The Human Cost of Increasing Freemium Users with Peer Richelsen
The Business of Open Source
English - January 17, 2024 08:30 - 34 minutes - 27.6 MB - ★★★★ - 3 ratingsTechnology Business Entrepreneurship open source open source startup founder stories business end user stories real world Homepage Download Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Peer Richelsen is the Co-founder of Cal.com, an open-source calendar scheduling tool. This week, Peer and I discuss his personal experience with needing a customizable scheduling tool, the big leap from taking donations to running a profitable business, and the thought process behind seeking VC funding. Peer also talks about the major advantage of starting with only a paid version of the product in order to build a small community of super users. Lastly, I pick Peer’s brain about how he feels being constantly compared to non open-source scheduling products.
Highlights:
Intro (00:00) I introduce Peer Richelsen, the Co-founder of Cal.com, and he discusses the company and its calendar scheduling tool (00:59)Does Peer think about Cal.com as a dev tool (2:09)What is Cal.com’s business model (03:57)The lack of customizability in the scheduling tool marketplace (06:15)Switching from accepting donations to selling a profitable product (09:48)Launching without a free version (12:50)The human cost of freemium usage (16:20)The decision to raise VC funds (17:41)What business value being open source brings to the company (20:48)How Cal.com positions itself in the market (24:13)Interesting mistakes Peer has made as an entrepreneur (28:22)How “free” is the software (30:57)Peer’s parting words (32:27)Where listeners can connect with Peer and learn more about Cal.com (33:04)Links:
Peer
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peer-richelsen-221233138/Twitter: @peer_richCompany: https://cal.com/