#360 - Zach Wasserman, Co-founder of Fleet on community-driven business growth

This podcast interview focuses on the entrepreneurial journey of turning transparency into business advantage. My guest is Zach Wasserman, Cofounder and Tech Evangelist of Fleet.  With over a decade of experience in open source software development, Zach helped create the widely-adopted OSquery project at Facebook in 2014, which has since become an industry standard for device visibility and is now governed by the Linux Foundation. After transitioning through a role at Kolide (later acquired by 1Password), Zach became the maintainer of a project that would eventually evolve into Fleet. Throughout his entrepreneurial journey, Zach discovered that what truly energizes him is "building software that's making someone's life better" - specifically IT administrators and security professionals who manage company devices. This human-centered approach led him to transform a personal passion project into a rapidly growing company that's challenging traditional business models in enterprise software This inspired me to invite Zach to my podcast. We explore how being open source gives Fleet a strategic edge. His approach rejects the common belief that enterprise sales requires complexity and secrecy. We discuss how community building leads to faster adoption and better results than traditional sales tactics. The formula is simple: be transparent, earn trust, and close deals faster. Here's one of his quotes: "The best way to lose a deal is to our own open source product, because those people remain prime prospective customers that we really need to continue to understand and figure out how we are going to build enough new value in that premium product for them to want to pay for it." By listening to this podcast, you will learn: How building on existing open source foundations can give startups immediate credibility with enterprise customers Why passionate early adopters can close deals remarkably easily compared to traditional prospects The entrepreneurial wisdom of identifying and connecting with actual budget holders while still maintaining engineer enthusiasm How customer-driven unexpected use cases can dramatically expand your market vision and product roadmap For more information about the guest from this week:  Guest: Zach Wasserman  Website: fleet.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices