SPEAKER_01: 0:00

Hello everyone, this is Adrian, and uh on this episode we're gonna make um something uh it's gonna be a little bit different. I have uh Jason Bosco with me. Uh he's the CEO and founder of TypeSense, which is a um a search engine. I don't wanna so I I stop because I don't wanna ruin it. I I'm sure you know I know how it is when I talk to people about my product and when sometimes they talk about it and it's not what I want it to be, not what I would have said. So I'm gonna let uh Jason say hi and um and and tell people how how mean what is TypeSense?

SPEAKER_00: 0:39

Yep, yep, and yeah, thanks for having me, Adrian. Um so yeah, so I'm I'm Jason, I'm CEO co-founder of TypeSense. Uh and you started it right. We are a search engine, uh, but it's a search engine for sites and apps to add a search feature into their own you know, sites and apps. So we don't go out and crawl data, instead it's a dev tool that like engineers push data into, and we index it. So the the magic that we bring is that we index it in memory, so it's an in-memory search engine, and then offer you ways to retrieve that data using for full text search or filtering or faceting, you know, a whole bunch of things around search uh that you typically need when you display search results, you want people to filter them, you want people to know how many counts of each category there are. Uh, you want typotolerance, you know, you want semantic search, you want, you know, search on a map, like geo search, like based on proximity. So all of these things bundled together, that's what uh uh TypeSense is. So uh we uh have about 25, I think 24 point something stars, a thousand stars on uh GitHub. Okay. On TypeCense Cloud, uh we serve 10 billion searches per month. Um and uh yeah, we're across 26 different regions uh on TypeShins Cloud. Um and that's our so it's an open source product. That key thing that I forgot to mention earlier is it's an open source product. So you can self-host it completely free of cost without ever talking to anyone on our team uh on your own infrastructure. Uh uh if you want us to manage the infrastructure uh where we run TypeSense on our uh servers, then that's when that's the our revenue model uh uh for the company. And that's what also funds our open source uh uh development uh and the team, uh the team we have.

SPEAKER_01: 2:30

That's awesome. Uh and yeah, it's good that you mentioned that it's an open source project. Because you're so if we were to talk about your business model, it would be open core, essentially, right? With the hosted version.

SPEAKER_00: 2:43

Uh so no, in the sense that we actually run the same binary that we publish open source on TypeSence Cloud as well. So in that sense, it is fully open source. Fully open sourced, okay. The thing that we do add on top on TypeScloud is that we offer a UI, for example. We offer the convenience of us managing the infrastructure. We okay. Uh we offer what's called a search delivery network. So we provision nodes across different regions around the world and then route the traffic to the node that's closest to the user. So we added a lot of convenience things on top when it comes to hosting. Uh and whereas the at the API level, it's identical binaries that we publish open source. That's what we run on Texas Cloud as well. So from that perspective, we don't like gate features like typically folks do in an open core uh model. Yeah, we did try that at one point. We had some features behind open core, that's a whole other story. But uh at one point we decided let's just open source everything and you know push that out. And then people wanted to pay for hosting, so we decided to just charge people what they were willing to pay for. Uh and we and since then, yeah, I'd say cloud, we did offer like support for self-hosted at one point. Um of the different revenue streams, TypeSense Cloud ended up being the winner for us. So we just focused on that stuff these days.

SPEAKER_01: 4:05

I feel that that's one of the I don't want to say the best, but but the but the most widespread uh ways of monetizing an open source project. And it's it's I don't want to say easy, but it's it's a little bit easy because uh there's no education involved. Like the customer knows what they're getting, you know what they're getting what you're giving. So there's no education there of like you know, what am I paying for? Is this enough? Is this good for my value? Is this good value for money and everything? So um yeah, I think it's it's uh the right way to go, especially for a tool like TypeSess.

SPEAKER_00: 4:41

I think it it just makes sense to yeah, and that that yeah, and that's something that I didn't appreciate when we started out, you know, working on a dev tool. Uh, but over time, I think the aspect of open source also naturally invites, uh puts users in the mindset of doing a lot of self-learning and self-discovery as well. Yeah, uh and kind of like self-selling, you know, in a s in the sense that you're not you don't have like when we get on like demos that people schedule on the site, there's very little selling to them. It's it's not like hey, here's why you have to use it, it's more like them asking questions. Yeah, they're already ready. They're like, we just have these last few questions that we'd like to be answered, and yeah, that is like so uh like such a nice way to do business in my perspective, my perspective. Uh, compared to we did try cold outreaches at one point, but it was so hard. Uh, like that style of business is is I think takes a whole different type of a mindset in a company. Uh so just servicing inbound is you know it's it's definitely a really nice way to scale a company up.

SPEAKER_01: 5:48

So, yeah, because like search is a problem that you you solved, but hosted search that's a different problem. Like the hosting part, it's a different problem, which they don't want to probably you know have on their hands, right? And that's why they wanna they wanna pay.

SPEAKER_00: 6:02

Yeah, right, right. Yeah, and yeah, it does have its you know, unique things that you know you have to you need a lot of operational experience to to build up. And yep. We've I mean we ourselves, so even though we ourselves write type sensor software, running type sensor software is a whole other beast. Um in addition, so we ourselves learn about the behavior of the code that we write in production uh as we run it across like you know thousands and thousands of nodes. Um and that insight that we gain with our own software is then what we're able to uh you know uh share with through Titans Cloud with others who also want us to you know manage it. Gotcha.

SPEAKER_01: 6:46

That's kind of one of the reasons. So we had we met at Rails World in Amsterdam um a month about a month and a half ago. We had uh quite uh we actually met at Rails Conf as well. And I mentioned that I remember so the first time I kind of like you popped up on my radar was was with your blog post uh to raise VC or not, choosing the road less traveled. And that was like such an inspiring um article for somebody that started out as a bootstrap, and like you know, we're mostly bootstrap business, and it just puts into perspective so many things, and it's the type of article that you don't really uh you find it less often on the internet on the internet nowadays. Uh you'll find uh much many uh many more uh articles about raising funding, VCs, about you know, cliffs and like how to do employee e-stop. Like it's it's uh you get a lot of education, let's call it, and marketing from that side, but not that much from the other side, you know, the Darfur's, the rebellion, whatever you want to call it. So uh then at Realt World, we had this uh very nice conversation. You asked me about how our business is going, and we talked a little bit, and I think uh we we uh you know revolved around the the like developers don't want to pay for dev tools. Like I told you this is this is basically our problem. Like we we do solve some problems. Uh so our product is Avo, it's a library which the developer pulls inside their app and uh they're using it and they have access to all of their methods and all the power, all the APIs. It's not a cloud thing. Uh I'm not even sure that it there should be like an Avo cloud, maybe, maybe not, because we're venturing into a different uh uh different place. Yeah, let's talk a little bit about like developers that want to pay for dev tools and you know, where why do you think is that's happening? Why do you think it's like that?

SPEAKER_00: 8:52

Yeah, so funny enough, I'm also in that camp. You know, I have to like sometimes remind myself that it's okay to pay for stuff. Uh but I I think the mindset for us developers, and I'm including all of us in this, uh, is uh so even as a DevTools founder, I I think the mindset that we have sometimes is that I can build this myself. Like, why do I have to pay someone uh to do this? I think that core, the the power, the the building power that we have as developers where we get to write code and get machines to do the things that we wanted to do. I think that sometimes uh uh is I mean, that's an amazing skill set for all of us to have. Like, but then that also sometimes works, uh uh tricks us in a sense that you know, from the outside, it starts looking like, oh, how hard can this be? Like I can, you know, I can spend a couple of days on this, and you know, over the weekend I can get something up and running. And uh, I think that uh and maybe maybe whatever you want to build, you can get it to like what you know, 50% of what you know, another product that already does this. Uh, and you and maybe you're okay with that 50% as well, because that's the only thing that you need from it. Uh uh, but I think that that mindset of I can why can I not? If someone, if another developer can build it, why can I not build it myself? I think that mindset is what makes us very hesitant to consider paying for stuff the first time around. Uh but I think what I've you know slowly realized over time is that yes, it's not a question of skill set. I mean, there maybe there are some things like you, I don't know, you maybe don't want to build a rocket yourself, you're trying to fly it uh, you know, uh to outer space or something. But uh I think there's and you know, like let's take SaaS, right? Like maybe you could build you know the same SaaS product yourself. Uh but I think over time it's uh it's all the little nuances that go into making a product a full-featured, functioning, cohesive unit, where you're like, oh, I wish this existed, and someone has already thought about that and has already spent the time polishing it over multiple iterations. Uh I think that you realize that you end up spending a lot of your time doing that instead of focusing on your core product, uh, which might be completely different, something else. Uh usually. So usually it is. Yeah, usually, right. Unless you're building a competitor to the DevTools, of course. Um and uh so the I I think once you've done enough of these over time, where you're you're you're you start out and then you're bitten by oh, it's actually harder than it is. Um then I think you build up that instinct to first, okay, before I do this, let's see what else is out there. Um you start building that. Uh and discovering things is one thing, and then let's say you all you found something that already exists. Then if you need to, if you're asked to pay for it, then I think that's the next friction point. You're like, uh, maybe I do have can build it myself and uh you know not have to pay for it myself. So it's like two two things. One is you don't even think about exploring because you're like too simple, like I can just build it myself. And then the next thing is, oh, I someone's asking me to pay for it, and why do I need to pay for this? And you know, I can you know I can spend my own time building it. So uh so yeah, I I I think once you've gone through these two stages for multiple problems that you're trying to solve, uh, I think over time slowly you get you you realize that, oh, you know, spending a little bit of like because what from a from a again, at this must this might sound extremely biased, but from a DevTools founder perspective, uh like we've like our entire company is built around day in, day out solving all these little things that come up and covering the surface area of the products. So yeah, like all of these and making sure it's like a smooth experience so that when a user stumbles on something, hopefully they're not the first person in the entire world to like stumble on that. Uh and we someone else has already used the feature, give given us feedback, and we've already addressed some of that. Um so I, you know, like for example, I consider TypeSense today on one side, it's you know, all the knowledge and expertise that goes into building a search engine, which is a hard domain by itself. But then on top of that, it's I mean, we've been we started this project in like towards the end of 2015, so close to like 10 years now. So it's the sum total in addition to the core product, it is also the sum total of all of the interactions we've had with, I mean, at this point, probably like thousands and thousands of users uh over and and I'm the thousand is just the people who I've spoken to, uh not counting the people who've already used the product and you know have never spoken to us, for example, but just the feedback we've gotten from thousands and thousands of features of users who spoke to us, that also goes into the product. Like that's also part of the product. So, and also on a side note, open source enables that where people are more willing to collaborate with you and give you feedback. Uh, so all of this put together is what you're getting when you think about you know a dev tool product versus a project, maybe that uh uh that you uh that you have. So uh so yeah, so that's that's that's something it's I think it's a it's an innate uh uh uh blessing and a curse in us developers. It is, it is uh uh and we we just have to work through our own journeys in in figuring out what the right you know balance is uh you know for each of us.

SPEAKER_01: 14:45

Do you think that it's also kind of like the state of mind that we are in as developers? So you know, I'm a developer, I I am here basically paid to write code. This is this is how it goes. The machine is here, I'm the machine, the money comes in, code comes out in a way like that's overly simplified. Like when, like, for example, when you turn, like when you become a CTO or a VP of engineering, or you know, even a team lead, you know, somewhere someone that's a little bit above of just writing code. It's it's like you know, when you talk to an LLM, imagine you are this, like you are a CTO, right? You're a VP. Like now your job is not to write code anymore, but to make sure that we ship, right? So this is what I what I always tell people when I talk about this thing. There are I when when I talk to our customers, our users, I kind of talk to two types of people. One is builders, which is which are the developers who like to build stuff. You know, it's that, you know, um what do you call it? Like I want to see how it's done. I want to see how fast I can do it. Can I do it better? Can I and then there are there are those who want to ship things, CTOs, tech tech leads, uh maybe savvy founders, you know, tech founders who just want to see that thing out of there. They don't want that rush, they don't get the rush from building the thing, right? They get it from shipping the thing. They won't they want to see that the value is out there, right?

SPEAKER_00: 16:11

Right. Yeah, and and and I think it's it's uh it's still it's still a balance, even at, you know, at the like the leadership level, for example. Uh like some of the stuff that we, for example, decided to build at TypeSense that are not core to our business, but we actually ended up having to do it is because so I'm on I mean I'm I'm I'm on both sides here of the you know equation in a sense. Uh uh because for us in our case, like for example, like instrumentation, right? Like something like your Datadog or New Relic or you know, these folks to to monitor your infrastructure. Something like that at our scale, I mean, we run like thousands and thousands of VMs. And at our scale, if we were to use one of those vendors for like observability, it eats in significantly into our like margin points. And we pride ourselves in giving, you know, making sure that the software is like as economical as possible, as low as we can get it from a price point. Uh and so if we were to use them, we're gonna have to like raise our prices to be able to afford those tools. So we had to end up building our own observability tooling. And also, we have users, for example, running with like 512 MB of RAM uh on some nodes. Uh, and those nodes don't have like the the my mindset that your like your Datadog agent or your new like agent was built was not built for the constraints that we have, which is it has to work, it has to use as minimal memory as possible because we want to save the memory for types to use that memory and not have that overhead. So multiple things led us to have to build our own observability agents that we run inside of these uh uh that VMs that monitor specifically the things that we're looking for. Uh I mean, we I would have loved to use someone else and not have to worry about building this. Uh, but in our case, it was literally just a question of if we did this, then we'll we can you know pass on those savings to customers uh and not have to charge like basically pass through fees of like all the monitoring tools that you know that that charge for us. Uh so that that I think that it's still a trade-off. It's I think the question is why there needs to be a good reason for why you decide to build something. If it's only because you know, I I don't like how someone else is doing something, uh, without tying it back to a solid customer-facing benefit, I think that's where you end up running into like potential, like you might be potentially wasting your wasting your time. Uh and and when I say customers, maybe you can also include like employees as well, whether it's it's like a benefit to a large, like an internal team that's using uh using the tool, which hopefully also translates eventually to what your customers will pay money for for your product is. So if you're not able to trace that back all the way to the customer and whether they're they're they actually would find value from the way you're doing things, then then I think that's the equation to consider uh if you want to build something or you know, uh or if you want to pay for a for tools right now.

SPEAKER_01: 19:31

Well, I I kind of see a pattern here. I feel so the way I can, you know, I feel it is it gets emotional in a way, right? So emotion, like you're you're judging by your with your emotions instead of like you know with facts, right? And why is that? Is it because you can build it yourself? You know, because otherwise, like for example, me, I don't know how search engine works. Like, you know, I do, but I I wouldn't be able to you know rebuild uh you know uh type sense. Like I would just want to buy it. That's fine. But again, if I look at something that looks like an admin panel, like ah, I could build like why what is that trigger? You know, what's what's that trigger where or like AWS hosting? Like, I don't, I can't write the whole you know, cloud for like I'll just use that. What's that trigger that says, no, no, no, no, no. This time I won't think with my head, I'll think with my heart, you know, or with my ego or like something. I wonder what that is.

SPEAKER_00: 20:26

Yeah, I I I wonder if it is the like the surface area of the product as well. Uh, that like if if for example, there's like regardless of what the product does, like even like in an admin panel, right? If if it is like if it has a whole bunch of integrations with like everything that you typically need in an admin panel, if that's already figured out, uh, I think conveying that you've already thought about all the different things that admin panels typically need. Like, for example, in some cases, right, like in in TypeSense, people people say, Okay, I just need to add a search bar on the site. And so that's what they come in for, but then they realize quickly that, oh, if I add a search bar, I probably need typotolerance. If I had if I have a search bar, I probably need to allow people to filter things. I mean, I'm talking about very basic stuff here, but uh from a search engine's perspective. But uh, you know, maybe eventually you you want to add semantic search, which you know, people search for related concepts and you want to relate things. So once you I think convey that oh, there's more to it in the product than what I need right now, and there's always the option for me to adopt more features, uh, and maybe even things that I haven't even thought about before, that just by reading the product docs, I can find a use case for it to provide value to my customers. I think, and then as the product, when it evolves, they will probably be adding more features that I can also start adopting. Uh I think that minds conveying that somehow to users, I think helps seal the deal to say that, oh hey, maybe you shouldn't, because once you build something, right, it's it's it's also a point-in-time snapshot of the thing that you build is frozen in time, unless you spend a consistent amount of time adding all these things you need over a period of time. But if you think of it as, or if you're able to convince a user that, oh, this product is evolving over time and they're thinking about this on a constant basis, and then they, you know, I can take advantage of all the features that uh uh that they introduce over a period of time. Like, like, for example, like we recently switched our uh our support platform that we use uh for handling uh uh like support requests. So we have a Slack community, we have email, then we have a private Slack channels with a lot of our customers uh for like enterprise support. And so all these were in different things. Like we had to have two Slack spaces open, uh, and then we had to have our email tool uh open, and it was just becoming a lot of, and then tracking SLAs across different tools was becoming a lot of pain. Initially, I was thinking maybe we can just add all of these somehow into the existing platform that we were using, uh, and just add some sort of like webhooks and push some of this data inside just for monitoring, et cetera. Uh, I mean, I was prepared to like build it. I mean, classic case, I was prepared to build some of this myself, just like hack around it uh, you know, whenever I found time. But then but then there's this other platform came around, which is like seems like very Razer focused on multi-channel communication, including Slack specifically. Um and that's where a lot of our conversations happen, and they have SLAs built in, and then they have escalation paths built in, uh, and they have so a lot of things that I would have otherwise had to like think about all of this. Uh here it all exists, and I'm like, it's it, and it was a little bit more pricier than the other tool, and that again gave me a little bit of a pause. Uh, but I at one point I was like, you know, this is this is a you know, we were we're gonna save way more than the cost delta between these two products, uh, in terms of efficiency gains that we get within the company to centralize all this communication in one place. Uh uh, and we ended up switching to them. So I think that's that in recent memory for myself, that that is an example of where I didn't find the value of us building all this tooling ourselves. Uh uh and I also noticed that this company, uh it's plain.com, by the way, go check them out. They're they're pretty awesome. Uh so like Plain, like they've been like I follow the founders on uh like LinkedIn and like just watching them talk about all the features that they launch, I'm like, oh, that could be useful. And I picked up a couple of features that they already had in the product, which I was like, oh, I you know, I I didn't think about this particular thing, but I can see how this can be valuable for us. Yeah, uh so yeah, so uh overall I'm so glad we ended up using that product because we don't have like we're not a support channel company, like support platform company. We're a we're a search engine company, and I'd rather focus on that uh uh rather than this. So yeah, so now if you put this next to like the observability tooling that we had to build ourselves, there are these are two examples where we built something and then we ended up you know paying for another uh tool. Uh so I think the it the art form is knowing when to do what and not apply the same creative power that you as a developer have to any type of problems that come across your board, uh, because it it gets exhausting really fast if you if you when you do it that way.

SPEAKER_01: 25:40

Yeah, that's that's awesome to you know to see in in your decision process. And I think it gets us to another good another good subject uh that I've been hitting and you know, I've been talking to people about pricing. So let's say, okay, okay, maybe I do want to use your tool. And let's not think about you know data dog, like observate observability tools, but like you know,$50 per month tool, right? Why is it that us as developers were so good at math, we're so good at logic, we're so good at like figuring things out, but when it comes to like paying for like one month out of like what we earn in an hour, basically, why is it that we say no no no no no, that's so expensive? That's so freaking expensive. Like, why is that? How how do you so I do get you know, like you said, like I do get this at some sometimes, you know. I look at a tool and say, Oh my god, this is so expensive. But then it's like, oh, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, let's let's figure it out. How much, how, how much time do I have to spend building it and maintaining? And do I want to do that? And is that gonna be like a second product of our like what is that? So again, like what is that trigger that makes us go, like, no, no, no, that's so expensive. No, it's not for me.

SPEAKER_00: 26:55

Yeah, so I wonder if it was the pricing that these when these mobile app stores came around, like you know, iOS App Store, Google App Store. I wonder if that's what set the trend of like a dollar for an app for for a lifetime. I think I think I have a feeling that that's what changed the whole uh uh uh uh price sensitivity equation. Uh and everyone started measuring against that. Yes. If it's more than a dollar, it's gonna it is expensive. Like, for example, on Twitter, I I find it kind of interesting where everyone talks about the the how much VPSs charge them. They're like, oh, I only pay five dollars for my you know for my VPS. Uh and you know, I have thousands in MRR. And it's like if you have thousands in MRR, you shouldn't be optimizing for like five dollars and a ten dollars. Like if you're gonna save from like thirty dollars to five dollars per you know per month in your hosting costs, like that's the wrong place to spend your precious time. You'd rather spend your time growing your MRR. Exactly. Like I see this on Twitter all the time, for example, but I I think it is this uh somewhere we've normalized that things shouldn't cost more than a dollar or five dollars or whatever you know everyone's thing is. Because I do remember a time, for example, like you know, at one point I I wanted to like I stumbled on Visual Basic, you know, maybe two decades ago. Uh and I wanted to use Visual Basic. It looked like the most magical piece of software, and uh in in uh uh in like uh in one of the school labs, they uh I stumbled on it and and I was like, whoa, like I want to run this on you know myself on my you know on my computer. And I I look up the pricing, it's like I think at that point it was probably like six hundred dollars or something if I remember correctly. And I'm like, whoa, why why is this so expensive? Like for a student at that point in time, it's like six hundred dollars is is a lot is a lot of money. But then over time, and today try charging six hundred dollars like out of the bat for for dev tools, like you know, people are gonna like you you're gonna lose a lot of the audience initially if you if you charge that, right? That that as your minimum uh price. But that's how the world used to be. That's how I remember the world uh uh uh used to be. But I think over time that the the like these mobile app stores set set one level, and then SaaS products as SaaS bec started becoming a thing, everyone's like, oh, it's only five dollars a month, it's only ten dollars a month. And and I think that again set the base so low. Uh and maybe also in part because of a lot of VC funding entering the market, because I don't think over time, like you look at most of these VC companies as scale and become a serious business where they have to like well show some profitability either to raise their uh you know to go public or to like look good for an for an acquirer. Uh uh They have to show good fun business fundamentals. At that point, they start looking at profitability. They eventually have to end up raising prices. Yep. And the lower tier like prices, which were previously unaffordable, they don't exist anymore as they become more serious about the unit economics of the business. So uh so that is so I feel that's another part of the equation where VC money subsidizing companies uh expenses early on. So the the price the c the price that the company charges customers is completely dis you know divorced from what the true cost of running of the service of the RD that goes into building a product, et cetera, and the capital costs, human costs, uh, et cetera. And people get used to that as well. And there's enough like VC money in the world for enough companies to you know reiterate this and reinforce this in consumer mindset. Like, for example, another thing is we did not have, we still do not have a free tier on TypeSense Cloud. Now, of course, it's an open source product, so you can just run it yourself for free forever. But sometimes we do get asked on TypeSense Cloud, can you give me a free, you know, free tier? I'm like, at that point, we're literally like paying for your server costs on our side. Yep, yep. Uh we're building the software, and also you're asking us for also pay for your servers as well. Uh uh, and so we've we've not we've said no to that because we're not gonna make our unit economics go different from what the true costs are running the service are, uh, because that's the quick way to build a business that's not sustainable. So we're like, let's front-load that and make sure that those fundamentals are in place. Uh and as we scale, this shouldn't be the problem that you know that ends up affecting us in the future. And then eventually, when we do that, we have you know, people get upset and then new folks come into the play. That's that's the VC life cycle, which I don't think is a sustainable model. But unfortunately, that has like made life hard for everyone else. Yep. Uh uh because the consumer mindset has been set.

SPEAKER_01: 32:13

Yeah. Yeah, it's sustainable for other people, you know, the founders, the investors. It's you know, it's but so we you touched on a few good points there, but before we go back to them, do you think so? I have this feeling, like I've been talking to my sales coach and to some other people in business, and you know, I feel that developers, it's like, you know, when I get hired, you need to you have to give me the biggest salary that you can, right? I I need to get like you know, um uh shares and and whatever. But but when it comes to something open source or like software in general, something that you can run in your machine, you know, wear a library so you can run run it you know on on premise, it's like it should be free. It's like money is a dirty word. And I tell people like, hey, if we don't charge for it, we will go out of business or you know, do some other things, and you won't nobody's gonna have the free thing either. Like, you know, it's it's just a matter of like, you know, think it through. Like if you pay us, we can pay our bills, so we can still still work on that. Do you think like money is a dirty word when it comes to businesses with with developers in a way?

SPEAKER_00: 33:23

So I I I wonder if that is a specific thing, especially in the open source world, uh, and and developers who are used to using open source software. Because I mean I see this on Hacker News all the time, where let's say an open source product built by a company, they decided that they want to monetize some portion of it. Uh, and then everyone is an up in arms about oh, XYZ, etc. And why? Selling out. Yeah, exactly. Right. And and I feel like that's that's the like at some point it's not like we're all being given free food magically somehow. Like food doesn't appear magically on our tables, right? Because you do open source.

SPEAKER_01: 34:04

Uh yeah, exactly. Git GitHub, GitHub doesn't send that.

SPEAKER_00: 34:07

So that'll be nice. That's a that's a model they should consider.

SPEAKER_01: 34:11

Based on stars, based on stars, right?

SPEAKER_00: 34:14

So yeah, so I I I think we as humans need sustenance. I think it comes boils down to that, and you need money to to have that sustenance and you know the luxuries that life affords us. Uh having so for someone building like uh open source to not consider monetization, I think that is a negative thing in the sense that we do want more open source software in the world, and we do want to go in and you know, look at the code and see how it works, make it work like how we want it to, if we if we need to. Uh that is a good thing. And we want more of that. And the way we can get more of that is to not badger the people who are building open source software to uh to not even think about anything close to monetization. And even if that involves like open core, I mean, I'm I'm not like philosophically opposed to open core. Like I in our case, it so I happened that uh I mean, we tried open core, in our case, it just so happened that that didn't work out as well as the cloud uh offering. But I think open it's it's okay if someone who is writing this software, giving majority of it for free and then asking you to pay for something for a smaller portion, like in in some cases in the past, for example, I have like even if the uh uh and I I don't want to mention this is like a pretty well-known company, but uh at that time they were just starting their open source product is was and is widely popular, and they had just started offering like a commercial offering, and the open source product itself was completely fine for our use case. And I mean, we were running it on probably like 50 50 servers at that point. Um and they were like they reached out saying, Hey, we have this commercial licensing, would you be interested in you know purchasing uh etc. And I was like, hey, what do we get any extra features for it, etc.? Uh and they listed out all the features and none of them we were we needed, or we were already happy with the open source product. But at that point, I was like, Whoa, okay, we get so much value from like every single request that comes in is handled by by you know by your product. Uh so we I don't want you guys to like disappear off into the ether. Yeah, and I want to support you from that perspective. Uh so you know, can we figure out like an alternate like you know support contract or something with that where we could uh you know we could uh uh pay you for like maybe any things that come up, we can maybe ask you. So I was pushing for paying them because from at that point, from the perspective of someone relying on something in production, making sure it is running, and if we run into any issues that it is, I wanted to have I wanted to not, I mean, the product was already rock solid. It's not that we needed the support, but I was like, I don't want you guys to like disappear in the future. Uh so I I was willing to say, here's I I like let's structure it in a different way, uh uh because we don't really need these other things. Uh, but I still want to support you. I think once you've seen, once you've used a product and you see them disappear and you've deeply integrated it into your stack, I think that also gives you some, you know, battle scars, maybe to to think about uh uh making sure that you figure out what the monetization model of the product is before you start using. That's something that I do a lot these days, is like let's say I stumbled on a new tool, I've never heard about it. I look at their pricing page first, not to see how expensive or cheap they are, but to make sure that they do have a monetization model, and this is not like an afterthought because two things can happen if they don't have a pricing page yet. One is they're gonna be wildly expensive and they, you know, they're only doing enterprise contracts. That could be a real possibility. Uh, the other possibility is that they are still experimenting with the pricing model and they don't yet know what how they're gonna you know charge. And what if they never figure that out? Um, and like that is a big risk if we need to start deeply using a product. Uh so I'd rather say it, you know, just put out any pricing at all, if especially if you're like a founder just starting to build out a product, uh put out any pricing, like even like the whatever is the most intuitive for you right at that point in time, mention that. Uh uh I mean again, I I'm not a big fan of like call us for pricing, but even if it if you have to, if that's the you know GTM model that you're following, at least talk about that and say, you know, call us for pricing or something. Uh uh and but don't shy away from talking about pricing because I feel like as even as consumers, developers, as they go through their own journey of using a product and then then that getting it shut down, and then like, oh now I have to look for alternatives. I think once uh folks see enough cycles of that, which typically takes what you know, six, seven years maybe in in someone's career, uh, to see enough cycles of that. At that point, you've if like that's a nice target audience to market to uh is people who've been through the trenches and seen the pain. And maybe they're the folks who are willing to pay for you know software uh uh you know, rather than students like me, you know, back back then who who was like who just can't afford because I mean that's uh that's the I think somehow we're targeting a lot on that early segment of users uh who can't and can't afford to pay as well because I mean I we were all students at one point. Yep, yep. Uh we don't want to pay for stuff, but I think over time, as we uh uh uh seen enough cycles and gone through the pain of software getting deprecated and and people things not being supported, I feel like eventually we end up learning. Uh and but then that market is also very hard to reach into. Uh and free stuff gets easier adoption all the time. Uh so yeah, so it's it's yeah, it's definitely an art again.

SPEAKER_01: 40:28

It's an art, yeah, as usual. Yeah, so you to sum it up a little bit, it would be like, hey, you're paying for insurance, yeah, right? You're using that critical piece of of software of like you know infrastructure, and you don't want that those people to go away because we've all been there going on a GitHub, on an open source GitHub repo, posting an issue of something, and then just crickets. Nobody's there, nobody can help you. And then you're like, god damn it, I wish I could send them 50 bucks or something. If they would only like you know, I've seen this like to just shift a little bit. I've seen this tweet. I I I kept searching, searching for it, but I couldn't find it, so I don't know who the uh the author is. But the tweet went like, all your favorite dev tools are either gonna go away or they're gonna go enterprise. And that that really, you know, then I started thinking, like, oh my god, is that true? And I started thinking about all the different you know, dev tools which are cool, which work cool, and you know, they're some of them are extinct, or like you know, shut down sunset, or some of them are yeah, they they went enterprise. Not everything, but yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 41:37

Right. So here's the uh here's the additional qualifying thing that I would add into that tweet is all VC backed dev tools either go bankrupt or disappear, or you know, or get acquired, or you know, end up going to enterprise if they do really well. Yes, I think that's the nature of VC. That's the only way to make the VC model work, is you either go big or you go home. And going home is disappearing or getting acquired and then getting shut down, you know, eventually. Yeah, uh, which is one of the reasons I uh, you know, for example, with TypeSense, I've I've mentioned this phrase to a couple of like investors who reached out. I'm like, I don't want so there's TypeSense the product, and then there's TypeSense the company. And I don't want TypeSense the company to end up affecting TypeSense the product just because we end up deciding to sell stock in the TypeSense company to investors, and then that ends up putting things in such a precarious position for TypeSense the product. Uh and I'd want to make sure that the Type Sense, the company is fully aligned with TypeSense the product, and the those customers uh who are paying for TypeSense the product. Because once you bring in investors, you end up you essentially they're like kind of a new kind of customer, except that the product that they're buying is stock from your company's uh company uh as if that's the thing you're selling. And the way they make money, yeah, and you're getting exactly the way they make money is you raising multiple rounds after that. That's when stock prices increase. So your investor customers have a different set of expectations and needs from you. They end up influencing the product that you the user customers, yep, user customers end up paying for, and that's why you end up taking the product up market, you end up like you know, uh annoying all your early adopters. And uh it's I mean, it's a classic VC lifecycle. So for us with TypeSense, I that's why we we've said no to all VC funds is we want to stay squarely around for a hundred years around, uh, and still for people to come to rely on us and trust that we're gonna be around in their stack, you know, for a long, uh, you know, for a long time to. Yeah, that's that's really that's really well put.

SPEAKER_01: 43:56

And I think like I've been doing this for about four or five years. I've been around startups for another maybe maybe not 10 years, but you know, seven, eight. And I I still learn, like I learned in these past three, four years the most about startups and the VC cycle, and then private equity and what happens when private equity comes in and and so on, like all these all of these nuances, you know, like Angel, you know, mostly bootstrapping, and all of these nuances around raising investment. And at some point I had a call with somebody who said, like, as soon as you get some investment, you said okay to you selling the company. Like, it doesn't matter how much, doesn't matter, you know, when it's gonna happen, but you're gonna sell the company. That's why you're saying yes to that, which is um yeah, a nice uh wake up very yeah, that's a very, very, very good point.

SPEAKER_00: 44:51

Because man, that's that's a very succinct way of putting it. I wish more founders realize this when they take the first investment. Because usually when a founder is early on in their in their journey, it's more about funding the early work. I think that's the thing that we're tunnel visioned into. It's like if I had X dollars, I can like make this, I can build this and put it out in front of you know early customers or what or whatever you need the funds for. Uh I think that prevents us from seeing into the future where if we are successful, or I should say, regardless of whether we're successful or not, you have the company for. Yeah, exactly. You're slowly giving away the company in chunks and then eventually uh in you know in a big chunk where you're no longer a thing. Like even if the company is successful. I've seen, I mean, it's a many companies where like the founders are politely asked to leave, even if they have the majority shares. They they want to bring like a the board wants the board of ECs wants to bring like a seasoned uh CEO or seasoned executives around the table uh to to scale the company up to the to take it to the next level and you have to write a blog post saying, Oh, we're passing on the baton. So we've seen this happen again. Yeah, the you're saying yes to all of that, even if you're successful. Wow, wow. But yeah, I mean I definitely see that. I I wish more people know about that. Well, okay, okay, that's particular phrasing.

SPEAKER_01: 46:20

Yeah, it's a good phrasing, but let's not be very grim. It's not like 100% of cases, right? So there are some cases, you know, where some funds or some investors are you know mostly bootstrapped. Like, for example, we're in Tiny Seed, we we took some investment from them, but they are you know mostly bootstrapped. That's what we call them. We call ourselves. It's we do want to build a business, but we're not aiming for that. I mean, everybody would love to be a unicorn, but we're not like you know optimizing for that. We're optimizing for you know work-life balance and you know creating a very sustainable business and so on and so on. And there are some founders who just love making you know tons of cash every month and then just have having like a lifestyle business. You know, I make it a lot like that's perfect. You know, you're gonna go to Hawaii and whatever. So there are you know some cases of that. It's not like the 100% that's right, right. Yeah, I mean, of course, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 47:14

I I think for sure. I think there's also uh to add to that, there's also different types of money. Like not all money is VC money. That's another thing that I've learned is that there's actually also additional sources of capital, which is not your high f high-fi, high-flying VC growth at all costs, you know. Yep, exactly. That's that's what dominates the conversation, but there is actually sources of of capital. I've heard of Tiny Seed, I've also heard of one more uh I can't remember their name, Indie VC, I think is their name. Yeah, um, I've I've heard of like other uh like V, they call they put themselves in the VC umbrella for some reason, but I I it seems like this different in investment thesis. So it's kind of unfortunate that they they put themselves under the VC bucket. Um But I yes, I think that's a different source of uh capital. Um and you know, there's also revenue-based non-dilutive financing, etc. Uh so not I'm so I'm not saying you don't ever raise external capital. That's like a very hard thing to do. Yep, yep. Um I I think there are different avenues for getting that capital. Including maybe you do consulting work and that is one source of uh capital. Uh like for example, in in TypeSense's case in our early days, though we didn't, you know, we it's not like we launched the product and we made you know good money from day zero. Uh of course. We did have to build up our revenue, but during the time when we had we were building up revenue, we were able to sustain ourselves with the revenue from another product that we had built years later. That's what was paying our bills. So that's that was our form of capital, uh, which we were able to then put into paying our own bills and like invest into uh type sensor software. So it's finding that what is what works best and being aware of all the things that come with like high-flying VC uh growth, because that ends up that's what everyone is magnetically attracted to. Yeah. Uh because it has a lot of noise in the in the ecosystem about how awesome it is to do that, when technically it has a lot of downsides as well. Um but again, to round that out, I do also want to say I'm still glad that that avenue exists. Because as an like like as an entrepreneur, you want to have options to pick. I mean, whatever space mining or whatever, right? Like it's like you're not gonna bootstrap. You absolutely need, yeah, you can't bootstrap that. You absolutely need the capital to go after something ambitious. So I am I'm glad that like the more the ambitious, large ambitions have the opportunity to be funded by you know these large firms that can invest in these uh you know highly risky operations rather than having to go to a bank and prove out your model and like you know, all of that. Like that is also one, again, not to say it's anything, that is also a model. Like if you're building a small business, if you're opening laundromat, yeah, you can take a loan and that's a predictable thing. But if a a bank is not going to fund roll, you know, a bank bankroll you for building your next you know asteroid mining company, for example. So that's where VCs exist, and I'm glad that they exist. Uh, that's what gave us your Uber, for example. I don't think you know Uber could have pulled it off, for example, without PC money. Uh so large ambitious ideas. I'm glad you know VCs. VCs exist, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 50:56

Okay, let's go, let's go back a little bit because we went on a big tangent with the investment and VCs. Um, and and and uh we're gonna try to wrap it up. We're we started our conversation. This is this was my topic, like you know, dev tooling, developers don't pay for dev tools. And I often get uh asked by developers, you know, about pricing. They want to start, they have a product or they they're trying to build a product, they have something, you know, uh POC or something, they want to put it out there, and we're talking about pricing and and how to when to when to put a price on it, how to sell it, what which features to keep gated. And let's just take one slice regarding pricing. What what advice do we have do you have for developers who are trying to get the product out there? Like, you know, have something out there, when should they charge for it? How much how much you know of experimentation they should do and and so on? What what are your thoughts?

SPEAKER_00: 51:56

So so yeah, so I I think there's two different things. One, if the product is a dev tool, I think it has a certain set of considerations. If it is a not a dev tool and targeted towards like like general public yeah, consumers, uh, I think that is a different consideration.

SPEAKER_01: 52:14

Uh dev tools, let's talk about dev tools, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 52:17

Okay, so yeah, so with dev tools, I think initially you do want people to experience the your value proposition as quickly as possible. So reducing the time to for people to get that aha moment, that's what you want to be focused on. Uh and if it's a dev tool, uh my personal opinion is that uh if it's not open source, it's you're gonna have a really hard time can building up trust for people to use it and give you feedback. Uh because it's hard enough getting people to like customers to talk to you or for people to even care. Uh and if with I feel like with open source, at least you have you you have that sense of community that that you can bank on for people to start interacting with you and you know, use you and give you feedback, uh, etc. So initially it's I think I feel like it should be about finding the product to begin with, which is a lot of like put you know, giving things out for free building tooling that's that's maybe tangential to your product, uh uh uh that offers value. Maybe that's not the thing that you're gonna eventually be charging for, but I think offering that suite of things related to what you're probably doing doing, uh you'd uh you definitely need that pool somehow for people for people to start caring about things. Or, I mean, alternatively, if you're solving such a problem that people are like, I mean, take my money, like I wish this existed. And and when that happens, is if there's an incumbent in the space where people are like just fed up and frustrated with that incumbent, and you're like, you launch something and you're like, man, it's okay if it only solves like 5% of what I need. I'm behind this thing. I'm gonna, you know, I'm just gonna support you guys. I'm gonna uh you know, whatever it is I want to make see you guys succeed. Like you, if you can portray yourself as the underdog in an incumbent space, I mean that is I that'll propel you, that'll take you a lot, give you good mileage, uh, I would say as a as a founder. Uh so if you're able to find find that amazing, especially if you you know if you don't have uh large VCs backing you for you to like go after like ambitious things. In fact, I would say that is a good place to start, is start tackling problems that people have because then you can piggyback off of that pain to like say these are solutions that uh you know my solution can help you, and and you'll start having like fans supporting you and lifting you up uh in in you know early on. And then once you've built that initial like fan base, I think that's the first uh goal, I would say, is to make sure you have your initial fan base who who's like who can't wait to like talk about your product in a context. If someone is talking about the domain problem domain you're solving, they're like, Oh, you need people who are like, Oh, you you have to check these guys out. Like, that's the thing that you need to cultivate uh initially.

SPEAKER_01: 55:22

Yeah. They become they become a champion, your fan, and you're the champion who will push your product, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 55:28

Exactly, right. And like I think the first goal is that, and then if you layer on monetization on top of that, I think that's when it works well together because you've given people enough value from your product, or uh and when I say product, it could be uh when I say tangential things related to your product, for example, it could be like like content you publish as well, like maybe there's some value in like content that you put out that is useful for the general community of your users. That takes time for someone to write, and uh well, good content takes someone time to write, I should say. Uh, and that's the value that you're also providing your users, and you start building a community around that. Uh, and then when you add monetization on top, then it doesn't, you you it's more like your early fan base is like willing to support you more uh rather than folks looking at it as like a like a land grab. Uh uh, you know, folks trying to uh uh monetize too early. So like in TypeSense's case, for example, we with the open core model, we tried to uh monetize it at one point. It was like, I mean, it was so hard. It was like, I mean, pulling teeth, I guess. It's it was very hard to get people to pay for it. Uh, and then on the other side, you know, over time people were like, oh, if you had a hosted version, we're ready to pay you for it. That's that was like our wake-up call. It's like on one side we're trying to push this product, on the other side, people are saying we're ready to pay you money if you solve this thing, which is the product is good, but then the pain point that they were running into is that we don't want to deal with running this on our servers. Yep, yep, yep. Little risk for us. Uh so if you solve that problem for us, we'll pay you for it. And so one and that's what ended up becoming a successful thing, is because that's the pain point that people had running TypeSense on. Well, TypeSense, the product itself, yes, solves for search, uh, et cetera. But from a monetization perspective, the thing, the problem that we ended up solving is the pain of running self-hosting software. Yep. Once we solve that pain, then we ended up making money from that uh solution that we were offering uh uh uh there. So so it might not always be the case that the software that you're providing is the thing that you end up monetizing. It could be tangential things around it as well. I think that's the thing to keep an eye out for is based on your conversations with folks, is find out what other things they integrate your software with, what else they uh uh what other related problems they run into in that similar domain space uh uh there. And maybe there's opportunity for for having like monetized offerings there uh while you have like a set of like things that you give for free. So I think this balance ends up get making sure that people realize that this is not just a power like a land grab. Like uh you're you're actually offering value uh from multiple angles uh for for users.

SPEAKER_01: 58:44

I think it's it it all boils down with, and I've seen multiple founders get this wrong, including ourselves sometimes. It's figuring out why they're paying, what is the problem, what is the the pain that they are fixing with your product because it might not be that that piece of code, it might be you know they get insurance, they get you know confidence, they get you know some other things that yes, they get it through the software, but it's something else, and you need to figure that out and then see how you can price it, how you can sell it, and and so on.

SPEAKER_00: 59:18

Yeah, right, right. Yeah, and and it all finally it all points out to keep talking to your users. I mean, the any opportunity you get, yeah, like hey, like see if you can talk to folks, like discuss things, what you know, what you have in mind, like have like an initial set of like folks who you can like just tap into and have brainstorming sessions with. Uh, and and I think uh and as new users stumble on your product, talk to them, ask them how they discover the product, what they uh intend to use it for, uh etc. So that momentum is what builds that's that's what a company is built from. Yep. Uh all these conversations, you know, over the over The years, and that actually becomes your moat over time because having those conversations with like thousands of people face to face, that is hard to replicate. Like, I mean, you can write code, someone can write code, but those face-to-face conversations which give you that insight and context as a founder, that is what is really unless someone puts in the effort to do that, that is very hard to replicate. So that becomes your moat as well. Uh, and it only becomes a bigger moat as you scale because you're gonna have more conversations with more users as you uh as you scale up. So uh so yeah, so if you think of it from that perspective, that is so critical to like building the product and also building a moat around your product over the years.

SPEAKER_01: 1:00:42

Getting out of your comfort zone, basically.

SPEAKER_00: 1:00:44

Yep.

SPEAKER_01: 1:00:44

Yeah, most of us. Jason, thank you so much for the conversations, for the conversation. I think we aired out uh many things. We we we spoke about, we touched on a few very important things. And uh, you know, if there are any founders out there who are thinking about building DevTools or thinking about paying for DevTools, like you know, think again.

unknown: 1:01:05

You know.

SPEAKER_01: 1:01:06

Um thanks a lot for everything, and um, I'll see you in a future event.

SPEAKER_00: 1:01:13

Awesome. Yep, looking forward to it as well. And thank you again for having me. Um and yeah, this was an awesome conversation. That's awesome, Jason. Thanks so much. See ya.