How To Innovate Faster with Community: Insights From Co-creating Product with Community with GitLab's CEO
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1. GitLab takes an open core approach to product development, allowing the community to contribute to both open source and proprietary code. This dual flywheel model has helped GitLab release a new product version every month while merging over 300 community contributions per month. 2. GitLab fosters community engagement and trust by being transparent about business practices and product direction, having a buyer-based open core model that balances revenue and community needs, and investing in community growth programs. 3. GitLab measures the success of its community approach through metrics like community contributor counts and merge requests from customers, demonstrating the return on investment in its open source community.
How To Innovate Faster with Community: Insights From Co-creating Product with Community with GitLab's CEO
- 2. How to innovate faster with community: Insights from co-creating product with community with GitLab’s CEO Sid Sijbrandij Co-Founder and CEO GitLab @sytses Do not place text, or graphics in any of the red space Your faces will be here Logo Overlays will be here DO NOT DELETE SaaStr Team will delete these guides in review.
- 3. 1. The start of the GitLab community 2. Customer impact of open core and source available 3. Building trust and fostering wider community engagement 4. GitLab wider community examples Topics Do not place text, or graphics in any of the red space Your faces will be here Logo Overlays will be here DO NOT DELETE SaaStr Team will delete these guides in review.
- 4. GitLab’s journey began in 2011 Do not place text, or graphics in any of the red space Your faces will be here Logo Overlays will be here DO NOT DELETE SaaStr Team will delete these guides in review. Dmitriy Zaporozhets Co-founder & Creator of GitLab Kharkiv, Ukraine 2011 Dmitriy created an Open Source collaboration tool, GitLab Garnered interest through the Ruby subreddit and Twitter GitLab received 300+ contributions in its first year
- 5. Do not place text, or graphics in any of the red space Your faces will be here Logo Overlays will be here DO NOT DELETE SaaStr Team will delete these guides in review. A global community of contributors
- 6. The company is part of the community GitLab team members Customers Volunteers Translators + Bug bounty hunters Community Do not place text, or graphics in any of the red space Your faces will be here Logo Overlays will be here DO NOT DELETE SaaStr Team will delete these guides in review.
- 7. ● Helps co-create the product ● Provides feedback ● Creates awareness and champions Do not place text, or graphics in any of the red space Your faces will be here Logo Overlays will be here DO NOT DELETE SaaStr Team will delete these guides in review. An active wider community is an incredible asset
- 8. Dual-flywheel strategy Do not place text, or graphics in any of the red space Your faces will be here Logo Overlays will be here DO NOT DELETE SaaStr Team will delete these guides in review. *As of Oct 2021 This year, we’ve merged on average 335 wider community code contributions per month* New product version released 121 months in a row*
- 9. 1. The start of the GitLab community 2. Customer impact of open core and source available 3. Building trust and fostering wider community engagement 4. GitLab wider community examples Topics Do not place text, or graphics in any of the red space Your faces will be here Logo Overlays will be here DO NOT DELETE SaaStr Team will delete these guides in review.
- 10. Open core with source-available code Open source “core” functionality ● Free and open source “core” functionality ● Additional functionality is proprietary and monetized Do not place text, or graphics in any of the red space Your faces will be here Logo Overlays will be here DO NOT DELETE SaaStr Team will delete these guides in review. Source-available proprietary code ● Requires payment to use in production ● Customers can download, modify, and submit modifications
- 11. Open core empowers our customers ● Customers accelerate features ● Users in paid tiers made over 50% of overall wider community contributions from January to October 2021 ● New features benefit other customers Do not place text, or graphics in any of the red space Your faces will be here Logo Overlays will be here DO NOT DELETE SaaStr Team will delete these guides in review.
- 12. GitLab has a dollar-based gross retention rate of 97%* Open core fosters brand loyalty Do not place text, or graphics in any of the red space Your faces will be here Logo Overlays will be here DO NOT DELETE SaaStr Team will delete these guides in review. *For each of FY2020 and FY2021 I value the relationships I’ve built with GitLab team members, many even feel like mentors. They've taught me so much, and I appreciate the time they take out of their day to chat with me, whether it be work related or otherwise. I love the approach and the mentality." — Lee Tickett, Core Team
- 13. Business benefits of open core model 1. Enables investments in a free, open source offering 2. Allows monetization of proprietary features 3. Empowers customer to co-create 4. Fuels dual-flywheel growth with contributions from the wider community Do not place text, or graphics in any of the red space Your faces will be here Logo Overlays will be here DO NOT DELETE SaaStr Team will delete these guides in review.
- 14. 1. The start of the GitLab community 2. Customer impact of open core and source available 3. Building trust and fostering wider community engagement 4. GitLab wider community examples Topics Do not place text, or graphics in any of the red space Your faces will be here Logo Overlays will be here DO NOT DELETE SaaStr Team will delete these guides in review.
- 15. a. Transparency about project direction b. Conflicts of interest c. Lack of company engagement in open channels Typical challenges with building trust Do not place text, or graphics in any of the red space Your faces will be here Logo Overlays will be here DO NOT DELETE SaaStr Team will delete these guides in review.
- 16. 1. The start of the GitLab community 2. Customer impact of open core and source available 3. Building trust and fostering wider community engagement a. Transparency: Align company values with open source ethos b. Conflict of interest: Pick a business model that balances revenue with wider community needs c. Engagement: Invest in wider community engagement & growth 4. GitLab wider community examples Topics Do not place text, or graphics in any of the red space Your faces will be here Logo Overlays will be here DO NOT DELETE SaaStr Team will delete these guides in review.
- 17. Policy: 1. Development in the open 2. Business in the open 3. Provide a clear direction We continuously demonstrate this commitment, including in our recent public listing on October 14, 2021 A commitment to transparency Do not place text, or graphics in any of the red space Your faces will be here Logo Overlays will be here DO NOT DELETE SaaStr Team will delete these guides in review. https://about.gitlab.com/blog/2016/01/11/being-a-good-open-source-steward/
- 18. Our stewardship page includes: 1. Business model explanation 2. Criteria to choose paid-only features 3. How open source benefits from open core Clearly stated business practices Do not place text, or graphics in any of the red space Your faces will be here Logo Overlays will be here DO NOT DELETE SaaStr Team will delete these guides in review. https://about.gitlab.com/company/stewardship/
- 19. Some of our promises: 1. Free features will remain free 2. Not artificially limiting or delaying features for the free tier 3. Free tier will have essential features to run public and private repositories 4. The majority of features built by GitLab Inc. will be open source Specific stewardship promises Do not place text, or graphics in any of the red space Your faces will be here Logo Overlays will be here DO NOT DELETE SaaStr Team will delete these guides in review.
- 20. 1. The start of the GitLab community 2. Customer impact of open core and source available 3. Building trust and fostering wider community engagement a. Transparency: Align company values with open source ethos b. Conflict of interest: Picking a business model that balances revenue with wider community needs c. Engagement: Invest in wider community engagement & growth 4. GitLab wider community examples Topics Do not place text, or graphics in any of the red space Your faces will be here Logo Overlays will be here DO NOT DELETE SaaStr Team will delete these guides in review.
- 21. 1. Donations: ice cream money 2. Consultancy: margins would limit investments in unpaid work 3. Paid development: coordination, waiting 4. Support: limited long-term benefits 5. Packaging: hinders adoption 6. ICO: no longer available 7. Data: still new, data sparse tech 8. SaaS only: unmet market need for self-managed 9. Single Tenant Service: very complex 10. Hardware: didn’t try 11. Open core: we chose this Business models we considered Do not place text, or graphics in any of the red space Your faces will be here Logo Overlays will be here DO NOT DELETE SaaStr Team will delete these guides in review.
- 22. Buyer-based open core business We evaluated multiple options to decide what features to monetize: Do not place text, or graphics in any of the red space Your faces will be here Logo Overlays will be here DO NOT DELETE SaaStr Team will delete these guides in review. ● Based on SDLC stage ● Based on company size ● Based on DevSecOps maturity ● Based on buyer Want adoption across stages Small companies sometimes need all Early companies may want everything Works really well
- 23. 1. The start of the GitLab community 2. Customer impact of open core and source available 3. Building trust and fostering wider community engagement a. Transparency: Align company values with open source ethos b. Conflict of interest: Picking a business model that balances revenue with wider community needs c. Engagement: Invest in wider community engagement & growth 4. GitLab wider community examples Topics Do not place text, or graphics in any of the red space Your faces will be here Logo Overlays will be here DO NOT DELETE SaaStr Team will delete these guides in review.
- 24. Some KPIs we use: ● Wider community contributor counts ● Monthly wider community contributions merged ● MRARR: multiply a customer’s merge request count by their ARR Measure community investments ROI Do not place text, or graphics in any of the red space Your faces will be here Logo Overlays will be here DO NOT DELETE SaaStr Team will delete these guides in review.
- 25. ● GitLab for Education ● GitLab for Open Source ● GitLab for Startups Growing the wider community Do not place text, or graphics in any of the red space Your faces will be here Logo Overlays will be here DO NOT DELETE SaaStr Team will delete these guides in review.
- 26. ● Merge request coaches: help contributors bring work over the finish line ● Hackathon: events to engage, support, and reward contributors Motivate and coach contributors Do not place text, or graphics in any of the red space Your faces will be here Logo Overlays will be here DO NOT DELETE SaaStr Team will delete these guides in review.
- 27. Recognize your top contributors Do not place text, or graphics in any of the red space Your faces will be here Logo Overlays will be here DO NOT DELETE SaaStr Team will delete these guides in review. Core Team
- 28. 1. Focus recruitment efforts outside the wider community 2. Stick to your stewardship promises 3. Set clear performance indicators for community engagement 4. Start building community early Things to watch out for Do not place text, or graphics in any of the red space Your faces will be here Logo Overlays will be here DO NOT DELETE SaaStr Team will delete these guides in review.
- 29. 1. The start of the GitLab community 2. Customer impact of open core and source available 3. Building trust and fostering wider community engagement a. Transparency: Aligning company values with open source ethos b. Conflict of interest: Picking a business model that balances revenue with wider community needs c. Engagement: Investing in community growth & engagement 4. GitLab wider community examples Topics Do not place text, or graphics in any of the red space Your faces will be here Logo Overlays will be here DO NOT DELETE SaaStr Team will delete these guides in review.
- 30. “We really try to bring the open source culture in, and so far, we really succeeded. With CI/CD, we have one and a half million builds every month. The whole culture has completely changed.” Fabio Huser Software Architect at Siemens Smart Infrastructure Problem → Siemens’ development teams needed a platform for code collaboration and enhanced DevOps workflow. Solution → GitLab Free Result → GitLab enables over 6.5m + builds per month (over 210K per day). There are zero support cases and over 4 full production deploys per month. With over 40,000 GitLab users, Siemens teams contribute heavily to GitLab with over 150 merged MRs in GitLab. Do not place text, or graphics in any of the red space Your faces will be here Logo Overlays will be here DO NOT DELETE SaaStr Team will delete these guides in review.
- 31. Wider community heroes I've been able to advance my skills with the contributions I've been making to the GitLab code base. I've grown professionally and of course I've also grown in terms of having better relationships." — Marvin Karegyeya, GitLab Hero The best part of the GitLab community is the support and the network." — Akanksha Bhasin, GitLab Hero Do not place text, or graphics in any of the red space Your faces will be here Logo Overlays will be here DO NOT DELETE SaaStr Team will delete these guides in review.
- 32. Community 1. Millions of users 2. 2,700+ code contributors, all time 3. 2,000+ translators, 55 languages 4. 15K meetup contributors, 33 countries 5. 96 GitLab Heroes 6. 1 million education users 7. 25K forum members, 800K pageviews/month 8. 10K Reddit members Contributions 1. 75 unique code contributors each month on average.* 2. 335 code contributions each month on average.* Data as of October 2021 *Monthly avgs based on January to October 2021 Wider community by the numbers Do not place text, or graphics in any of the red space Your faces will be here Logo Overlays will be here DO NOT DELETE SaaStr Team will delete these guides in review.
- 33. Business Impact 1. 121 months in a row of releasing a new version on the 22nd of each month* 2. 58% growth in revenue: $42.2 million in Q3 FY2021 , $68.8 million in Q3 FY2022 3. Over 60% of annual recurring revenue came from enterprise customers in FY2021 4. 97% dollar-based gross retention rate in both FY2020 and FY2021 *As of October 2021 Buyer-based open core by the numbers Do not place text, or graphics in any of the red space Your faces will be here Logo Overlays will be here DO NOT DELETE SaaStr Team will delete these guides in review.
- 34. Dual-flywheel Contributions lead to more revenue and contributions Align community strategy, value and business model Do not place text, or graphics in any of the red space Your faces will be here Logo Overlays will be here DO NOT DELETE SaaStr Team will delete these guides in review. Company values Transparency, clear stewardship promises Business model Buyer-based open core, potential for high revenue and contributions Investments Engage, support, and grow wider community *As of Oct 2021
- 35. Q&A Do not place text, or graphics in any of the red space Your faces will be here Logo Overlays will be here DO NOT DELETE SaaStr Team will delete these guides in review.