Solving Customer Problems with Open Source Code
Important lesson for any start up. We have a very good idea what we are interested in (Open Source Software). While we have a great team to start with, and a team that has worked together for at least 6 years, we have no specific experience in the open source software space.
Our previous business was based upon drafting eBay's business model, and we built a system with incredible speed and massive scale with unique capabilities to serve our customers, the sellers or products.
This space is very different. Our team is used to building a solution from the ground up and having complete control over every aspect of our source code. It takes a while to get our team used to the idea of working with products where we do not have that complete control.
The beauty of the open source space is being able to solve problems for potential customers with a solution that is pretty close to what we might need. The challenge is assessing the quality of the code as well as the amount of investment required to close the gap between the open source solution and the customer need.
There is no question in our minds that open source is a great place to start when addressing client needs. I believe it raises the likelihood that you will be able to solve a client's needs. However, I would not assume the solution would come about at a lower cost. We have found ourselves investing significantly to bring an open source piece of functionality to a "ready for prime time" solution for a client need.
Our previous business was based upon drafting eBay's business model, and we built a system with incredible speed and massive scale with unique capabilities to serve our customers, the sellers or products.
This space is very different. Our team is used to building a solution from the ground up and having complete control over every aspect of our source code. It takes a while to get our team used to the idea of working with products where we do not have that complete control.
The beauty of the open source space is being able to solve problems for potential customers with a solution that is pretty close to what we might need. The challenge is assessing the quality of the code as well as the amount of investment required to close the gap between the open source solution and the customer need.
There is no question in our minds that open source is a great place to start when addressing client needs. I believe it raises the likelihood that you will be able to solve a client's needs. However, I would not assume the solution would come about at a lower cost. We have found ourselves investing significantly to bring an open source piece of functionality to a "ready for prime time" solution for a client need.
posted by billphelan at 4:05 PM
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