Tigera CEO Ratan Tipirneni On Commercializing Open Source

Madrona Partner Aseem Datar hosts Tigera CEO Ratan Tipirneni. Tigera is in the business of preventing and detecting security breaches in cloud-native applications, and its open-source offering Calico is one of the most widely adopted container networking and security solutions out there. Aseem and Ratan dive into whether or not you should open source, the three business models founders should evaluate when thinking about commercializing an open-source project, how to compete with free, how product-led growth can really kickstart your business compared to traditional go-to-market, and so much more.

Words of wisdom from Ratan Tipirneni: 

• You need to be thinking about commercialization even as you’re launching the open-source offering.
• Wait to launch a commercial product until you reach a minimum critical mass in your community.
• Don’t put everything in the open-source bucket. It leaves you no other option but to monetize through commercial support, which is not a very defensible business.
• Trying to compete with free by offering more free stuff is a losing battle.
• It is a fallacy to assume that just because you’re offering free software a user will adopt it. 
• Stick to fundamentals – be clear about who your end users are and what their pain points are. Everything else will take care of itself.
• Stars are a vanity metric that can be gamed. Signs of daily usage, the growth rate, and user feedback are better places to start.