia, SC, USA

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Peter Zaitsev, CEO, Percona
Making a Career out of Open Source
April 18, 2019
Open Source 101
Columbia, SC

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About Peter Zaitsev and Percona
Early Staff member of MySQL AB
Founder and CEO of Percona since 2006
100% Free and Open Source Software Company
About 180 staff members in 35 Countries
Bootstrapped, No Venture Capital Used

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Who are you ?
Open Source
Software
Founders ?
Open Source
Software
Contributors ?
Aspiring to be
ones ?

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Premise of this talk
You Love Open Source
You want to make a living doing what
you love

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What is your Passion ?
Open Source in general
Certain “space”
Certain Open Source Project

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Basic Choices
Freelance
Get a Job
Start a Company

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Picking “space” and a Core Project
Hot project in hot space generates a
lot of opportunities
They may, or may not last

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Bet on a Winner
“Winner Takes it All”
May be more than one, but small
number of Technologies

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Ecosystem
Core Project Creates “ecosystem”
Opportunity for many smaller projects to thrive
Think Linux, PostgreSQL, Hadoop, Kubernetes ecosystems

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Niche in Thriving Ecosystem
Can be great focus for
Independent Developer

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Open Source Project vs Product
Any code on Github can be called Open Source Project
Many Projects are focused on their Developer(s)
Developer writes what he feels that
May not care about documentation, compatibility, QA
May not care about user and customer support

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Product – Commitment to Users and Customers
Clear Licensing
Lifecycle, Compatibility Promise, Upgrades
Builds/Packages
Documentation
Free or Commercial Support, Bug/Issue Handling
Security Issues Remediation
Quality Assurance

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What is your interest ?
Not Every developer
interested in the
everything it takes to do
the product

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Looking into the Choices

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Freelance – Positives
Easy to get started
Chose what projects to take
Can try part time while having other job
Can start our own project paid by customers
Can develop long term customers and make a good living

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Freelance – Negatives
Actually Writing Code may be small part
Finding Customers, Negotiating, Collecting, Admin takes a lot of time
Many small customers – high overhead one large customer – risky
Burnout is common

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Take a Job
Company Using Open Source Software
Company releasing Internal Software as OpenSource
Company Building Open Source Software Product

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Company Using Open Source Software
Widest Choice of Companies
May be able to contribute some code to Open Source Projects
Contribution Policies vastly different between companies
Ask on the interview if it is important for you
Some companies may restrict contribution even in your free time
Contribute to the projects with Bugs Reports, Documentation etc

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Company Releasing Internal Open Source

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Company Releasing Internal Open Source
Contribute Code to Open Source Project
Often Focus is Internal Customers
Community Participation and Personal Brand Development
Start the Company based on such product in the future

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Company Building Open Source Product
Focus on building Open Source or
somewhat Open Source Software
Customer Focus in the Product

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Company Stage
Early Stage
• Be at the Project Roots
• More Influence
• More Risk
• Variety of Roles
• Growth Potential
• Equity
Later Stage
• Stability
• Clear Processes
• Less Influence
• More Corporate

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Start Your Own Company
Not just Engineering Skills needed!
Are you Entrepreneur ?
Do you have Business Minded Co-Founder ?
Marketing and Selling is a hard job which Engineers often do not appreciate

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Do you need to be Project Founder ?
It helps a lot but it is not a requirement
RedisLabs great example of company
which was NOT started by Redis founder

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Basic Choices
Services
Company
Product
Company

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Services Company
Can grow out of individual freelancing
Can be relatively easy to bootstrap
Easy to maintain Independence/Complete Control
Low Margin Quite Competitive Business
Can be great Lifestyle company but unlikely $1B “exit”

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Product Company
Build Product around Open Source Project
Funding (Often Venture Capital) is typically required
Products are often only partially Open Source
If Successful Very large exits are possible

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Current Company Market Capitalization
Elastic -
$6B
Cloudera -
$2.9B
MongoDB -
$7.2B
Pivotal -
$4.9B
RedHat sold
to IBM for
$34B

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Whatever Path you Chose
Invest in Building
Personal Brand

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Some Ideas
• Blog ? Podcast ? YouTube ChannelProduce Content
• IRC/Slack Channels, Forums, ConferencesParticipate In Community
• Even self published book looks really goodWrite a Book
• Maintain Great GitHub ProfileWrite Some Code
• Develop Offline Network, Twitter Following, LinkedIn ConnectionsGet Social

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Join Us at Percona Live
https://www.percona.com/live/19/
Percona Live 2019takes place in Austin, Texas fromMay 28-30,2019atthe Hyatt
Regency.
Percona Live provides an opportunity to network with peers and
technology professionals. Mingle with all types of database
community members: DBAs, developers, C-level executives and
the latest database technology trend-setters.
TICKETSONSALE!

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Thank You!