Brian Douglas, CEO OpenSauced: How to Make Open Source Measurable, GitHub, Founder-Led Growth

Links

- Codecrafters (sponsor): https://tej.as/codecrafters

- OpenSauced: https://opensauced.pizza

- OpenSauced Tour: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCNjj19iDa4

- The Secret Sauce Podcast: https://podcast.opensauced.pizza/episodes

- Brian on X: https://x.com/bdougieyo

- Tejas on X: https://x.com/tejaskumar_

Summary

In this episode, Brian Douglas (BDougie), the founder of OpenSauced discusses the evolution of the Jamstack, BDougie's career switch from sales to coding, and the inspiration behind OpenSauced. OpenSauced is a tool that provides deeper insights into GitHub repositories, filling the gap left by GitHub's limited insights feature. BDougie explains how OpenSauced sources data from the GitHub event feed and circumvents rate limiting. He also shares the vision for OpenSauced, which includes building a standard for successful open source projects and providing valuable metrics for maintainers and companies.

OpenSauced focuses on the top-down approach to building their business, targeting large enterprise customers and establishing product-market fit with them. They prioritize building relationships with these customers and providing value to them, rather than focusing on charging individual developers for their product. They believe that the future of open source lies in telling stories with data and providing insights to enterprises. OpenSauced aims to be a long-term, sustainable business that scales to both enterprise and the broader community.

The conversation explores measuring the impact of open source projects, including the influx of stars and the growth of the active community. We discuss the importance of repo pages and new features like the lottery factor and contributor confidence. We also touch on the challenges of contributor engagement and the need for proper governance in open source projects. The conversation then shifts to the difficulties of positioning and messaging for technical founder-led companies and the importance of storytelling. The episode concludes with a discussion on the value of talking to users and customers regularly.

Takeaways

1. OpenSauced is a tool that provides deeper insights into GitHub repositories, filling the gap left by GitHub's limited insights feature.

2. OpenSauced sources data from the GitHub event feed and circumvents rate limiting to provide comprehensive and up-to-date information.

3. The vision for OpenSauced is to build a standard for successful open source projects and provide valuable metrics for maintainers and companies.

4. The tool includes features like contributor confidence, lottery factor, and YOLO coding to assess the health and sustainability of open source projects.

Chapters

00:00 Brian Douglas

03:05 Introduction and Background

09:44 The Evolution of the Jamstack

14:45 OpenSauced and GitHub's Relationship

32:17 Identifying the Problem with Hacktoberfest

35:28 Insights and Metrics for Open Source Projects

37:09 The Value of Open Sauce for Businesses

43:40 The Shift in DevRel and Go-to-Market Strategies

47:57 Top-Down vs Bottom-Up Approach in DevRel

54:20 Balancing Top-Down and Bottom-Up Strategies

01:02:59 The Importance of Establishing Product-Market Fit

01:05:42 The Challenges of Building an Open Source Business

01:06:57 Measuring the Impact of Open Source

01:07:28 The Role of Repo Pages

01:08:09 Understanding Contributor Engagement and Confidence

01:09:11 The Importance of Governance in Open Source

01:11:14 Positioning and Messaging for Technical Founder-Led Companies

01:36:11 The Value of Regular Communication with Users and Customers

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