Question
We have and idea, which significantly simplifies access to messy and diverse knowledge bases and complex intranets. We're still trying to evaluate it, but it's already clear, that it gains value as the size of the company (customer) grows. Smaller companies don't have that much mess and probably won't pay for any solution for that. However, I'm pretty sure they would be willing to try it for free and free users also have value as they form a community around the product.
So, my question is how good is the model when most of the product is open source (e.g. community edition) and enterprise version, with advanced features, only relevant for big companies, is sold for a fee. Without any experience it looks attractive, but what are the downsides? What's the investor opinion on such model? It seems like such approach would delay the first revenue and require significant engineering effort from start. Would it be even possible to raise money for it?
Answer
Yes!!! Very possible. I was Head of Growth for an open source company that offered a strict enterprise solution and those were our main revenue numbers.
It's important to have a sales team for this to close and upgrade your current customers.
