Ask HN: Contributing to open-source vs. startup projects

2 points by technel 11 years ago | 3 comments

I have always been interested in doing my own startup, so I constantly have side projects, but because of this, I struggle to find the time to contribute to open-source.

Is it overblown how much employers look for open-source contributions? Do they give any respect to closed-source (potentially profit-driven) side projects? Or might they even see a startup on the side as a negative? Does this vary by the size/type of employer?

Thanks!

mindcrime 11 years ago |

Agree with mehdim - you can do both. All of my "side project" work is open source (well, %99.9 of it anyway) is totally open-source, but it's in the context of a startup where we intend to make money.

Or might they even see a startup on the side as a negative?

I'm pretty sure the answer to this is "yes" for a non-trivial number of potential employers. At the end of the day, some people are always going to be suspicious that your startup will distract you from what they're paying you to do, or that there will be some conflict of interest, or that you'll quit as soon as the startup gets some traction, and/or that you'll poach all of their good people away when it does, etc. And none of these fears are totally unreasonable. So yeah, if your startup is an ongoing concern, I would expect it would be a sticking point for some companies you might want to work for.

Does this vary by the size/type of employer?

My feeling is that larger / more bureaucratic companies will be worse in this regard, and companies that are in a field that is more closely related to what your startup does. If your startup is building mobile app games, and you go to work for EA, you might find more issues than if you went to work for John Deere or Caterpillar. That's my perception anyway. YMMV.

Does this vary by the size/type of employer?

jasonkester 11 years ago |

Revenue-generating projects have the advantage of not only impressing potential employers, but also generating revenue, potentially making "employers" optional and letting you move to Switzerland for six months because it's ski season.

Open Source projects may impress potential employers, but beyond that the best you can hope for is extra credibility from people who smell vaguely like soup.

I think I may have tipped my hand as to which one I'd spend my time building, given the chance.

mehdim 11 years ago |

You can do both. I will take our example at OAuth.io, we have built an open source daemon for OAuth that solve a problem for developers and we made a startup to sell the service on top. Look what Docker is becoming. Being a startup and contributing to open source are not opposite.

Or you can see even Github that contribute to open source by making a startup to help everybody contribute on open source...

Or Twitter with Bootstrap etc....