Mike Perham is the creator and solo founder of Sidekiq, an open-source background processing framework for Ruby. He discusses the monetization timeline of the project with host Rob Walling.
Insight
Mike Perham: Developers care about software utility, not licensing constraints
“The reality is, is most of the people making these technology decisions are developers, and developers don't care about the licensing, as long as it allows them to do what they want to do.”
Insight
Mike Perham: Outsourcing customer support disconnects founders from customer pain points
“If I take myself out of the trenches, the technical trenches, so to speak, then I lose that sense of pain that customers might be feeling that would then go into the next version of the product.”
Disclosure
Mike Perham refuses to hire employees to avoid management and administrative overhead
“One of the decisions I made when starting my business was that I didn't want to hire people. Period. I don't want to be a manager. I don't want to deal with the administrative overhead.”
Disclosure
Mike Perham priced Sidekiq Pro at $1,000/year to avoid VP sign-offs
“So I settled on a thousand dollars a year only because so many companies have the credit card policy where anything over a thousand dollars requires like a, you know, a VP sign off or something like that. So I was just like, well, let's get it under the VP sig…”
Disclosure
Mike Perham runs Sidekiq alone with zero employees and no regular contractors
“The company's just me. I have no contractors. I have a designer that I contact, you know, maybe once a year to help me out with a graphic here and there. I have a lawyer, which I contact once a year with, you know, any red lines I need to discuss, or, you know…”
Insight
Mike Perham: Unmonetized open-source projects inevitably end in developer burnout
“You start it with lots of excitement, You get your first couple users, and you're super enthused, and then the bug reports come in, you start fixing those in your nights and evenings, and if you're successful, you get more and more and more bug reports, and mo…”