Building a fundable open source company

You've got a great idea, and you realize that open source is the way to build it. So how do you pick the right business model to grow your idea into a big company? Ariel Tseitlin explores what has worked in the past and what investors want to see to give you funding, along the way identifying the factors that differentiate successful businesses from unsuccessful ones.

There have been many successful open source ventures, from MySQL to Red Hat to WordPress, each with different business models. Many others have tried—some even building successful open source communities—only to fail to monetize and build a business to sustain the initiative. Ariel Tseitlin takes you on a trip down history lane, drawing from a handful of use cases to identify what factors differentiate successful business from unsuccessful ones. You’ll leave with practical advice on what approaches and business models have worked well in the past.