This intervention aims to illustrate how to do open source in an industrial way by developing a sustainable business model. The experience of Knowage, the open source suite for analytics and business intelligence, will be shown to highlight how community, cooperation and co-business are key element to make open source a real business enabler.

1. Community, Cooperation
And Co-Business with
Open Source
Noemi MAGLIO
Business Developer
KNOWAGE – Engineering Group

2. This Presentation Begins With A
Love Story
Cooperation with partners
Collaboration: roadmap
Inputs and needs from their industry: we developed
new functionalities thanks to their inputs
Fast feedback on our first releases
Promotion of our Product among their customers
We are now evaluating to run an entire project
together

3. Why do Customers LOVE
Open-Source/Free SW?
Reliable
What’s inside
Modify it and add new functionalities
Learn coding
It will keep living in the next years
No fun when you are not able to be curious
Feel free

4. Do You Know Which is The
First Thing Our Users Say?
Make sure that you find a place to meet these guys…
…which is what we call ‘COMMUNITY’

5. Where Should I Start?
Be Active Outside The Company
Reputation among developers (e.g. GitHub stars)
Evangelism: reach your users! Make them love you
and promote you
Metrics: who are the users? How many? How many
downloads? Where are they located?
Branding: make sure there is awareness of your
brand in the web, in your industry, and so on

6. A Precious Treasure:
OUR PARTNERS
University users (evangelism and brand
awareness in the long term)
Users can become more: they can help you grow,
and distribute your sw. They can deliver support
and services in all those markets that maybe we
are not really comfortable to reach
It is not so obvious that your users will become
your customers!

7. Building Your Value Proposition
SW is a product, but a special one
It lives, and dies. It becomes obsolete
It needs maintenance
It talks to database, other SW and infrastructures so it
really has to be easily integrated into an ecosystem
It has to be SECURE
After you install a SW you want make sure your users
will be able to work with it, and use it, and do great
things with it
Reflect on the capabilities that you are offering…

8. What We Do…
Documentation on the web
Custom services
Maintenance of the product
Trainings at all levels
Custom functionalities

9. Value Propositions
Support & Services The SaaS model:
• Hosting + tooling +
operations
• Partnership with big cloud
providers (AWS, Google,
Azure…)
Differentiate licenses:
• Dual licenses
• Open core

10. Try To Avoid:
Alienation & Tension
Between: Proprietary code and Not-proprietary code
Remember: Customers do not want Vendor Lock-in
Your advantage is >> They want to buy from who
wrote the code
Your advantage is >> They don’t have your specific
expertise

11. Road maps shared
Outbound marketing: focusing on buyers and
distribute free content
Expand your reputation inside customers
Create a link btw the 2 teams
Be Active INSIDE The Company:
Collaboration between
MARKETING and DEVELOPERS

12. AWARENESS - INTEREST- LOVE
EXTENSION OF THE COMMUNITY
LEAD GENERATION - BD
PURCHASE AND EXPANSION
Just Like Funnel Steps!

13. To Recap: Some Tips…
Focus on your competitive advantage
Figure out:
- who your customer is
- in which segment you want to operate
Understand well which is the competitive value your
product has
Build a collaboration btw your developers and your
marketing department
Nurture your community and distribute content &
documentation
Get ready a great GO TO MARKET PLAN…

14. …and make sure you start executing it!

15. WEBSITE
 Hub – gather together all resources
 Success stories
 Online demo
 Register to download
 Metrics: (number of visitors, visited pages, loading
time, bounces, actions on the website, …)

16. WEBINARS
 Content sharing: technical webinars, thematic
webinars, roadmap sharing…
 Feedbacks on product
 Engagement of participants, but also partners,
active community members…
 Data about participants to develop a more and more
personal relationship with them

17. QUESTION & ANSWERS
 Free support
 Feedbacks on product
 Protagonism – user asks, user answers
 Gamification – rewards, points, etc

18. ADVERTISING
 Open contents
 Brand awareness - broader reach
 Nurture the funnel

19. …AND MANY MORE!
 Social networks (news sharing, mentions, live..)
 Other places where community can contribute
 Newsletter (news from you, your market, your
partners…)
 Communities and partners
 Events

20. Elena MARCHISA
Marketing & Communications
KNOWAGE – Engineering Group
elena.marchisa@eng.it
Noemi MAGLIO
Business Developer
KNOWAGE – Engineering Group
noemi.maglio@eng.it
Next talk by KNOWAGE Labs: Data analysis for enterprises
with open source – KNOWAGE real use cases
Tomorrow at 9:40, Crane Hall
Visit us at OW2-KNOWAGE desk in the Seminar
area Foyer (floor -1)!