Embracing Product-Led Growth in Open Source with Kim McMahon

10/04/23 • 36 min

Kim McMahon is the leader of Open Source Marketing & Community at Outshift by Cisco, which is Cisco’s emerging technologies and innovation unit. We recorded this episode at Open Source Summit EU, and talked about Kim’s strategies and tactics related to helping guide users to the correct edition of your product — ie, decide whether the open source option or a commercial option is best for them.

Kim talked about the tricky balance open-source companies must strike between embracing open-source principles and driving revenue as a business, Kim’s tactics for community building and why it’s so important to be clear on why you want to build a community and the outcomes you expect from your investment in community building.

Highlights:

I introduce Kim, who is the leader of Open Source Marketing & Community at Outshift by Cisco, as she joins me at the Open Source Summit EU in Bilbao (00:25)
Kim gives an overview of the talk she is giving at the Open Source Summit, which is on the topic of self-identifying when to shift to a managed version of open-source products (01:35)
Kim and I discuss the different personas of open-source software users, and the role that product-led growth plays for open-source companies (03:07)
Why Kim feels it’s critical to not treat your community as a sales database but rather to provide educational content to drive sales of open-source products (09:10)
Kim and I discuss the challenges of marketing an open-source project and whether positioning truly falls under marketing (10:49)
How Kim created a feedback loop on her team between sales, marketing, and product to ensure alignment when bringing open-source products to market (13:31)
Kim walks through her thought process for community building from scratch (17:23)
How Kim evaluates if a community-building strategy is working or not (24:34)
What Kim learned about being a part of a community by being a member of a food co-op (28:09)
Where to connect with Kim and learn more about her work (34:44)

Links:

Kim

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimmcmahonco/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/kamcmahon
Company: https://eti.cisco.com/

Highlights:

I introduce Kim, who is the leader of Open Source Marketing & Community at Outshift by Cisco, as she joins me at the Open Source Summit EU in Bilbao (00:25)
Kim gives an overview of the talk she is giving at the Open Source Summit, which is on the topic of self-identifying when to shift to a managed version of open-source products (01:35)
Kim and I discuss the different personas of open-source software users, and the role that product-led growth plays for open-source companies (03:07)
Why Kim feels it’s critical to not treat your community as a sales database but rather to provide educational content to drive sales of open-source products (09:10)
Kim and I discuss the challenges of marketing an open-source project and whether positioning truly falls under marketing (10:49)
How Kim created a feedback loop on her team between sales, marketing, and product to ensure alignment when bringing open-source products to market (13:31)
Kim walks through her thought process for community building from scratch (17:23)
How Kim evaluates if a community-building strategy is working or not (24:34)
What Kim learned about being a part of a community by being a member of a food co-op (28:09)
Where to connect with Kim and learn more about her work (34:44)

Links:

Kim

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimmcmahonco/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/kamcmahon
Company: https://eti.cisco.com/

Previous Episode

Shifting a Go-To-Market Strategy from Services to Product-Led with Alexander Krüger

Alexander Krüger is the Co-Founder and CEO of United Manufacturing Hub, an open-source company that develops software for the manufacturing industry. Throughout our conversation, Alexander describes the unusual path he took in going from a services-based consulting company to a product-led company. He also describes the opportunities and challenges of selling open-source software to an industry that has historically been slow to adopt new technology, as well as his choice to hone a go-to-market strategy before exploring fundraising.

Highlights:

I introduce Alexander, and he gives some background on his company United Manufacturing Hub (00:22)
How Alexander decided to develop open-source software for manufacturers (01:39)
Alexander describes the early days of launching United Manufacturing Hub and how he got his first customers (04:06)
How long it took to go from a consulting firm to a product-based company (06:57)
Why it’s important to Alexander that United Manufacturing Hub is an open-source company (08:20)
Alexander describes the go-to-market strategy at United Manufacturing Hub and how it impacts their fundraising efforts as well as their monetization model (11:06)
Alexander describes an interesting mistake he made and what he learned from it (19:10)
How different it is to sell open-source software in the manufacturing space versus other industries (21:31)
The biggest challenges facing United Manufacturing Hub today (22:35)
Alexander describes the pros and cons of going from a services company to a product company (25:44)
Where people can go to learn more about United Manufacturing Hub and connect with Alexander (29:38)

Links:

Alexander

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexander-krueger/
Twitter:
Company: https://www.umh.app/

Next Episode

Getting The Most Out of Open-Source Events with Brian Proffitt

Brian Proffitt is the Senior Manager of Community Outreach at Red Hat’s OSPO. In this episode, we connect at the Open Source Summit EU to discuss how Brian uses events to drive both lead generation and community-building efforts. Throughout our conversation, Brian describes how measuring the ROI of an event can be tricky and why it’s important to look at events as a long game strategy. We also discuss why events provide some of the most valuable feedback when testing your positioning and messaging, and what can be done to increase the odds that your events are successful and produce good outcomes.

Highlights:

I introduce Brian, who is the Senior Manager of Community Outreach at Red Hat’s OSPO as he joins me at the Open Source Summit EU (00:28)
How Brian categorizes the different types of events he attends and hosts (01:55)
The primary metric and objective for lead gen events, and what can be done to increase the odds that your lead gen events bear fruit (05:18)
Why events are such a valuable part of testing your positioning and messaging (09:14)
Brian delves into the value of community events and what the ROI for those looks like (12:50)
The strategy Brian employs for getting the most out of community events when ROI can be difficult to measure (15:40)
Brian shares why he feels that events are more of a long game strategy (23:24)
The advice that Brian would give to an open-source founder or start-up that is looking to get the most out of their events strategy (25:28)
The best ways to learn more and connect with Brian (31:34)

Links:

Brian