Open source is often seen as a world of code, collaboration, and community. But for founders, it can also be a tough place filled with business choices, doubts from investors, and the challenge of balancing ideals with survival.

In this talk, I’ll share a real and honest story of how an Apache project—started with passion and supported by a global community—grew into a funded company that now serves enterprise customers. We’ll explore how community love was transformed into a sustainable business model, what VCs often get wrong about OSS startups, and how founders can navigate the chaos between contributors and customers.

If you’re a technical founder walking the tightrope between open values and commercial reality, this is the survival guide I wish I had.

Speakers:

William Guo: WhaleOps CEO

 Apache Software Foundation Member  WhaleOps CEO  PMC of Apache DolphinScheduler  PMC of Apache SeaTunnel  Track Chair of DataOps of Apache Con Asia 2021/2022/2023/2024/2025

William is the CEO of WhaleOps, founded by the core team of Apache DolphinScheduler and Apache SeaTunnel. Their product, WhaleStudio, an all-in-one data integration and orchestration platform that makes data integration&workflow simple, with support for over 290 data sources.

William used to be the CTO of Analysys and the Senior Big Data Director of Lenovo, general manager of bid data in Wanda. He worked as Big Data Director/manager at CICC, IBM, and Teradata. He has more than 20 years of experience in big data technology and data management.