Episode 208: FOSSY 2023 with Emily Omier

Guest Emily Omier Panelist Richard Littauer Show Notes Hello and welcome to Sustain! Richard is in Portland at FOSSY, the Free and Open Source Software Yearly conference that is held by the Software Freedom Conservancy. Today, we chat with Emily Omier, a revenue strategy and positioning consultant who helps open source startups accelerate revenue and community growth. Based in Paris, Emily lends her expertise to primarily European startups, helping them navigate their unique challenges and carve out a profitable strategy. We discuss her approach, which connects perfectly with her marketing background with company and product alignment in the open source space. We also touch on the critical role open source workers play in business profitability. Press download now to hear more! [00:00:47] Emily explains her role as a consultant who works with open source businesses to help them clarify their commercial strategy and positioning. [00:01:24] Emily reveals that she’s originally from Portland but currently resides in Paris. She serves both the European and American market and shares why she finds the European ecosystem more interesting. [00:03:00] Richard inquires about Emily’s approach to improving profit margins for European startups through open source strategy. Emily explains that her clients are typically companies that have already decided to be open. [00:05:56] Emily tells us that her ideal clients are relatively small startups that have some revenue and a commercial offering. [00:07:21] The topic of marketing comes up and Emily explains that although her background is in marketing, her current role involves various parts of a company, not just marketing. She discusses the importance of knowing the company’s identity, understanding the target user for the opens source project, and aligning product development with the company’s story. [00:10:06] We find out that Emily works mainly with founders and has never worked directly with a community or an Open Source Program Office (OSPO). She emphasizes the importance of open source workers in big businesses being able to articulate how their work in open source contributes to the company’s bottom line. [00:11:45] How did Emily get into this field if she hasn’t worked with open source communities? She goes in depth how she was working in marketing with Kubernetes companies in the cloud native sphere, where she found a significant overlap with open source communities. [00:13:43] Find out where you can learn more about Emily online. Links SustainOSS SustainOSS Twitter SustainOSS Discourse [email protected] SustainOSS Mastodon Richard Littauer Twitter Software Freedom Conservancy Open OSS Emily Omier Website The Business of Open Source Podcast Emily Omier Twitter Emily Omier LinkedIn The New Stack-Entrepreneurship for Engineers Credits Produced by Richard Littauer Edited by Paul M. Bahr at Peachtree Sound Show notes by DeAnn Bahr Peachtree Sound Special Guest: Emily Omier.