> How do you expect people to bootstrap an infra SaaS?
Presumably ilrwbwrkhv is thinking of the fate of ElasticSearch, MongoDB, Redis, CockroachDB, Confluent, TimescaleDB, Terraform, HashiCorp Vault, Docker Desktop and suchlike.
The VCs want a return for all the money they've invested, and it's difficult to monetise a free product.
One way to avoid letting down your community is to have your product be a closed-source paid product from day 1. Another is to get the backing of a huge multinational with endless ad revenue. Another is to run a super lean one-man operation, or get a day job and make free software your hobby. Another is to teeter on the edge of bankruptcy and hope one of your users just acquires your entire company.
Or you can just disappoint your community - SAML's only used by faceless megacorporations anyway, it's not like you'd be letting down real people.
None of these are great options IMHO - but that's why I don't have a VC-funded infrastructure startup myself :)
Presumably ilrwbwrkhv is thinking of the fate of ElasticSearch, MongoDB, Redis, CockroachDB, Confluent, TimescaleDB, Terraform, HashiCorp Vault, Docker Desktop and suchlike.
The VCs want a return for all the money they've invested, and it's difficult to monetise a free product.
One way to avoid letting down your community is to have your product be a closed-source paid product from day 1. Another is to get the backing of a huge multinational with endless ad revenue. Another is to run a super lean one-man operation, or get a day job and make free software your hobby. Another is to teeter on the edge of bankruptcy and hope one of your users just acquires your entire company.
Or you can just disappoint your community - SAML's only used by faceless megacorporations anyway, it's not like you'd be letting down real people.
None of these are great options IMHO - but that's why I don't have a VC-funded infrastructure startup myself :)