The Problem We Were Actually Solving
At the time, we were heavily reliant on single individual sponsors, mostly tech companies that had a vested interest in our project's success. The problem was that this model was unsustainable. If one of these sponsors decided to pull their funding, the entire project would be in jeopardy. The tension was also growing between us and some of the other sponsors, who felt that their contributions were being marginalized by the influential ones.
What We Tried First (And Why It Failed)
We tried diversifying our income streams by partnering with a few more sponsors and also exploring grants that matched our project's goals. While this increased our income, it didn't solve the core issue: we were still beholden to individual contributors who could cut us off at any time. Our main sponsor would even call us regularly to discuss their priorities and ask us to make changes to the project roadmap. It created a culture of dependency rather than collaboration.
The Architecture Decision
We realized that we needed to create a more robust financial model, one that didn't rely on individual sponsors. This led us to implement a tiered sponsorship system, where we grouped our sponsors into different levels of commitment. We also started to explore subscription-based models for our users, allowing them to contribute to the project on a recurring basis. We also discovered that we could partner with some of the larger tech companies to use their services, but not as a sponsor. For instance, we started using cloud services from a major provider, which paid us for each user who used their platform.
What The Numbers Said After
With our new financial model in place, we noticed a significant increase in the stability of our income. We were no longer beholden to individual sponsors, and our team felt more secure in their roles. The financial data also showed that our tiered sponsorship model had attracted a wider range of contributors, from smaller startups to large corporations. Our subscription-based model also saw a steady increase in revenue as users began to see the value in contributing to the project directly.
What I Would Do Differently
Looking back, I would have been more aggressive in implementing our new financial model earlier. It took us several months to come to a consensus on the tiered sponsorship system and subscription-based model. In hindsight, it would have been beneficial to push for a faster transition, even if it meant more short-term financial uncertainty. It's also worth noting that we didn't account for the potential decrease in income from our previous sponsors when we introduced the new system. We lost some revenue initially as our new contributors brought in less funds at first. This caused us to cut back on expenses temporarily until the new system could stabilize.
Our journey with sustainability models has taught us that a diverse financial base is crucial for maintaining the long-term health of an open source project.
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