Growing  AuthenticCommunities

Luke  KaniesFounder  and  CEO,  Puppet  LabsFounder,  Puppet@puppetmasterdluke@puppetlabs.com

Sunday, March 3, 13

Question  Authority

`

Sunday, March 3, 13

Some OSS experience, but not muchHad a lot of horrible warnings, not many good examplesTrial and Error, stuck with what worked and tried to quickly ditch what didn’tHanlon’s Razor: Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by incompetenceAlways willing to admit I’m wrong, to change my mind

Growing,not  Building

Sunday, March 3, 13

Wanted to call this ‘building’Just because you build it, doesn’t mean they’ll comeYou build the framework, other people grow the community

A  bit  about  Puppet

Sunday, March 3, 13

2005

• 1  user  on  dev  list  (me)• No  user  list• Registered  #puppet,  no  users

Sunday, March 3, 13

Bad product,hungry Luke

Sunday, March 3, 13

Started product and company at the same time (rare)Had experience with other products, weren’t focused on user successAlways showed this slide at talks, and was clear about commercial goalsSysadmins are used to spending money on software, so this wasn’t scary

2009

• Roughly  500  people  on  user  list• Averaging  more  than  100  in  IRC• 3  employees• 1  event

Sunday, March 3, 13

50,000% growth in 4 years :)Took Venture capital

2013

• 5100+  users  on  user  list• 940+  on  dev  list• Averaging  900+  in  IRC• Grew  from  260  to  820  Forge  modules  in  1  year• 30+  events• 120  employees• Full  time  community  manager  (Dawn  Foster)

Sunday, March 3, 13

How?

Sunday, March 3, 13

Major changes without major outcry

Encourage  engagement,  don’t  control  it

Sunday, March 3, 13

Empty lists need no moderationNatural first reactions cover “when traffic is too large”You should be so luckyLike investing in a scalable back end on a site with no users

Answer  every  question

Sunday, March 3, 13

In early days, answer everything, day or night, right awayBe present enough that it seems like a crowded room

...even  when  youdon’t  know

Sunday, March 3, 13

Sometimes you don’t knowSometimes you know and don’t like the answerAnswer anywayIt’s early days - the truth is more important than anythingAll you have is credibility, and that’s easy to lose

...but  not  alwaysright  away

Sunday, March 3, 13

Hand over authority quicklyGive others time to helpOnly got passed as top contributor last year

Transparency  is  hard

Sunday, March 3, 13

Early days: Your project sucksMature: Your project is slow and can’t respond quicklyAdmit it, embrace itThere’s probably something you like that you can draw attention to

FullTransparency

Sunday, March 3, 13

Why, What, and HowEveryone knew I was trying to make moneyEveryone knew what we were doing and whySo almost no one was cynicalI run Puppet Labs this way - everyone knows how much we have in the bank account

EspeciallyDifficult

for  Companies

Sunday, March 3, 13

You’re already suspectEspecially if you aren’t the main devsYou have to work extra hardBut companies are naturally secretiveSuck it, this is open source

Transparency  !=Openness

Sunday, March 3, 13

PrettyAwesome

Sunday, March 3, 13

One period of working alternating hours with an AussieHe’d file tickets while I slept, I’d fix them while he slept

Be  nice

Sunday, March 3, 13

Intolerant of intoleranceNo religion

Embracenewbies

Sunday, March 3, 13

You can’t grow without new people

Word  of  Mouth

Sunday, March 3, 13

30-50% of conf attendees are new and were referred by friendsJust about no advertisingOnline engagementLots of hustling on the ground

Hustle  atconferences

Sunday, March 3, 13

Walk the floorExpos are useless for community until you’re big, even then just a meeting placeGive talks (like this one!), hold BOFsSpend all day talking to peopleI never ever attended talks - I didn’t sell, I hustled, I practiced, I pitched

VisitThem

Sunday, March 3, 13

Attend their conferencesFind a community member and ask them to organize a drink-up on every tripSleep when you’re home5 countries in 6 months

Be  Available

Sunday, March 3, 13

Default acceptEveryone who wants it has my mobile phone numberEveryone knows my email addressThe sound of someone mentioning my name in IRC still haunts meI still do long Q&As and will answer basically anything

LessonsLearned

Sunday, March 3, 13

Prioritiesand

Community

Sunday, March 3, 13

Sometimes focused on our own priorities, forget othersEmployees don’t automatically get community membershipIndividual focus matters

Engage,don’t  announce

Sunday, March 3, 13

Even announcing in advance, rather than “yesterday” is betterAlways askBig changes need lots of warningYou need to actually listen and engage

Examples

Sunday, March 3, 13

James  Turnbull

Sunday, March 3, 13

Wanted to write a bookEnded up doing almost all community work for 2 yearsRewrote all of our docs

Venture  Capital

Sunday, March 3, 13

Didn’t seek initial round, but was happy to announce to communityLots of questionsBut I’d always been clear I was here to grow a companyAnd everyone knew I’d been hustling for years and needed some helpI wasn’t selling out, I was hiring programmers to help, and that’s what I did

GPL2  -­‐>  Apache  2

Sunday, March 3, 13

Changed in 2011, 2 years after VC, took a long time for CLAs2 people complained (out of 3k or so on the list)Was clear about why: Trading off integrations over potential license revenueMySQL -> Sun -> Oracle kinda poisoned the wellAbsolutely not religious for us, and the community responded in kind

Questions?

Sunday, March 3, 13