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 (https://sustainoss.org/) SustainOSS Twitter
(https://twitter.com/SustainOSS?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor)
SustainOSS Discourse (https://discourse.sustainoss.org/)
podcast@sustainoss.org (mailto:podcast@sustainoss.org) SustainOSS
Mastodon (https://mastodon.social/tags/sustainoss) Richard Littauer
Twitter (https://twitter.com/richlitt?lang=en) Software Freedom
Conservancy (https://sfconservancy.org/) Open OSS
(https://openoss.sourceforge.net/) Emily Omier Website
(https://www.emilyomier.com/) The Business of Open Source Podcast
(https://www.emilyomier.com/podcast) Emily Omier Twitter
(https://twitter.com/EmilyOmier?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor)
Emily Omier LinkedIn
(https://fr.linkedin.com/in/emilyomier?challengeId=AQHJRrJupUzrmAAAAYmn4QujXz32UfFYYdOJu6Cwe8np9YMXmh2KyyQTSopAxSC0DOoo2UQR1RVR5_3WnrQ5dUEB_ACLVd1nlQ&submissionId=8fe02694-e1b5-7617-5a1c-ad714a549b7f&challengeSource=AgGQwK0uUAAOQQAAAYmn4UKDUfqqgKKeE4IgYfXz2zitfD0NjjWc4ZlBEVCHufA&challegeType=AgEU8E9XcIwLhQAAAYmn4UKGTco4NnuMpQ_7KshxTbqlpYZsv3Mqpe0&memberId=AgE1fNY20cuH2AAAAYmn4UKJNK_nVe-y3Y6S8Exd8XMDdOg&recognizeDevice=AgHGFy9fem4K2AAAAYmn4UKMAGkvgKlal2Kdg8CJ9dDoydDseQXZ)
The New Stack-Entrepreneurship for Engineers
(https://thenewstack.io/author/emily-omier/) Credits Produced by
Richard Littauer (https://www.burntfen.com/) Edited by Paul M. Bahr
at Peachtree Sound (https://www.peachtreesound.com/) Show notes by
DeAnn Bahr Peachtree Sound (https://www.peachtreesound.com/)
Special Guest: Emily Omier.