Many OSS projects are supported by a crew of volunteers trying to solve a simple problem in the world around them. And most OSS projects don’t judge their true success with monetary metrics.
With that said, when an OSS project becomes a breakout success, if the OSS creators don’t bring a scalable commercial offer to market, someone else will.
At Omnistrate, we recognize the importance of balancing the principles of open source with the need for sustainability. We believe that creators should have the freedom to choose how they license their software while still being able to monetize their efforts. That's why we're introducing a new approach to bringing OSS Apps to the cloud.
The cost of building an Cloud offer, without SaaS
Without SaaS each customer’s installation is treated as a standalone environment that is dedicated and unique. This means that customers view themselves as the owners of these environments, potentially implementing one-off customizations that support their needs. This also means that customers control which version of a product they are running.
This directly impacts the operational footprint of your organization. The more customers who use one-off environments, the more challenging it becomes to manage, update, and support the varying configurations of each customer. While flexible, this model also introduces incremental expenses for each new customer that is onboarded.
Ultimately, the collective overhead and impact of this model will limit the growth of the business. While the pain points often start with operational efficiency, the true cost is incremental staffing and the linear costs associated with bringing on new customers.
Additionally, the hidden issue is that this model, as it scales, directly impacts the business’s ability to release new features and keep pace with the market. When each customer has their own unique environment, your company has to manage a complex list of update, migration, and customer requirements as they attempt to introduce new capabilities.
This will hinder your ability to react to market dynamics and competitive pressures.
The thing we don’t say out loud…
While successful OSS based startups in the past were able to build their core product using traditional models, and were then given the time (and funding) to transition to a SaaS business model, this is no longer a market reality.
Thanks to the tremendous commercial success of OSS based companies like Databricks & Snowflake, OSS creators have a very short window to monetize before a 3rd party will make a Cloud service based on their efforts without them.
By taking your OSS project to cloud via Omnistrate, you can deploy a mature SaaS offer in a matter of days. Providing your organization with a clear path to scale, efficiency, and profitability.
How it works
All SaaS offers consist of two realms of responsibility called “Planes”: The Control Plane & The App Plane (Data Plane)
Omnistrate provides your organization with an advanced multi-cloud control plane that handles tasks related to onboarding, authentication, management, operation, and analysis within your multi-tenant SaaS Offers.
While your company focuses its time and talents building out an amazing Application (which is hosted within the App Plane.)
Of note, while the control plane provides the least amount of market differentiation, for companies who choose to build their own, it often consumes the majority of the time and budget. While Omnistrate usually costs less than the cost of one full time engineer.
Conclusion
Without SaaS your business is starting with a non-scalable delivery method, which will have to evolve before your business can reach profitability. All founders know they have to implement a SaaS offer eventually, however the cost and complexity of building a modern SaaS Service prevents most cash restricted startups from starting with SaaS.
Sadly, many successful OSS startups ultimately fail, because they are not able to make the transition to a scalable, cost optimized delivery model before the cash (or time) runs out.
Partnering with Omnistrates means your organization doesn’t have to “build the airplane” in flight. With Omnistrate you start with the power of SaaS, and you start with a clear path to both global scale and profitability.