
Ask HN: How do you make a profitable business out of an open-source project? - fabiospampinato
I&#x27;ve recently published a note-taking app [1], which I open-sourced right way, and it amazingly got a lot of interest from the community.<p>I&#x27;d like to make the best possible note-taking experience out of it, that implies developing a web-app, mobile-apps and generally putting considerable resources into the project.<p>I think the best way to ensure all this will come to fruition is if the app&#x2F;service itself was profitable, ideally I would like for it to pay for itself and also provide enough funding for future projects of mine.<p>I&#x27;d like the business to be defensible, but also avoid making the app closed-source. I&#x27;m not sure how I could avoid having the (probably simple) server reverse-engineered at some point in the future in order to avoid paying for an eventual subscription fee though.<p>What do you think is the best way to achieve profitability?<p>[1] https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;fabiospampinato&#x2F;notable
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jakobegger
Don't worry about making the business "defensible". Worry about making the
business work in the first place.

If a competitor comes in and takes 50% of the market, that might be
frustrating, but it also means there's a market to fight over.

Look at wordpress -- they probably make a lot of money with wordpress.com. But
there are also 1000s of other wordpress hosters out there. That doesn't harm
Automattic -- on the contrary, without the huge ecosystem around Wordpress,
nobody would know that it existed in the first place.

------
DoreenMichele
I wouldn't know how to find it, but one of the better ideas I've seen
suggested is from patio11. He suggested you make it easy for businesses that
use your product to get an invoice for monies given to you. He won't "donate"
money to open source because he needs to justify his business expenses,
including on his taxes, which means explaining it the government. But if he
uses the service for his business and can get an invoice, he's happy to pay
you money in exchange for a document that he can put on file showing it's a
legitimate business expense.

~~~
zimpenfish
This is along the same lines, I think:

[https://twitter.com/patio11/status/1067695403255029761](https://twitter.com/patio11/status/1067695403255029761)

Which is quote-expanding Swift On Security:

[https://twitter.com/SwiftOnSecurity/status/10676827595928698...](https://twitter.com/SwiftOnSecurity/status/1067682759592869889)

~~~
DoreenMichele
Thanks.

I'm pretty sure I originally saw it as a comment on HN in which he talked
about giving a project apparently a somewhat sizable amount of money in
exchange for an invoice. I have no idea how to find that. But his tweets on
the topic are what other people typically supply when I mention this detail.

------
davismwfl
I am not sure making an open source product defensible is the right idea. I'd
monetize in one or more of the following ways:

1\. Extend the open source product in ways which makes it more valuable for
specific groups of people, sell licenses to those people. As the product
matures and you add more new features, maybe some of the early extended
features get pushed into the open source product.

2\. Offer monthly/annual support agreements to people who sign up for a
licensed version.

3\. Offer to make custom modifications for a fee for specific clients (this
might be a way to help start doing #1 too).

A lot of this will boil down to marketing the benefits to the right groups of
people and finding features which are valuable to businesses over the open
source edition -- this is true for open source just as it is to proprietary
products. I don't see how (not to say it is impossible) Patreon or similar
platforms will lead to enough income to make this a profitable project,
although they may help validate people are willing to pay something for the
product.

------
open-source-ux
It is very difficult for a solo developer to make a full-time living from
their own open source product.

These are some possible options:

\- Open-core (e.g. Gitlab): Some code is closed source but adds extra features
not available in the open source core.

\- Support/consultancy

\- Sponsorship or Patreon (not realistic or sustainable as a long-term
solution for the industry as a whole)

\- hosting and online accounts for software that runs in the cloud

The problem is: what if you don't want to do any of the above? I bet there are
many developers who are put off by all the above.

What if all you want to do is just sell your product for a fee to users, but
with the source available? Impossible with open source. (Doing that is a
"source available" option but it's no longer an open source solution.)

The uncomfortable truth is that, despite decades of open source software, no-
one has figured out how to make money from an open source product if all you
simply want to do is just sell your open source app.

If you find a suitable option for your app please let us know and I wish you
lots of success :-)

~~~
fabiospampinato
Somebody suggested to take a look at bitwarden's business model, it sounds
like something I could transition too and it seems it's working for them.

Fortunately the extra work of building an hosted solution or some business-
oriented features doesn't put me off.

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dhruvkar
Patreon ([https://www.patreon.com/](https://www.patreon.com/)) may also be an
option for this. I'm currently using Joplin
([https://joplin.cozic.net/](https://joplin.cozic.net/)) for note-taking. It
has similar popularity on Github as Notable, and developer has a patreon
account for ~$130/month.

While that's not full-time, it's a start of a paying community, which is very
valuable in itself.

Once a community like that is established, you can implement other suggestions
like selling packages, hosted versions etc. with discounts for your patrons
etc. Many ways to go about adding value (and getting paid for it), once people
trust you with their money.

~~~
fabiospampinato
IMHO it's next to impossible to completely fund the project via Patreon or
similar, if Joplin's developer after all this time is only receiving
~$130/month I think it would make more sense to me to self-fund it until it's
profitable.

~~~
dhruvkar
Exactly. Patreon may not be a full time income, but it's starts your paying
community, which is a valuable step in the right direction.

------
codegeek
Wow you got more than 4k stars in 11 days ? Is this a record on github or more
common than I think ? Congratulations on that. In terms of monitizing, a lot
of folks talk about sidekiq (a ruby project) that makes good money while being
open source.

~~~
fabiospampinato
I'm just as surprised as you honestly :) Thanks for your message, I'll
definitely check out sidekiq, any successful open-source business I can find
is of big help.

------
superasn
One other resource that a lot of people miss but is quite profitable is
selling packages relating to your niche.

I haven't tried your app but let's say your app helps people better manage
time, then you have a perfect audiende that may be interested in buying a
small ebook about productivity and how your app can be used to double it. You
already have a list of prospects who trust you and use your product. Upselling
them is easy if you can create a great resource that will help them get the
most out of your app and achieve the goal (for which they're using your app)
more quickly or lazily

~~~
fabiospampinato
I don't know I think there's so much to do in the note-taking arena alone that
selling a book about productivity or something along that line instead may be
a bit too unrelated.

~~~
superasn
Not sure who the target market is but IF your audience is developers then you
can definitely sell something on the lines of training to create your own
popular app and you can obviously use your app as an example and
qualification.

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matt_the_bass
For enterprise (or even SMBs) open source builds trust but having a paid
service is convenience. I say just offer a ready to go, out of the box service
for the open source code. Most companies won’t bother hosting themselves but
they will like that it’s open source “because they could host it if they need
it”.

I don’t think this forums audience is indicative of your actual market. I
think your actual market is not tech savvy. They want to use notes across
multiple devices and teams without thinking about it. Offer them that
convenience. They will pay for it.

~~~
fabiospampinato
Thank you for your comment, I think you're right about convenience.

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ecesena
Offer a pro/paid account.

Mention your story, perhaps offer a few extra features if you’d like, and as
other said you may want to offer hosting too (but that’s extra work/cost for
you). My recommendation would be to just have one simple monthly price = easy
y/n decision.

Some people will start paying, and talking to these you’ll figure out why, and
how to convert more.

Check out how others are doing, on top of my head I can think of bitwarden
(not affiliated).

~~~
fabiospampinato
bitwarden is a very interesting example, thank you so much!

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gitgud
Wow that is amazing that your project got 4k stars on Github!

If I were you, I would be looking at WordPress for inspiration. They have many
sources of revenue:

\- Hosted version (monthly fee)

\- Marketplace for add-ons

\- Support

It seems like you have created a community, so to create some kind of
extension system would be a way of generating revenue and encouraging people
to develop on your platform.

------
mperham
My Sidekiq project makes over $100,000 per month. I'm happy to video chat with
anyone weekly at my Happy Hour if you want to discuss business and sustainable
OSS.

[https://sidekiq.org/support.html](https://sidekiq.org/support.html)

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lastofus
Perhaps offer cloud based backups/syncing of notes across devices. You could
use git to track history of changes over time on the server. Charge a monthly
fee for this feature to cover hosting + profit.

------
mimixco
This excellent article reviews the 5 types of open source business models.
Maybe it can help you choose.

[https://sfosc.org/business-models/](https://sfosc.org/business-models/)

~~~
fabiospampinato
Very helpful, thank you!

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simplecomplex
Off the top of my head:

\- Paid support from the official development team.

\- Paid features, plugins, or addons that primarily serve enterprise users.

\- Paid hosting

\- In-app advertising

~~~
fabiospampinato
Thanks for the suggestions. I'd rather not deal with advertising if at all
possible, but the other suggestions sound interesting to me.

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iDemonix
Offer a hosted version.

~~~
fabiospampinato
Thanks for the suggestion, that's definitely something I'd be interested in
implementing.

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thdn
support, support, support...

~~~
fabiospampinato
Selling support is a bit alien to me, do most companies buy support just to
have someone to call in case anything breaks? Do they want their features
requests or issues reports to be prioritized?

If you could share your experience about this it would be very helpful, thank
you!

~~~
jakobegger
If your app doesn't actually need support, companies won't buy support. Nobody
has ever asked for a support contract for any of my desktop apps.

It's also hard to sell extensions... I've had a couple of people email me with
suggestions for paid feature requests, but nobody ever followed up when I made
an offer and quoted the actual cost. Maybe I'm just not good at selling,
though.

(People do offer to buy group licenses if you add a feature, but that only
works for minor features you wanted to add anyway, and doesn't work if your
product is free anyway...)

