VCs and Open Source and Funding

Aneel Lakhani (@aneel, Investor, @crane_vc Crane Venture Partners) talks about the challenges of VC funding and building profitable companies based on open-source software. 

SHOW: 791

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SHOW NOTES:

• Crane VC homepage
• Aneel’s 2023 Look Ahead Show
• Aneel’s 2022 Look Ahead Show
• The Problem with Money in (Open Source) Software - Monktoberfest 2023

Topic 1 - Welcome back. You’re almost in the 5 timers club at this point, and a returning guest from our look-ahead shows in 2023. For our new listeners, tell everyone a little bit about yourself

Topic 2 - You recently gave a talk at Monktoberfest about the problem with money in software, specifically open-source software. The crux of it was that VCs require high returns on investments, and software has short windows to gain adoption. 

Topic 3 - Could that talk have been given any time over the last 5+ years, or was it triggered by recent “events” with open source companies (e.g. Hashicorp)?

Topic 4 - Has VC thinking changed about software, given that open source provided essentially early marketing and awareness for “free,” but that comes with user expectations of free (cost) as well? Are there any new ideas about how to build cost-effective software moats?

Topic 5 - There are various “conspiracies” floating around that VCs negotiate “the rug pull” with companies at each funding round. Especially in the early stages (where you focus), how much is the VC focused on getting the idea off the ground vs. the validity of the business model? When does the business model discussion typically start? 

Topic 6 - We’ve said before that there will never be another Enterprise Software company after VMware. Has the era of open-source enterprise startups ended, or does it just need to go through a phase of rediscovery?

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