#366 – How Quentin de Quelen built MeiliSearch by choosing what others avoid

A story about building an open-source search engine that developers actually want to use.

This episode is for SaaS founders chasing feature parity with bigger competitors—and those wondering if there's a smarter way to compete with tech giants.

Most SaaS companies don't fail because of bad technology. They fail because they try to be everything to everyone.

Quentin de Quelen, Co-founder & CEO of MeiliSearch, took a different path. A former carpenter's son turned developer, he saw search as a fundamental problem worth solving properly. Instead of building another complex enterprise solution, he chose to make search so simple that any developer could implement it in five minutes.

This inspired me to invite Quentin to my podcast. We explore how focusing on three core principles—simplicity, performance, and relevance—creates both developer love and business wins. Quentin shares insights about choosing open source as strategy, not ideology, and why saying no to features actually accelerates growth. You'll discover how one conversation with their community led to a breakthrough that took two hours to code but changed everything.

We also zoom in on two of the 10 traits that define remarkable software companies:

• They acknowledge they can't please everyone
• They focus on the essence

Quentin's story is proof that traction often starts by doing what most others avoid.

Here's one of Quentin's quotes that captures his philosophy on building:

"Open source is not, should not be by default. It should be thought as a strategy, also for your company to grow. Because everything we are doing at the end is for business wise."

By listening to this episode, you'll learn:

• Why letting competitors copy you actually creates competitive advantage
• What happens when you optimize for developer joy over enterprise features
• Why saying no to customers actually accelerates product growth
• Why three simple principles beat complex competitive analysis

For more information about the guest from this week:

Guest: Quentin de Quelen Co-founder & CEO of MeiliSearch

Website: meilisearch.com

Discount code: mission (2 months for free on all plans and valid until end of August '25)