The business of growing and monetizing an open source product | Ashley Kramer (GitLab CMO/CSO)

Ashley Kramer is the CMO and CSO at GitLab, a publicly listed DevSecOps platform. Ashley took a unique path into her CMO role. She started out in software engineering before becoming a product leader, and eventually, a marketer. Most recently, Ashley was the CPO and CMO at Sisense, a data analytics company last valued at over $1b. — In today’s episode we discuss: How GitLab layered a commercial model on top of open source roots GitLab’s main marketing metrics Examples, benefits, and downsides of a transparent company culture How GitLab serves enterprise customers, and a passionate developer community Unique marketing lessons from working in an open core company An example of a recent marketing campaign — Where to find Brett Berson: Twitter: https://twitter.com/brettberson LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brett-berson-9986094/ — Where to find Ashley Kramer: Twitter/x: https://twitter.com/ashleyekramer LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashleyekramer/ — Where to find First Round Capital: Website: https://firstround.com/ First Round Review: https://review.firstround.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/firstround Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@FirstRoundCapital This podcast on all platforms: https://review.firstround.com/podcast — Referenced: CISO: https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/security/what-is-ciso.html DevSecOps: https://about.gitlab.com/topics/devsecops/ E-Group: https://about.gitlab.com/company/team/e-group/ GitLab: https://gitlab.com GitLab legal team’s SAFE framework: https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/legal/safe-framework/ GitLab’s open core business model: https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/company/stewardship/ GitLab’s open source employee handbook: https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/people-group/ GitLab’s open source marketing handbook: https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/marketing/ GitLab’s open source remote handbook: https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/company/culture/all-remote/guide/ Sid Sijbrandij, CEO of GitLab: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sijbrandij/ Tableau: https://www.tableau.com/ — Timestamps: (00:00) Intro (02:34) Marketing in closed vs open source companies (07:40) The role of marketing at GitLab (09:23) The tensions of being a commercial, open source company (12:36) Advice for nurturing community and dealing with disagreements (15:02) GitLab's main marketing metrics (20:26) The thinking behind GitLab’s org structure, in and around marketing (28:19) Selling to enterprise as an open core company (29:53) The difference between open core and open source (30:39) Serving many different customer segments (35:10) GitLab's planning process (39:22) An example of GitLab’s marketing in practice (42:12) How marketing collaborates with product (45:55) Marketing lessons from working in an open core company (49:46) Examples of GitLab's focus on transparency (52:22) Why GitLab is transparent about their marketing (54:59) 2 examples of GitLab's uniquely transparent culture (58:35) The downsides of being a transparent company (60:13) GitLab's meeting structure and cadence (62:04) Benefits of having an engineering and product background as CMO (71:09) People who made an outsized impact on Ashley's career