1. Growing
Authentic
Communities
Luke
Kanies
Founder
and
CEO,
Puppet
Labs
Founder,
Puppet
@puppetmasterd
luke@puppetlabs.com
Sunday, March 3, 13

2. Question
Authority
`
Sunday, March 3, 13
Some OSS experience, but not much
Had a lot of horrible warnings, not many good examples
Trial and Error, stuck with what worked and tried to quickly ditch
what didn’t
Hanlon’s Razor: Never attribute to malice that which can be
explained by incompetence
Always willing to admit I’m wrong, to change my mind

3. Growing,
not
Building
Sunday, March 3, 13
Wanted to call this ‘building’
Just because you build it, doesn’t mean they’ll come
You build the framework, other people grow the community

4. A
bit
about
Puppet
Sunday, March 3, 13

5. 2005
• 1
user
on
dev
list
(me)
• No
user
list
• Registered
#puppet,
no
users
Sunday, March 3, 13

6. 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 success
Always showed this slide at talks, and was clear about commercial goals
Sysadmins are used to spending money on software, so this wasn’t scary

7. 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

8. 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

9. How?
Sunday, March 3, 13
Major changes without major outcry

10. Encourage
engagement,
don’t
control
it
Sunday, March 3, 13
Empty lists need no moderation
Natural first reactions cover “when traffic is too large”
You should be so lucky
Like investing in a scalable back end on a site with no users

11. Answer
every
question
Sunday, March 3, 13
In early days, answer everything, day or night, right away
Be present enough that it seems like a crowded room

12. ...even
when
you
don’t
know
Sunday, March 3, 13
Sometimes you don’t know
Sometimes you know and don’t like the answer
Answer anyway
It’s early days - the truth is more important than anything
All you have is credibility, and that’s easy to lose

13. ...but
not
always
right
away
Sunday, March 3, 13
Hand over authority quickly
Give others time to help
Only got passed as top contributor last year

14. Transparency
is
hard
Sunday, March 3, 13
Early days: Your project sucks
Mature: Your project is slow and can’t respond quickly
Admit it, embrace it
There’s probably something you like that you can draw attention to

15. Full
Transparency
Sunday, March 3, 13
Why, What, and How
Everyone knew I was trying to make money
Everyone knew what we were doing and why
So almost no one was cynical
I run Puppet Labs this way - everyone knows how much we have in
the bank account

16. Especially
Difficult
for
Companies
Sunday, March 3, 13
You’re already suspect
Especially if you aren’t the main devs
You have to work extra hard
But companies are naturally secretive
Suck it, this is open source

17. Transparency
!=
Openness
Sunday, March 3, 13

18. Pretty
Awesome
Sunday, March 3, 13
One period of working alternating hours with an Aussie
He’d file tickets while I slept, I’d fix them while he slept

19. Be
nice
Sunday, March 3, 13
Intolerant of intolerance
No religion

20. Embrace
newbies
Sunday, March 3, 13
You can’t grow without new people

21. Word
of
Mouth
Sunday, March 3, 13
30-50% of conf attendees are new and were referred by friends
Just about no advertising
Online engagement
Lots of hustling on the ground

22. Hustle
at
conferences
Sunday, March 3, 13
Walk the floor
Expos are useless for community until you’re big, even then just a
meeting place
Give talks (like this one!), hold BOFs
Spend all day talking to people
I never ever attended talks - I didn’t sell, I hustled, I practiced, I
pitched

23. Visit
Them
Sunday, March 3, 13
Attend their conferences
Find a community member and ask them to organize a drink-up on
every trip
Sleep when you’re home
5 countries in 6 months

24. Be
Available
Sunday, March 3, 13
Default accept
Everyone who wants it has my mobile phone number
Everyone knows my email address
The sound of someone mentioning my name in IRC still haunts me
I still do long Q&As and will answer basically anything

25. Lessons
Learned
Sunday, March 3, 13

26. Priorities
and
Community
Sunday, March 3, 13
Sometimes focused on our own priorities, forget others
Employees don’t automatically get community membership
Individual focus matters

27. Engage,
don’t
announce
Sunday, March 3, 13
Even announcing in advance, rather than “yesterday” is better
Always ask
Big changes need lots of warning
You need to actually listen and engage

28. Examples
Sunday, March 3, 13

29. James
Turnbull
Sunday, March 3, 13
Wanted to write a book
Ended up doing almost all community work for 2 years
Rewrote all of our docs

30. Venture
Capital
Sunday, March 3, 13
Didn’t seek initial round, but was happy to announce to community
Lots of questions
But I’d always been clear I was here to grow a company
And everyone knew I’d been hustling for years and needed some
help
I wasn’t selling out, I was hiring programmers to help, and that’s
what I did

31. GPL2
-­‐>
Apache
2
Sunday, March 3, 13
Changed in 2011, 2 years after VC, took a long time for CLAs
2 people complained (out of 3k or so on the list)
Was clear about why: Trading off integrations over potential license
revenue
MySQL -> Sun -> Oracle kinda poisoned the well
Absolutely not religious for us, and the community responded in
kind

32. Questions?
Sunday, March 3, 13