Building an open sourceconsulting company
Nate Aune (@natea)www.jazkarta.com
FISL 2010Porto Alegre, Brazil
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
/me
• Developer turned business owner
• Founded Jazkarta in 2004
• Now 3 full-time staff and 10 subcontractors
• Specialize in Plone and Python
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Topics for exploration
• Marketing
• Pricing
• Contracts
• Project Management
• Services
• Recruiting
• Finances
• Open Source citizen
• your topics?
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Marketing
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Marketing & getting work
• Speaking
• Blogging
• Sponsoring
• User group / consultants group
• Networking / Partnering
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Sales
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Sales
• Segment into markets (edu, gov, non-profit)
• Do more listening than talking
• Get a good sales automation tool (Salesforce.com)
• Put a lead capture form on your website
• Don’t make it hard for people to contact you
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Pricing
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Pricing / rates
• How much do you want to make?
• What are your costs?
• What will the market bear?
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
$100,000 / yr$100,000/yr % 50 wks/yr % 20 hrs/wk
=
$100/hr
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Costs of doing business(overhead)
• Self-employment tax
• Legal fees
• Accounting / bookkeeping
• Office space (co-working)
• Telephone / Internet
• Hardware (PCs, monitors)
• Subcontractors
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Market rates
• What are your competitors charging?
• How much will your customers pay?
• How does the economy affect your bill rate?
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
When to raise rates?
• When your customers don't blink an eye when you tell them your rate
• When you have more work than you can handle
• When you have an in-demand skill
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Contracts
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Contracts
• Get in writing to avoid misunderstandings later
• Get legal advice - don't do it by yourself
• EchoSign saves time with digital signatures
• Optional scope contracts
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Traditional vs. Timeboxed
Optional scope contracts:
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Project management
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Project management
• Agile is aligned with open source development
• 2 week iterations
• 3 person teams (PM, dev, design)
• Tools: ClueMapper, Google Docs, Dropbox
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Resource planning
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Global Team
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Global team strategies
• Group team members in same or close timezones
• Make sure everyone is on IRC and uses it
• Set up a mailing list for each new project
• Skype calls every week to touch base
• Issue tracker (ClueMapper/Trac)
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Pros/cons of subcontractors
• Pros
• Only pay them when you have work
• Can find top talent, specialists
• Cons
• More expensive
• Can be difficult to retain if not enough work
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Services
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Services
• Development
• Training
• Support
• HostingRecurring revenue
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Training
• Private onsite training
• Public training
• Training as part of a conference
• Online training
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Support
• Open source = no guarantees
• Retainer = insurance policy
• Keeps the conversation going
• Upsell support before the project is complete
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Hosting
• Easier to support if on servers you control
• Distribute benefits across all customers
• Upselling opportunities
• Steady source of recurring revenue
• Make sure you have a good sys admin
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Recruiting
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Recruiting
• Read blogs
• Attend sprints
• Elastic staff
• User groups
• Internships
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Finances
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Finances
• Get a good bookkeeper
• Watch cash flow carefully (invoice often)
• Seek next project while still on first project
• Find sponsors to fund open source dev
• Tools: Quickbooks, Freshbooks, Xero
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Open source citizen
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Open source citizen
• writing documentation
• contributing code
• serving on board
• sponsoring sprints
• organizing user group
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Thanks! Questions?Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Stay in touch
• Email: natea (at) jazkarta (dot) com
• Twitter: twitter.com/natea
• Blog: blog.jazkarta.com
• IRC: irc.freenode.net/natea
Wednesday, July 21, 2010