1.
Entreprenerd
Building a Multi-Million-Dollar Business
with Open Source Software

2.
Hello!
I am Bruno Lowagie
And I am an Entreprenerd
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3.
That is:
My wife and I founded iText Group (2008), a company
with subsidiaries in Belgium (2010), the US (2009), and
Singapore (2015)
Together, we grew the business from the pre-revenue
startup phase to an eight-figure exit (2015 – 2018 -2020)
I developed Free and Open Source Software:
iText, a FOSS PDF library (2000)
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4.
Entreprenerd
Building a Multi-Million-Dollar Business
with Open Source Software

5.
FAILING FORWARD
iText, the Origin Story
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6.
FIRST COMPUTERS — FIRST BUSINESS
1982: TI-99/4A
1984: TRS-80 4P
First business: address labels
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7.
September 1
1995
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8.
Early Career
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March 1997
November 1997
TRASYS
November 1997
February 1998
The Reference
February 1998
November 1998
TRASYS
1997
The Belgium Applet
Bad Timing
1998
Perl Server Pages
No Market
2000
Cat@loogje.com
Not Original
November 1998
September 2010
Ghent University
April 1996
Unpaid intern
TRASYS

9.
RUG
PDF PDF Library
In 1998, I promised my employer that I would
enhance an intranet application with on-the-fly
PDF creation
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10.
February 14, 2000
iText’s Birthday
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11.
BUILDING FREE AND
OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE
The History of Free and Open Source Software
Creating a Business for iText
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Free Software
Richard Stallman and the
GNU Manifesto, the GPL,
and the Free Software
Foundation.
HISTORY OF FREE AND OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE
Open Source
Eric Raymond, Bruce
Perens and the Open
Source Initiative.
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Free and Open Source Software (FOSS)
1999: rugPdf (LGPL): Usenet / hosted on University website
2000: iText (MPL/LGPL): SourceForge / lowagie.com

13.
FEAR
DOUBT
UNCERTAINTY
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MY ANSWER TO THE FUD
Documentation
Writing a book is
good marketing for
your product.
IP Rights
Review the IP of
your software and
fix every possible
issue.
Commercialization
Create a company
for your product,
and generate
revenue.
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2004-2006 2008-2012
2006-2007

15.
“
Commercial open source software is the best
guarantee for the production of software that
is useful, innovative, and of high quality, and
at the same time sustainable, accessible, and
affordable.
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16.
2012
Revenue: €3.1M
EBITDA: €1.4M
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FROM START-UP TO EXIT
Strategies to Grow the Business and Prepare for an Exit
3
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THE FOUNDER’S DILEMMAS
CONTROL DECISIONS
Ingeborg and I owned 100% of the shares, and
we were making a nice revenue.
We had full control over the companies, but
we noticed that this was reducing our chances
to grow.
WEALTH DECISIONS
In 2012, we started an M&A project to find out
what we needed to do to make our company
“investor-ready” and maybe sell the business.
This was a very interesting exercise that resulted
in a business plan with a clear strategy for iText.
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19.
Belgium’s
Fastest Growing Technology Company
BelCham Entrepreneurship Award, American Business Awards,
International Business Awards, European Business Awards,…
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20.
2014: Second M&A Project
Wall Street
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2015: Partial Exit
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AFTER THE PARTIAL EXIT
Three-Year Commitment:
◦ Year 1—A Search for Synergies
◦ Year 2—A Change of Strategy
◦ Year 3—A Change in Management
Eventually: Exit Through the Courtroom.
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My Goal
I wanted to write the book that I wish I could have read
at the start of my career as a technical founder.
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Know what to expect when starting a company
to generate the revenue necessary to further
develop your technology.
Learn from someone who shows you what he
did and how he did it, rather than from someone
merely telling you what to do.
Get acquanted with the terminology that is
needed to understand customers, sales people,
accountants, investors, lawyers…
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25.
Entreprenerd
Twitter handle: @entreprenerd21
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/9029140/
Website: https://entreprenerd.lowagie.com
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CREDITS
Special thanks to all the people who made and
released these awesome resources for free:
◦ Presentation template by SlidesCarnival
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