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One website for the project and company
For companies that are able to maintain the original project name, it’s best to keep the open source project and commercial company websites together rather than separate if you can. Two different websites can cause confusion and require double the effort to maintain. Much of that effort will be duplicative.
Don’t worry about deprecating the existing open source project website. Instead, make the commercial company website a superset of the two. The commercial site should be the go-to destination for all communication and information. Eventually, the two websites may evolve into one, but that can happen over time. Doing everything all at once may alarm the community. It’s better if this is a gradual process that happens as the community gains trust in the commercial entity. People are a lot more receptive to change as long as the commercial company is consistently doing the right thing.
If combining the open source and company website isn’t an option, create a new website and include a link to the open source project repo in the website footer.
Website content
The content of your website should be forward-looking. Build the website for the product you want to have in 6 months; your website will undergo many, many iterations over time. Aim to have a company website published your first week or sooner. OCV will transfer any existing domain names to the founder.
The first version of your website may be a single page but should include:
- Headline and description. The headline should explain your company in a few words. The description should explain what you do in 1-2 sentences.
- Value props and/or features. How does the product help its users and what the existing or planned features?
- Pricing. The pricing page is often the most visited because it quickly tells visitors what the company offers. Even if you’re not sure what you are selling or for how much, it’s a good exercise to start thinking about. The first version may be an hourly rate for support and services.
- Competitors. A simple and clear way to help people understand your business is to list the companies and technologies you replace. For example, GitLab’s Platform page lists each category it serves and which tools and technology they replace in each.
- About us and contact us. Include the company vision and mission, details about the open source project, a contact form, and team bios. It’s important founders are included on the website and share their specific expertise. Include the founders role in the open source project (creator, maintainer, contributor).
Company logo and website design
Founders are encouraged to use AI tools to create their own website/logo and choose whichever website hosting platform they are most comfortable with. When prompting AI, consider including:
- Any significance or meaning behind the company name.
- The company mission, vision, and product feature set.
- Personality traits would you use to describe the company (adjectives, emotional/intuitive feeling the brand is expected to invoke). Include a few competitor examples.
OCV will connect founders to a website and logo designer at the founder’s request. The designer will ask our founders to complete a brand strategy survey for the logo design process. In the spirit of moving quickly, the designer will be present a few options to choose from, including the initial color scheme for the brand. Logos and color schemes may change over time.
Company announcement
OCV will publish a new company announcement for each new OCV company. The company website and social media pages (LinkedIn and Twitter) need to be live before OCV can share the announcement.
We ask that founders participate in 45-minute interview with OCV to gather content for the announcement post. The interview will cover:
- Background: The open source project origin and founder background
- Existing market: The problem/solution space the technology operates in
- Company vision: Thoughts on the company and product roadmap.
- Open Charter: Why the company is an Open Charter company (if applicable)
Founders may chose to publish an announcement post on their own website. Announcements authored by the company typically address the existing open source community and explain why the founder decided to start a company around the project. Please coordinate with OCV on publishing timing.
OCV Announcement Examples | Company Announcement Examples |
Attending conferences
We typically don’t recommend spending money attending conferences. Most are generic and don’t have good returns. Lost time before and after an event can also distract from primary goals.
If an event is strictly about your technology and the audience loves what you are making, it’s worth considering. The audience should comprise potential customers, i.e. people who can provide revenue to your business. Otherwise, it is extremely hard to get a good return for the time and money invested.
Tiers of participation can range from attending and presenting to hosting a booth and sponsoring. Be clear about your goal of attending the conference. For example, “generate X# of sales leads” is a measurable goal. “Increase brand awareness” is not.
Examples of reasons to attend a conference and measurable goals
- Recruiting: generate X# of qualified applicants for XYZ role(s).
- Lead generation: collect X# of qualified leads and contact leads within 3 days.
- Events can only help with the initial lead generation. The follow up is what is more useful and events are where the job is just starting.
- Community building: add X# of people to the Discord group.
- Investor relations: secure X# of meetings with specific investor firms.
Team bonding
Team building is not a strong enough reason to sponsor or host a booth at an event on it’s own. You can hold team-building events separately from conferences. If you pair an event with team bonding, arrive a few days early for dedicated team-building time.
Conference booth
Include an incentive. When hosting a conference booth, include an incentive to get people to visit your booth and sign up for something. Example: 50% off the first year’s subscription.
Strong messaging. Booths that tend to do well at events have strong, targeted messaging. To increase your chances of meeting your event goal, consider creating event-specific messaging tailored to the audience attending the event. For example, if the event is about a specific technology that your product uses, make that front and center.
Paid Ads
Paid advertising is one demand generation method to consider but it’s typically better to start with unpaid marketing efforts like organic (content marketing) and outbound. Paid advertising tends to work in the beginning but the more it works, the more money it takes to continue growing and it can be a quick way to burn through a lot of money.
Before starting paid advertising, ask yourself what is the point of trying it. Are you testing something and need a lot of eyes on it? Using paid ads to help gather data around an experiment may be a better route than turning on paid ads for the sake of it. If you are successful with paid advertising, the result is often to spend more and more.
It’s not a hard and fast rule to not utilize paid advertising but carefully consider your intended outcome and if its a channel you want to and have the means to continuously increase spending on.