Bootstrapping an Open Source Company with Ludovic Dubost

The Business of Open Source

This week on The Business of Open Source, I talked with Ludovic Dubost, founder and CEO of XWiki about the long history of XWiki, which he started in 2003.

This was a wide-ranging conversation… here’s some of the things we covered:

• Why XWiki is an open source company. Ludovic started out with the explicit goal of creating a company, so why start it as an open source company?
• The reality that starting a software company in Europe means putting yourself at a disadvantage — which doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t do it, but rather that you need to be aware of that fact, and that open source is one tool that European companies can use to succeed even when they are at a disadvantage.
• How Ludovic bootstrapped the company, including moving from support contracts to recurring revenue from the SaaS and how the transition has happened over the years
• The difficulties that come from being small and bootstrapped
• Managing the balance between distribution and monetization
• Why a community version / enterprise version model did not work for XWiki
• Why it’s so important to pay attention to your competitive landscape, because the only way to get customers is by offering something that is better in some way than your competitors — it’s your comparative strengths that matter.

Did you enjoy this conversation? Find Ludovic and XWiki at Fosdem on Saturday! And/or join us at Open Source Founders Summit. Are you also interested in the challenges around product management for open source companies? You might want to work with me.