Matt Asay - Novell

The Open Source MBA: How to Get an Open Source-related Business Funded in a Down Economy

How do you make money for free? Or, more importantly, how do you convince someone to give you money for a business plan centered on selling a freely-distributable product?

Many in the open source software (OSS) community view OSS somewhat religiously, and forget that the only religion for a venture capitalist is return on investment. This presentation will walk through the practical aspects of starting and funding an OSS-related business. Surveying organisations which have raised tens of millions of dollars in both the bubble- and down-economies, it will detail OSS-based business models that work, and will walk through the mechanics of raising money for them.