Marketing and Open Source with Kiersten Gaffney

Today I chat with Kiersten Gaffney, CMO of Codefresh, a software delivery platform. Kiersten begins by defining her role as CMO. We then discuss the unique challenges of product strategy with open source projects. Kiersten talks about the importance of maintaining both a top-down and bottom-up approach when taking a project from open source to enterprise, and then explains some of the most common mistakes she’s seen when companies undergo this process. We discuss how technical a team should be when marketing open source and conclude the conversation by talking about analysis paralysis in start-ups and how to avoid it.

Highlights:

• Kiersten answers the question “What do CMOs do all day?” (1:49)
• Product strategy with open source products (2:58)
• How open source projects fit into marketing efforts (6:10)
• Kiersten’s advice on how to maintain both a top-down and bottom-up approach (11:28)
• Is there a magic formula for taking a project from open source to for profit? (13:02)
• Biggest mistakes when taking a project from open source to enterprise (15:54)
• Emily asks how technical a marketing team should be for an open source project (22:53)
• Kiersten and Emily discuss the tension between engineering and marketing (24:24)
• Analysis paralysis in startups (26:35)

Links:

Kiersten

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kierstengaffney/
• Twitter: @kierstengaffney
• Company: https://codefresh.io/