Sysdig is a cloud native application protection platform that helps stop cloud and container security attacks. In this episode, Sysdig’s founder and CTO, Loris Degioanni chats with Wei Lien Dang about why he founded Sysdig and how he leveraged the power of open source for growth and industry disruption.

Join us as we discuss:

(1:39) How Loris leveraged market and tech stack changes to build Sysdig

(7:46) Sysdig's journey as an early pioneer in containerization technology

(12:16) Sysdig’s pivot from monitoring to cybersecurity

(17:48) The power of open source in building Sysdig

(21:48) The nuances and commitment necessary for a successful open source project:

(28:33) Finding product-market fit in an open source context

(30:42) The role of an open-source project as a brand, marketing tool, and source of lead generation

(31:45) Balancing community involvement and establishing a solid business model

(33:34) Commercializing an open source project

(37:32) Advice for founders building open source companies

Sandhya Hegde is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in modern SaaS companies with a focus on AI. Previously an early executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc and 

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Wei Lien Dang is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures and leads investments in infrastructure software, security, and developer tools.  Wei was a co-founder of StackRox, a cloud-native security company prior to its acquisition by Red Hat. He can be reached at wei@unusual.vc and

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Loris Degioanni is the founder and CTO of Sysdig. Prior to founding Sysdig, Loris co-created Wireshark, an open source network analyzer.

Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/.

Further reading from the Startup Field Guide:

Starting an open source company

Developing open-source software customers

Building GTM for an open source company