The Business of Open Source8 Nov 2023

A Second-Time Founder’s First Foray Into Open Source with Lars Kamp

Lars Kamp is the Co-Founder and CEO of Some Engineering, the makers of Resoto. In this episode, Lars describes what he’s learned from founding and working at multiple start-ups, as well as the main differentiators he’s experienced founding his first open-source startup. Lars describes his though process when it comes to selecting co-founders, and illustrates why it’s even more important to be discerning when selecting investors. Lars and I also discuss the advantages that open-source gives to founders who are focused on the distribution strategy for their product, and Lars reveals why he is a big proponent of having docs be a part of your product-led growth strategy. Throughout our conversation, Lars’ insights create a detailed picture of what second-time founders think about and how SaaS startup experience relates to open-source business strategy.

Highlights:

I introduce Lars, who is the CEO and Founder of Some Engineering (00:23)
Lars describes what he does at Resoto and the user groups they work with (00:47)
How a tweet by Jeff Barr inspired Lars and his co-founders to start working on Resoto (01:37)
What it was like for Lars to start a company with co-founders he didn’t know very well (05:03)
Why Lars went from working with closed-source SaaS companies to founding an open-source company (07:26)
The main differences Lars has found between founding a SaaS startup and an open-source company (09:24)
Lars describes the value he sees in investing in really good docs (10:44)
Why Lars focuses more on distribution than product as a second-time founder (13:19)
What third time founders think about and what they don’t (16:18)
Lars’ advice to founders (18:40)
Why Lars sees a big advantage in open-source business models, especially when it comes to distribution (20:09)
The advice Lars would give himself if he could go back in time to the early days of Resoto(28:31)
How to get in touch with Lars (32:23)

Links:

Lars

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/larskamp/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/l1rs
Company: https://some.engineering/

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