[00:00:00] Introduction
Matt: Very easy to edit out. See, I'm talking and waving my hands, so it's cool. Okay. Okay. All right. All right. Hello everyone. Welcome to another Hacking Open Source business podcast. I'm one of the hosts Matt Yonkovit, once again, joined by co-host AVI Press. Hello, and today we're joined by Saurav Pathak, uh, from, uh, Bagisto.
Right? Am I pronouncing Bagisto? Yes, that's right. Awesome. Awesome. And, uh, so you are the co-founder and cpo, um, is that correct? Yes. Right. Okay. And have you listened to our podcast before? Um, 
Saurav: I came across your post on LinkedIn. I Okay. Saw some of snippet ah, and came podcast. 
Matt: So you don't know what we do to start the podcast?
Ah, so what I have is I have a list of, of 173 question. Oh, and we're gonna start with a rapid fire. Get to know, um, you, you know, round of questions just to get to know who you are before we talk about, you know, the, the company in open source and all the fun business stuff. Okay? Sure. So, 173. Maybe. So sometimes I go a little less, but, uh, you know, so, um, maybe tell us a little bit about where you live currently.
Where, like, like outside of where you, you're stationed right now. Where, where is that? 
Saurav: Okay. Currently I am in New Delhi and Seattle, India right now. 
Matt: Okay. And how is the weather? 
Saurav: Huh? Right now it's, uh, pretty much raining heavily outside. Okay. But it's the, like, sun is coming. Okay. So a bit of a, like, you, uh, are going to get a gist of how the sun is going to be.
Matt: All right. All right. Now, uh, sort of, you, you, you haven't just built an open source application, you've used open source before, I assume, correct? Yeah, sure. Definitely. Uh, probably a lot. So what is your favorite open source application that you use on a regular basis? 
Saurav: Okay. Um, I guess, uh, it would be our like, uh, chat tool.
Okay. Uh, we, uh, like the parent company, they have, uh, chat tool. Okay. By the name chat with. Okay. I think, uh, that's the one thing because you know, like everyday people are chatting here and there so many people. Right. So that's the one tool which, uh, we use a lot. To communicate with each other internally and externally with our customers.
Okay. All 
Matt: cool. I hadn't heard of that before. Have you abi? Yeah, me either. No. Okay. Well, there, there you go. I mean, we use chat all the time as well, you know, um, just different types, right? You know, a lot of people use slack, discord, you know, um, may, may even use matter most, uh, all kinds of different chat things, so that's cool.
So, um, you know what, what, uh, what is your favorite book? Favorite 
Saurav: book? Favorite book. Okay. That's pretty difficult to answer, but, uh, uh, I'm not, uh, you know, very much into reading books of like, you know, uh, which are like very tech enthusiast. Okay. But, uh, I like reading books, uh, which are related to mythology.
Matt: Oh, okay. That's cool. Hey, we're not, you don't, it has, doesn't have to be a technical book. It doesn't have to be business book. Yeah, definitely not. 
Saurav: Okay. So there's, um, one book, uh, which I like. There's an author, Mr. Am party, he's from India. Okay. And he writes very good, uh, mythology books, which are very good fiction story as well.
Like there's one book which I read is about shiver triology, and then there are multiple books who he has written on the Indian myth. I find them quite interesting and I find, uh, how he, you know, uh, describe each and every character. You won't feel like it's a mythology. You, you will more feel like it's a very nice fiction story.
Okay. And I think I try to take a page out of his writing and try to do something in my own real life as well, like how I need to project my, uh, project that we are doing. So the people who are using that project. They should not feel bored. Okay. I would say they should find it interesting. Right. Unless it's pretty great, amazing project.
Let's, let's go any given, given try. So I try to do that as well. 
Matt: Okay, fair enough. So you, you mentioned, you know, like you, you, you're not necessarily reading the technical books. If you were gonna sit down, would you read, watch a movie, or would you listen to music? Hmm. 
Saurav: I would, uh, rather listen, uh, I think listen to 
Matt: music.
Okay. Because that's an interesting question. So, you know, you've given keynotes, you've talked at conferences. So let me just dive right into the most important question that I asked during this segment always, which is, you know, since you are a music fan, um, you're gonna go up on the stage. What music do you ask for them to play as you walk?
Like, what's the song? 
Saurav: What the song? Yes. Okay. Okay. Um, I can't say right now, but, uh, it would be something like, uh, boomerang kind of a song. Okay. Okay. Like I go there and, uh, light splash up like that. Okay. And this like, uh, there we go. Walking on the, on the, on the stage. And it's more like that. Okay. Like, you know, like, have you seen that uh, uh, documentary of Apple of 1984?
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. With proper documentary, right. Apple Now that they're going to bring the evolution. I like that music. Okay. Okay. Maybe like something like that I wanna play when I go 
Matt: on stage. That's fine. Hey, there is no right or wrong answer. This 
Avi: is the most this fleshed out answer we've gotten though.
I think that's the only one. Yes, we ask everybody. We have 
Matt: a whole list. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We have a list of founders, you know, conference music, like it it, we'll put a playlist together. It'll be on Spotify and everywhere, so you know, you can listen to the founder playlist. Um, so, okay. So, um, you know, you mentioned like, you know, uh, apple there and a lot of people, uh, look up to Steve Jobs, but is there someone that you look up to in the open source space that you, um, either admire or you aspire to be like, or that you really follow closely?
Saurav: Okay. I won't go, uh, very far in that. Okay. Uh, but I would say, uh, the payment company of business two, Wek, uh, Webco was founded by three founders. Mr. We, Mr. Mr. Okay. I think I look up to them more. Cause they are, first of all, they are very close to me. Okay? Mm-hmm. And second is that, uh, they built this company 10 years back, and that's on the root, the root of the company is open source.
Okay? So I try to learn as much from them, and I'm, I'm just trying to replicate what they did, how they built this entire business out of open source. And I'm just trying to take a, a small, small, small things from. And trying to replicate those things while, uh, building bag is two. So I think, uh, those are the ones which I follow a lot and we have a very healthy discussion every day where we discuss about the open source, how the tech stack is changing and everything.
And India certainly is playing a very huge role right now because a lot of open source projects are coming from India. And on Gub, India is amongst the number one or number two in on the gub ranking, where a number of develop are working directly on opensource. 
[00:07:19] First Experience in Open Source
Matt: Very cool. Very cool. And um, so what was your first experience at opensource?
Was it working with these, uh, these founders here, or was it somewhere else that you first discovered open source? 
Saurav: Um, well, I do have one of my friend who was at GitHub, he was working at GitHub. Okay. Okay. And, uh, in the initial days, like, uh, uh, 10 years back, I graduated from my college and I was a part of like, uh, I f like.
As a founding member of two startups, however they got failed. Okay. So I think in that, uh, in that startup, we use very small project to just make a simple form in php. Okay. And there, I think we used one, I don't know even that open source repository still exist or not, but I think at that time we made use of the small repository to create a forming php.
Okay. And I think that was my first interaction to open. And second interaction. Uh, the major interaction with with opensource came when I came here at, I joined like six years back and when I get in touch with these founders, okay. And then we started discussing the other to the very first year, I think I was, uh, involved in multiple projects for webco, but the very second year I got involved with Bagi.
And from there on, it's been like, uh, four and a half years, five years, I am ing Bagi. 
[00:08:40] How Bagisto Started
Matt: Okay, well, so why don't we move on from rapid fire. We, we stopped after only a few questions. We'll save the other 160 in case there's time at the end. Um, but, um, you know, you, you mentioned, uh, Magisto like, uh, you know, So tell us a little bit about, um, you know, what it is, um, and how it got started.
Saurav: Sure. So in simple Words, biggest store is an opensource e-commerce platform. So basically if you're looking to start your e-commerce shop, so you can just use this opensource framework and start an e-commerce shop in just a few minutes. Okay. There's a very interesting story how it got started. So, uh, as I told you, web is the payment company of, and has been working in e-commerce sector for past 10 years, right?
So five years back, uh, uh, it was the story four and a half year, five years back when Bei was the thought ofo came in the mind of Mr. Bien Sal. Okay? That, uh, there are so many developers who are working on different, different e-commerce. But the learning curve of those development platform, other e-commerce platform, were like too large.
Like it, it took a developer like around, uh, like six months to one year to first learn a framework and then start customizing and building the e-commerce shop. So that's the one gap we find. We always wanted to make something, which should be easy to learn. The learning curve should be small, so any developer can easily try to get their hands on register, start building a framework.
That's the first gap. Second thing, we started that on which tech stack we should build. So let me tell you, that bag is built on Lal, which is, uh, currently one of the most popular PHP back in framework. So at that time also, there were many other frameworks. Like Symphony was there, symphony is still there.
There was Cake php, there was cutting, and there's Laal. Okay? So we find that Laal has a very good, uh, footprint across the wall. What Lauder Ville was missing is a very good e-commerce shop. So we have been dealing with other companies who are working on Lauder Ville, and we asked them, Supposedly if you get a project on e-commerce, what do you do?
So they either tell them that, uh, that, uh, it's quite impossible to build on Elle. You just go, go and search for other frameworks, or they build on scratch. So it took a lot of time. So we wanted to fill this gap between the lava developers and the e-commerce ecosystem by bringing a solution, which would be easy for.
To help them to build an e-commerce shop. So I think these two are the very basic reason that we want to make a platform Driven Commerce, which would be easy for the new grown developers who have worked on a simple NBC architecture as well. They can easily learn the platform and start the e-commerce shop, and we want to connect the Laal developer ecosystem to the eCommerce ecosystem.
So we thought of building this platform on Laal and as open source. 
Matt: Okay. Okay, cool. 
Avi: Oh, I, interesting. I I have a lot of, uh, video lag at the moment, so I wasn't sure if, uh, still talking. Um, so one, uh, one thing that I'd love to hear about is how so. From the time where you decide, okay, this is, this is something that we're building, the, the business case makes sense for us, um, to the launch of the, of the open source project.
Were you talking about the project publicly as you, as you're getting started, um, did you kind of build up and have like a very polished launch? Like at what point did. Externally launch it based on kind of where you were building. 
Saurav: Okay. So I, when the project got started, uh, we were not talking a lot initially in the first six months, uh, we are waiting that at least the very first release come of the get up.
So on 31st October, 2018, we lost the very first live version of Gun 0.2. And it was after that time we started, uh, you know, like promoting it on public social handles and to the AL newsletters and to the other community and conferences. I remember that I was personally going to small, small meetups in my local area.
And tech conferences. Uh, not a speaker, just as a attendee. And, uh, I was going and trying to meet with a lot of people and trying to tell them that, Hey guys, we have made this opensource platform on Laville. Uh, just give it a try. Okay. So I think, uh, when the very first release came on, 31st October, it was after that we became, uh, like, uh, very, you know, proactive in, in the marketing stuff.
Okay. Uh, I would say that I. Not very much involved in, in ordering marketing, but it was more on ordering marketing. I was personally going leashing onto to people, leashing on to companies, giving them demos of the product and everything. And then it, it started with promoting the pro, uh, the product and telling the people in public about our product.
[00:13:45] How Marketing Decisions Impacted the Success of the Project
Avi: At the very beginning of this, I, I, I find that, uh, you know, the, the choices like, you know, should we build on this platform or that platform can be one of those things that people just get really stuck on for perhaps too long. Um, how. Uh, how do you think that choice for the, the, the platform that you picked has impacted the success of the project?
Do you think that that was something that was like, worth really, really sweating over at the beginning? Do you think that that has not had a huge, you know, outcome cuz the overall product kind of abstracts away laville? Like, how do you, um, looking back, what do you think about that decision? 
Saurav: No, I think it, uh, it certainly has played a very major role.
Uh, the very first thing is that because. When we launched from here, we thought that at least let's get the local community involved in our project. And the good way is that let's start, uh, building on a framework. Ish, local communities very much involved. So Laal is the framework, uh, which was very much in use in my local region.
And we found that Laal is also quite popular in the South Asian continent in US as well. Not very much in Europe, but yeah, south is Asia and in US it's quite popular. Okay. So, first of all, we thought that this open source project, let's build something for the locality, okay. In the local region. So people can easily adopt it and start building e-commerce.
Because, you know, in the initial times, feedbacks are very important for us that, uh, someone should use it, give us a feedback, what we need to improve, what we need to optimize so we, uh, you know, take it further. So I think Laville certainly has played a very major role. You know, the very basic reason is, Lal right now is quite popular, uh, PhD framework across the world.
And we got into this strategy that even if LAL developers adopt Bago at a defacto e-commerce shop for the ecosystem, Bago can become so popular. Okay? We don't need to target the other development community, right? So I think because of this, uh, thought, uh, the very first marketing tactic that I did is. I tried to, uh, like, you know, like, uh, do digital marketing for Bago in terms of SEO on the Laal e-commerce keyboard.
That was the very first tactic for me to at least bring Bago on top of Google SE search engine on the Laal e-commerce keyboard. And I think, uh, it took me on year to get that. But the moment when it get that in the Laal eCommerce, it's been four years now. Even if you search right now, laal eCommerce bagi will be there on top.
So I think, I think that's, uh, that certainly played a very huge role in the initial days that, uh, we get the Laal community involved in museum Bagi. And even until all now, LA is playing a very huge role for the expansion of Bagi around the. 
Matt: Hmm. Yeah. That's cool. And so here, you know, you, you, you had a couple things there that were interesting and I want to dig into, um, a few, but one of them is, you know, the, the focus on growing the community from zero.
Okay. This is a topic that many open source projects have, they really struggle with. How do they grow from, you know, where they're at to where they need to be. And you mentioned a couple different tactics. Um, so the first one I wanna dig into is you mentioned going to conferences and meetups and just talking to people.
[00:17:15] How These Marketing Decisions Were Made
Matt: Okay. Yes. So how did you know which, which conferences and meetups to go to? Like how did you make those decisions? Like, because there's a lot of them and some of them might be relevant, some might not be relevant. Were you targeting specifically developer conferences or were you looking at more meetups for, uh, people doing, um, e-commerce or even, uh, you know, doing retail.
Yes. 
Saurav: So I think, uh, in the initial days I was basically targeting, targeting our deliver conferences. Okay. And not those conferences, which are very big in numbers because, you know, like, uh, it's a project. We don't have any external funds where you can, we can arrange. Uh, money to go and pick conferences and sponsor there.
Okay, so initially I was targeting small conferences for small meters, which were happening in my area. And people do come there. Not only very huge number, but yes, people do come there, right? Uh, and the people who come there, they are. From very small, small companies who are working on laville. Okay.
They're not very big companies, I would say. Okay. So I, uh, decided that I would go to those, those small meters because usually, uh, when you go there, you get a free entry there. Okay? They don't charge you much, okay. As a normal fee. They charge. Okay? Yeah. So you, you just go there and just, uh, let them know that, Hey guys, we have made this product right, so, I would say that not everyone will adopt that thing, whatever.
I would say that people just go from the meetup and start using bag two. But yeah, at least uh, people get to know, okay, there's something like bag two, which is there. Right? And, uh, what I, I would do, uh, once I came up from Meetup, I used to connect with those companies on LinkedIn. Okay. I used to search that company.
We are working on London. I tried to connect with their founders, all the CTOs or like, uh, business guys. Okay. I tried to schedule a call with them and try to tell them, Hey, I met you in that meetup. Uh, I just want to give you a very small demo. It's a free demo. I won't, they won't be any charge for that.
Right? So then I used to connect with them and start giving them demos. Okay. And yeah. They sometimes, like, they sometimes gimme feedback, okay, this is what you can do. Right? So I think, uh, that was the very first thing which I was doing. I did not go to very big conference of big meters e-commerce expo.
Also, I would say I have not been so much of part of any e-commerce expo. So I think most of them, uh, most of the meters which I am part of, are very much developer centered because, you know, like when it comes to open source, it's actually the developer who has to do a lot of. It's not a SaaS where you just go do three clicks and you get an e-commerce shop.
Right? It's open source any way developer need to work. Right. So that was the very first thing I, I decided I would go to developer meters, small meters. Okay. I would target a small audience. Okay. And then from there, I would just gradually go onto big conferences. So that was the very first thing, which I did.
So 
Matt: that's a really, um, you know, an easy connection, right? It's a person to person personal connection. You're doing personal invites, you're really spreading it via word of mouth, and that's a great way to do it, to reach people. But as we all know, there's a lot of developers who don't like to attend conferences, especially when we had like, you know, global pandemics and all kinds of stuff over the last few years.
But a, a lot of developers tend to be very, you. Uh, you know, they, they, they don't always like to be out in the open. Not all of them are extroverts, some are introverts. So you mentioned using, you know, um, some SEO tactics and really trying to show up on Google and, um, really get, you know, kind of like some seo uh, interest in love now.
[00:20:49] Optimizing SEO and getting to Google first page
Matt: You know, you said you eventually, it took about a year to get to the top of Google when you searched for, you know, uh, uh, an e-commerce solution. Um, you, you know, so how did you do that? Like, what were, what were the tactics and what did that look like starting off, like what worked and didn't work? 
Saurav: Okay. I think, uh, I focused a lot on content marketing.
Okay. Okay. Uh, initially we used to write a lot of content around this LAL and e-commerce, this particular keyboard. Okay. And then I think I definitely, I used to go to other conferences and tell people on that. Okay. There's one thing also I did is that I tried to target, uh, websites which are having, uh, like a low domain authority d you can see.
Okay. So I try to, uh, link up with them and try to, you know, do a cross-linking with them, right? Because, you know, like when a website has a very small d. So they don't have to think much. Okay. If it's a high da okay, then they might think much, they might charge you, follow, do, follow link. Okay. But when it's a small da, uh, even we do some interconnection Okay.
With, with dsec. So what we do is that we try to interchange, do follow links with small DA websites, okay? Okay. That second thing that we did. Okay. Um, third thing, which I tried to do, I tried to publish, uh, post into the other, other websites, like the websites like block tutorials. Okay. Which is, uh, like the website, which are public publishing, like how you can make use of the framework.
How you can develop an e-commerce shopping. I tried to find out these websites and try to put, uh, you know, like a blog post on bag store on this particular website. And four thing I did also was I tried to do video marketing as well. I tried to publish a videos on like giving, uh, instruction on how you can install magisto, how you can make yourself, how to create a.
Crawl in biggest, right? So in the initial days, if you go on the biggest YouTube channel, you find a lot of of mind videos. Okay. That, uh, there are so many videos like explain that material of the biggest. Right? So I think content marketing is the, is the one thing that I would say, uh, is like we focused a lot in the initial days and that certainly is giving a lot of benefit today.
Right? Those contents that we use to write in four or five days on a certain keyboard, they are still ranking on. Right. So I think, uh, we focused, uh, that is the one thing which I would say that content marketing initially helped us a lot in, you know, like getting the bago on top of the keyboard of laal e-commerce.
Yeah. That, that's, how 
Matt: long did it, 
Avi: oh, sorry. Go ahead, 
Matt: Matt. Oh, I was just gonna say, yeah, that content is king, right? And so it definitely is. And so it's really important to make sure you have that content. Go. Go ahead Avi. 
[00:23:29] How long it took for the content marketing strategy to take off
Avi: I I I'm curious how long you were, when, when you are starting that content marketing engine, um, how long was it feeling like you were just talking to an empty room until you started to see some pickup?
I, I think like, it, it tends to build on itself, but you're really starting from zero. And so what, what did that initial curve up start to look like? When did you start to see some results? Were there anything that you were really doing that particular jumpstarted or. Kind of the, the, the slow, like bit the slow build.
Saurav: Yes. So, Uh, I will say there came a moment when the graph went just like this, okay? So in on 31st October, 2018, we launched like this two, and I, I remember it was in March, 2019. Uh, I have been pitching a lot to the laville news.com website that hey guys just published my tool. Okay? And they used to charge for that.
But I still keep on pitching them that Hey guys, uh, just published that thing. It'll be very helpful. Okay. I remember I have been pitching them for two, three months. I don't know. Uh, some guys, uh, uh, some guy caught that thing like still a product. It's a open source project that built on, and he published on Bel News.
I remember it was a march, I don't remember date. It's like 17 or 18. I, I don't remember. On March, 2019 when the Bago Block, Bago Post came on Bel News, I would say, uh, it was a really a very jump start moment. I, I remember I was, uh, just going out of my office. Okay. I had the Google Analytics installed on my phone.
Okay. I used to do a, I used to do checkup Google Analytics every day, every hour whenever I get time. Okay? So I just like open Google Analytics. Okay. I find that. Hundred of visitor right now. Are there America? Means I thought what happened? Okay. Hundred visitor right now and the number was increasing.
Hundred hundred 50. 200. 200. Concurrent Exists on, on, on biggest two website. Right. And I also saw that. Uh, that there was a huge rise in the Ghe Star. Initially it was like 50 or 60, but in when that block came, we get around one 50 star. So I was curious to know that what happened right now that how these things happening.
Okay. Then I just go and begin to gu find out that there. So much people are coming from laville news.com, right? So I think that was the, to laville News, there was a link, it's a two for link, but it's a very good link because Laville News has a very good DS score, right? So I think once we got that link from Lauder News, I think that was the moment when, when the traffic started, traffic jump started, and then till now we have every day on a, on an address, seven to 800 users every day, right on.com.
[00:26:23] Additional strategies to keep the momentum after taking off
Avi: That's awesome. Um, how did you do anything in particular to kind of keep the momentum going after that first burst? I feel like it's something that we, we hear and see a lot where, you know, you get on Hacker News or something, get this huge burst of traffic, and then it kind of goes, it just goes away.
Okay. Um, what, what, what, what was, what was the next step right after you get this 
Saurav: burst of traffic? Yes. So I think at the moment it got news, there are so many websites picking up, picking up that story and publishing it on the own website. Right? So that was certainly happening. I saw that in the next few days.
I saw that like two website, like two blog is there on every different, different tech websites, which are uh, which are relevant to the community, right? What I did was that I immediately made a account on Reddit and tried to put up that post on Reddit. And from there also, I got a very good traffic on as well.
Okay. And then from there, once it was there on Laal News, it became very easy for me to pitch other websites, which are having a very good deal than they've done byo that, Hey, Bago is there on Laal News. Maybe you can, you can, uh, think of publishing that post. I can try to back link in your, your post and we can try.
Cross-promote that each other on social channel. Right? So that's what we started that. I started picking up some websites which are having good ideas. I started like cross-linking them and promoting them on social channels. Okay. So they, that it was one website which that I told you I put a put up a blog post.
Then I wrote article on medium.com. Medium. And then, yeah, I also remember that I published a post on dev to, there's a website dev to I just, uh, write a, a article that top three al packages. And that post also gained a very good traction in the next 15 days. And, uh, I remember, remember that, uh, when I was searching for Lal e-commerce keyboard, that article was coming on.
So when that other came on top, it become a very good do for all in, for me. And, and from there, that traffic start coming from den two to two. And so, and, and, and slow two start gain gaining on eCommerce keyboard and then it finally came on top. 
[00:28:34] Tools for keyword research
Matt: So what tools were you using just outta curiosity for your keyword research?
Saurav: Okay. Uh, for e e-commerce, I did. Do any keyboard research because it was pretty much obvious that 
Matt: platform. Yeah, it was, it was obvious. Yeah. 
Saurav: Platform was built on and, and e-commerce, so obvious keyboard will do eCommerce. Right. So we, yeah. But at that time, uh, when the, when the, when bag came on that keyboard.
Okay. After some time I checked on this, uh, I guess, uh, there's one Uber suggest this website, right? I checked there for the keyboard, right? Uh, it has got very, very good, uh, good traffic on that commerce keyboard. And then there was another website. I remember it was alexa.com. I think Amazon has taken it down right now, but it was there that time.
So alexa.dot com drill down, uh, to so many. Uh, it is for free. Was, it was a paid service. But even in free, they are giving you a lot of insights, okay? That, on which keywords you are ranking and what exactly is a missing factor, right? So I think alexa.com and Uber suggests, and, and yes, there's one more site I keep, uh, on, like searching is a H R A F.
Okay? You go onto website and it'll show you the, uh, the battling that. That domain, uh, authority score that you have and some broken link as well. Right. So these two, three websites have been, uh, following a lot from past four years. Okay. And tried, uh, you know, optimizing my, uh, website on certain keyword.
And, and right now I am optimizing currently on open source e-commerce platform. That's the, that's a general keyword, long bill, keyboard. It will take some time, but certainly right now Bago is on somewhere around, you know, like third page of Google. Okay. But I have issue that in some time, maybe it'll also come first please as well.
Matt: Okay, fair enough. Fair enough. So, you know, as you're doing this optimization, as you're building out, you know, the, the audience and making it so people can find you, which is critically important in, you know, any business, not just open. Um, there, there's a point where you're really starting to try and commercialize, um, you know, the, the product, right?
[00:30:39] Different solutions for different buyer personas, how to decide?
Matt: You're, you're taking it from just a pure open source product to something that people pay for. Um, maybe tell us a little bit about your business strategy. Um, what, what is the paid for offering versus the free, and how did you make the decision on what should be paid for versus what is free? 
Saurav: Okay. I have always been a believer that for a open source project to grow, Uh, what, what I tell everywhere, wherever I go, that take care of your community, community will take care of you.
That's a simple mantra I follow in the open source. And that has been from the day one till now, I've been following. So you can see like from the, uh, in the very first year, uh, we did not did any kind of, you know, like, Uh, strategy to gain some revenue. Okay? Because the very first thing for us that, first of all, community should adopt us, we should build a community, right?
Because without community, you are nothing for open source, right? With communities like a heart and soul for every open source project. So in the very first year, we, we are very much focused in building the community. So what I did was that I built a Facebook group. I got the forum online and uh, and then people started joining questioning on the Facebook group about the, and they started coming on forums as well and, and like, uh, creating some issues out.
Correct. Uh, once I, uh, find out we have got, uh, something like around 1000 member community. So what I did was that, and I remember that I put up a post on a Facebook group that, Hey guys, uh, I'm looking to make, uh, we are looking to make, uh, some, uh, extension on mega two, like multi vendor marketplace or like point of sale solution.
Or progressive. So what are the one extension that you are looking to have? So I put on a poll on, on the Facebook group. I got a response from the community that what community is exactly looking forward to have next in bango. So I remember that they voted out, they voted multi when the marketplace as the one thing.
Okay. So from there we got the idea, okay, this should be our next step. We, we should start building different, different small, small add-ons and extension because we know that. Uh, Bago in a, in a hole will not fulfill everyone's criteria, right? Yeah. Someone will need something. Someone will need something.
So we have to, and also, we cannot give everything in bago. Otherwise, it'll make the platform very messy and very heavy to run. Right. We always started to keep the platform very much simple to use and easy, right? So from there we got the idea, we started building multimillion marketplace and that was the very first extension that we lo launched at a minimal cost of 49 US dollar.
Right. Okay. So from there we started getting some traction. People started using Pega two and they started buying extension as well. And slowly, slowly we started, started adding more feature in the multi-vendor marketplace and also building other extension as well. So what was happening at that time? We were getting, uh, some, uh, leads.
From the people that people are using baggage to, they are requesting for some customization. So we found out that what is a major, uh, uh, thing, people are looking like multi vendor marketplace for the one. Then there are other group of, of people who are looking for point of sale solution. There are other people who are looking for a mobile solution as well, right?
So from there we got the idea that what should we build next? As extension, we started building the extension and trying to put up a very nominal cost for the community. And that's how I would say, uh, building extensions and selling them a nominal cost was the very first, uh, business strategy for Bago.
Okay. And then, you know, like every open source follow the same strategy, what Red Hat does. Like the very first thing they do is the licensing. Okay? That you publish a extension, you give a, uh, like a single license. And for multiple license we need to purchase license. Second thing that we did was that giving a priority support, okay?
That if you're using bag two and if you have any issue, you can take a aup paid support. We are going to assist you in that. And the third thing was the extension. We started building Extension and soon other companies also joined us in making those, in, making their extension for Bago. So they are main extension right now for Bago, which we have made, and they are like, right now, they are more than 150 plus extension for Bago.
30% of them have been built by third party companies and 70% by us. So people started coming, they started building extension, they also started getting momentum. They started also getting some business out of that. Right? So that's how I would say we, uh, we, you know, expanded our business strategy on all these free stuff.
And we gained some, you know, monitoring like honestly, that. 
Avi: Um, so when you, when you first pulled the, the community about like, you know, what direction do you want us to go? Um, may, maybe I missed this, uh, you know, as you were, as you were telling the story, but. Were you explicitly asking about willingness to pay or were you purely like, you know, what, what are we building next?
[00:35:51] Pricing decisions
Avi: And then that's what you decided you're gonna charge for, cuz people were asking for it. How did you think about pricing in that initial, initial rollout? 
Saurav: Yes. So I remember that I specifically mentioned that, uh, we are looking to build extension, what we build next. So, uh, does the word extension already.
It's something that is not going to be the part of core open source project. It's something kind of like an add-on, right? So I first got the poll of multi marketplace. For pricing? I would say, uh, it was just, uh, like, uh, blind eye. Okay. That we put up a normal cost of $49. Okay. And, but yes, like, uh, people were buying, uh, I think, uh, at that time, uh, we don't get any much request that it's a very high cost.
Okay. People were buying and even like, they were supporting some, you know, like school projects as well. There were some students who approached us and we, we give them for free. Okay. And then they started building on that. They again came back to us and, and they told us that, okay, uh, is going fine. We need some customization.
And for, for that they are willing to pay. Okay. So in the initial days we were very much flexible in the amount that even if someone comes and ask for a discount, obviously we will give, because in initiative given nothing, right? We just want to have more people around us, right? So, People came whenever they want a discount, we'll give 'em discount.
If, if for $9 suits fine, it's fine. Okay. So I think, uh, pricings, uh, for the pricings we, uh, just put up like that. Okay. And then it's upon the community how they respond to that. Okay. And even right now, what we, what we, what we do is that, Uh, every, uh, four months. Okay? We revise the pricings of extension, right?
We see that, uh, which extension is gaining popularity for which extension people have high demand for which extension, which are, are in low demand, and people need a discount on that. So we regularly adjust the price in every four month or, or six month, you, you see? Okay. So it would be easy for the community as well.
Okay? And we can get more, uh, like, you know, uh, e-commerce shop built around like store using those extensions as. 
Matt: Quick question. Uh, the extensions, are they subscription based? So it's like a year long subscription for the $49, or is it just a one-time fee? 
Saurav: So there's an interesting parameter that will attach to the extension.
First of all, it's one time, three Second is that, uh, once you purchase the extension, you get the full source code of the extension. Third is that since you have the full source code, you have all the authority to modify the extension as per your use. Okay. Third, uh, what we did is that you will. Uh, lifetime free updates for that particular extension.
So even in the coming down line, even after five years, also, if someone has bought extension the very first year, he will get a lifetime free update whenever we update that extension. Okay? And then they give a free three month support as well for the extension, that if you're using the extension and if you are having issue, We are giving you free three month support as well.
So these are some interesting clauses that we, uh, allocated with the purchase of extension. And that, I think, uh, found the very level to the community and that's how, uh, like people started buying and using those extensions.
[00:39:08] Technical details for the Bagisto project. How the product is distributed.
Avi: So from a technical standpoint, how are you, how are you getting these extensions into their hands?
Is it like a private repo? Is it just some like authenticated URL that you get a code for? Like how are you actually physically getting that to 
Saurav: them? Okay, so see, uh, like now it's more like you purchase extension and you get a zip code, okay? Mm-hmm. Zip code? Zip five, sorry, zip five. In the zip file, there's a source code.
Uh, Steve, right now, if I talk about authentication, Not, uh, like a good authentication is there. Okay. But it's more on the grounds of morality that we have put in that terms and condition that every extension has got symbolized that you can use it only on one instance, okay? If you use on more than one instance, okay?
Uh, there can be a certain clause that that would not be good for you. Okay? So there have been cases, like we have found that people are using, uh, On multiple websites and, and, and that two Tucson has, uh, Watson has done is that they have put the extension as pop get so on who? Yeah. 
Matt: So they take your pri private code and then released it.
Saurav: Yes. What do you do? Is that even on GitHub also? We do, uh, like do a filtering of our extension to find out if someone has put that or not. And there have been people who have done that. When they do that, we file a company to GitHub on the dmc. Okay. That this is a repository that is making use of a private file, which is, uh, like, uh, which we are selling so kindly take.
So, uh, we don't do direct. First, we, uh, send the issue on that repository to the owner that this is a private repository. Can we take it as private nonmedical counsel? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. If they do that, some do, if that's fine. If someone not do, then they file DM c complaint to get up. That can take on this repository as, as is the publishing, uh, repository to pencil this, just not pencil, but.
So I think, uh, on this level we are managing, uh, that people should make, make use of, uh, like the add-on on only single instance, on not a multiple instance. 
Matt: Yeah. That, that, that's a tough problem, you know, because, you know, when you do give away the open source code or the, the code and it's not open source, it's under a different license, um, people tend to do what they feel, um, is, uh, in their best interest, not necessarily the c.
Avi: Yes, we could take a, a slight tangent cuz there's a very current story unfolding in this exact, uh, vein at the moment with, uh, Minio, and I don't know if it's a Wico weka, um, you know, a a around a attribution to, to minio that they're embedding and they're trying to like revoke the license under the Apache two clause, which I think is very interesting.
[00:41:58] Process for license violations
Avi: And so I guess, Like, I'm curious of, you know, how often are you seeing this happen? Like, has, has your process of what you do when you see these kinds of license violations, has that changed over time? Like, were there things that you were doing at first that weren't working? Like Yeah, I'm really just curious how, how, how you've been thinking about that over time.
Um, 
Saurav: well, see, I, I, I would say that not many does that thing. Okay. Like, uh, out of a hundred, two or three maybe, are there Okay. Who are doing that thing? Okay. Uh, because you know why? There's one more reason for that, that, uh, support even like you, uh, you, uh, if someone else is doing extension on a multiple domain as well, right?
Mm-hmm. Certainly he will come back to us for support. He won't get a support anywhere for that, for that extension, which we have built. Okay. So before giving us support, we ask for the order add of the purchase, right? So we verify the purchase first. Okay. That it's, uh, it's a like of, uh, like verified purchase.
Okay. Someone if they are using a multiple domain, okay, so we, we, we get the add from there only that if he's using from in on a, like a single instance or multiple instance. So we verify the purchase, we got the order id, so only those customers who are our real customer, who have got real order id, we give them support.
Otherwise, if there's any other customer who is just making use of our software, we get to know that no, he's not our customer, but he's using our. So from there we also get the idea and we try to restrict those people and tell them that, can you take it down? Okay. It's not like, uh, like, uh, like, you know, uh, a favorable thing.
Okay. And even we do, uh, send some, uh, notice as well. To take it down and there are people who have taken it down. Okay. Otherwise, Gira takes care of that. Okay. 
Matt: Yeah. Well, and, and Avi to, to, to your point, and, and, you know, uh, uh, you know, this is where it's super interesting. So running, you know, I, I've run support departments before where we sell commercial support and.
[00:44:02] Dealing with product abuse and how to manage licenses
Matt: While the number of people who abuse that where, you know, is, is small, there are people who do. So, you know, when you sell like a support contract for one server, you expect one server. Um, I can tell you though, that there are some really, really large companies like Fortune 1000, 2000 companies, you know, billions of dollars where they, they'll buy like one server worth of support and then they'll open up like 50 tickets a.
Oh my gosh. And you're like, but wait a minute, this one is on like, you know, aws, this what's on Google, so they can't be on like the same, like pla they, they can't be the same server. You only bought one. So this actually, it doesn't happen like, you know, um, uh, so, uh, you know, like you said, it doesn't happen often, but when it does, it's kind of noticeable If you're looking at the right.
Saurav: Yeah, even like, you know, uh, there are certain things which are there in the register store code. So we know that, uh, when the website is live, okay. Actually, we, we never get information. That website is live, but yeah, we do search for, uh, some keyboard. That keyboard, uh, when you search on Google, it gets a list of.
Okay. So from there also we identified those people Okay. That, uh, who are using the same server and two instance. Okay. But you know, like very soon, uh, we are going to launch, uh, like we are building on some authentication, uh, right now, okay? Which we are going to embed in the, in this commercial extension.
So in the, in the coming purchase, people have to generate a license key, and that license key will be attached to that extension. And without that license key, they will not be able to use the extens. So we are working on this, uh, some authentication system that will be like, you know, live very much soon for the community.
Matt: There's always just a couple people who ruin it for everybody. Ah, anyways. Um, Avi, do you know what time it is? 
Avi: What 
Matt: time is it? It's time to change hats. It's time for that segment, which we always go to. We're gonna talk about metrics. We're gonna talk metrics. I'm putting on my metrics hat for the open source space.
[00:46:10] Measuring commercial success of the product
Matt: That's right. Um, yeah, so I am curious. Okay, so as we're talking about the, the, the, the business strategy, we're talking about the commercialization, we're talking about what's going. How are you measuring the success of, uh, the product? How are you measuring your commercial success? What are you looking for and how do you connect the dots between open source and actual sales?
Like what are, what are those metrics you look at? 
Saurav: Okay. I think the very first metric is that we have around like, you know, 5,000 plus member community around the world. Okay. And, uh, we have, uh, built around, uh, five to six ambassadors in different different country who are like, uh, running these values, two meetups.
And they're different, different locality, right? So I think that's awesome. Uh, it's a huge success for us that, uh, some people are taking initiative and they are actually working around like two and bring these small meetups in the locality. Okay. So community is like one of the big metrics for us. Okay. I would say that, uh, we have been able to build a very good community, very supportive community, okay?
They, all of them are very collaborative and working together and like so many things. That's the one factor for us. Okay. And obviously there are a lot of factors, which you can see on GitHub. Just go on GitHub, you'll find 6,000 plus stars in just like four years, 75,000 plus downloads, and more than 25,000 plus.
25,000 app merchants, schools websites are currently live and running successfully on megastar.com right now, framework. Okay, now if I talk about the revenue part, that's a very no. Hazy, I would say, uh, that's the, is a thing which you cannot relate with open source, right? Because what is open source, if not giving back to community?
Right? Something for free. Okay? You cannot, you cannot just go to investor and show some balance sheet that, Hey, I need funding. This is the opensource spread, right? It's very hard to get a funding for opensource. Okay. Still, uh, it's good thing that we are running from past four years and we have been right now able to generate like 350 K annual recommend revenue right now.
Okay? So I think, uh, those, a lot of like, uh, these things have came from our business strategy. Uh, whatever these amounts are coming and they are certainly helping us in maintain the project building all like coming up all the new integrations. Like recently we have, uh, uh, we have forwarded into building decentralized application Ethereum and Polygon using baggage to text extract and also like, uh, building some application around machine learning and augmented reality on by this two as well.
Right? So all these. Are helping us in supporting our community around the world and also supporting the projects and the people working behind us. They're fortunate. Uh, we are running fine. There have been also instances that people. Wanted to contribute to Bago as well in financial terms. But, uh, since right now things are going fine, we tell them that please keep this funds, and if you want to contribute to bago, just organize a local meter and spread the word.
Okay? That's how you can make your money right now that you have. Okay. So that is what we, uh, tell the community. Even we, we support our community by sending some financial assistance, by sending some goodies and everything like that. Okay. So, yeah, I think, uh, these are some of the important metrics that I told right now by which show, which show that, uh, uh, we are not going too fast or too steep.
But yeah, we are growing definit. 
[00:49:53] Managing your community in the open source space
Matt: Okay. Well, and you mentioned a couple of things that are interesting. So number one, you mentioned like your community ambassadors. That's a great way to track, you know, like how many people are part of your community in growing that, focusing on, on that. I'm curious, when you talk about your community as a whole, is that, is that just contributors on GitHub?
Is that like people on like a Slack or a Facebook group? When you talk about like those 5,000 people, what, what are, what are you counting towards that 5,000? 
Saurav: Uh, yeah. See, right now they're, uh, around, uh, hundred and 50 contributors on ub, uh, for Okay. And other five other members, and counting by the number of members we have on our Facebook group and those, which are on our forums right now.
Right. Okay. So these two are, are the other like platform where people usually come, they put up the issue and community help them in solving the issues. And with that, so these members are coming from Facebook and. 
Matt: Okay. And you mentioned that you have about 25,000, uh, merchants, which is great. Um, I'm curious, how do you count that number?
Like, is, is there like something that tells, like you, like, oh, this is installed merchant from the company, or is that just based on download numbers or just people who self-report? How do you collect that? 
Saurav: Hmm. See, uh, uh, we have. Put up anything kind of like a tracking code by which you can track a code whenever a status code, because you know it's open source code.
Anyone can modify the code, right? So you don't have that liability or like freedom, right? So there's a site, uh, but the name built with.com okay? Okay. Uh, what built with does is that you put up a site. It'll give you on what technology this side is built upon. Right? Okay. Uh, so there, uh, I put up like I am like subscriber to that site.
I put up the cable two, and from there I get a sum number. Okay. I will not say, uh, even that, it tells me the exact number. Okay. But some number. At least I would get. So I'm pretty, uh, like, you know, uh, like, uh, show that out of 75,000 downloads that we have currently for Bago, uh, the site displacement, there are something around 25,000 plus site, which are live Now.
See, you cannot be sure that if a site is live today, tomorrow, it can go down. It won't be, it won't be correct. Right. But on an average, I would say that, uh, from last one year, I have been tracking on that buildable site. So there are approximately 5,000 plus sites, which was running on the list side. 
Avi: Got it.
Got it. That makes sense. Um, I, I don't actually know, are those strateg, is that kind of built with strategy robust to. You know, people having say like a staging link and a production link that are both on sub-domains of the same domain. I'm cur uh, it's, it's interesting to me how they, how they tease that number out to kind of give you uniques.
Saurav: Yeah. Right. You are right. No, they, they, uh, they even sometimes, you know, uh, fetch that as well. Okay. Staging and production both. Right. I have seen that. Right. Okay. So, got it. I try to figure those out or I try to sometimes calculate them. They suppose like if I get two websites both and similar, but having defend them, I get an idea that, okay, one might be staging, one might be production, or, uh, there's a debugger, uh, that we have on the, on the photo.
Okay. So if you find that, uh, there's a debugger on it might be a staging one. Okay. If a er is off, it might be a production one. Right. So from there also we a test. Oh, wow. Yeah. 
Avi: Yeah. That's that. Yeah. That's sophisticated. 
Matt: So anyway, so, um, we're, we're just about out of time. Avi, any final thoughts from you?
[00:53:29] Advice for others who want to launch their own project
Avi: Um, I guess I, I'm, you know, I'm curious as, as someone who has, you know, really gotten a very impressive bootstrap business off the ground. I'm curious if you just have any kind of closing advice for folks who are, are looking to do the same. It's, it's, it's a really, uh, it's a really impressive achievement to get a business like this off the ground.
So I'm sure many are looking to, for guidance on. 
Saurav: Uh, well, I always will the same thing to everywhere. That, uh, if you're looking to start opensource project first, try to build something, uh, which, uh, is for your community, okay? Because, uh, once the community adopt you, uh, adopts you, okay? Uh, you won't need anything else.
Okay? So make sure you give your community the priority, okay? Keep, uh, in touch with them, keep, uh, asking questions and putting up something like that. So the community, uh, feels like they are engaged. Okay? Because those are the people who are taking out their time and using their pro, using your project.
Right. Otherwise, who does that? Right. Definitely. So please go ahead and talk with your community, organize, meet and conferences, support them with if possible, uh, not financially, but with some goodies. Or even like, you can give a virtual talk, right? You can organize a meet up in locally and give a virtual talk on that Right.
As well. So yeah, that would be my, you know, advice for them that. Please take care of your community. Community will take care of you. Definitely. That has been the process for us. 
Matt: All right. Great advice. Awesome. Great advice. Um, mm-hmm. So, Raab, thank you for coming on the Hacking Upsource Business Podcast.
We appreciate it. Um, don't forget to check out, uh, Bago. Um, if you are in the market for some e-commerce software, um, you know, check out their website. Um, and don't forget to like, subscribe and follow us as well. Um, we do appreciate you listening today. Um, until next time, thanks very. 
Saurav: Thank you, Matt. Thank you, Abby.
It's been nice talking to you guys. Likewise. Thank you. 
Matt: All right. That's.