The Human Cost of Increasing Freemium Users with Peer Richelsen

The Business of Open Source

Peer Richelsen is the Co-founder of Cal.com, an open-source calendar scheduling tool. This week, Peer and I discuss his personal experience with needing a customizable scheduling tool, the big leap from taking donations to running a profitable business, and the thought process behind seeking VC funding. Peer also talks about the major advantage of starting with only a paid version of the product in order to build a small community of super users. Lastly, I pick Peer’s brain about how he feels being constantly compared to non open-source scheduling products.

Highlights:

• Intro (00:00)
• I introduce Peer Richelsen, the Co-founder of Cal.com, and he discusses the company and its calendar scheduling tool (00:59)
• Does Peer think about Cal.com as a dev tool (2:09)
• What is Cal.com’s business model (03:57)
• The lack of customizability in the scheduling tool marketplace (06:15)
• Switching from accepting donations to selling a profitable product (09:48)
• Launching without a free version (12:50)
• The human cost of freemium usage (16:20)
• The decision to raise VC funds (17:41)
• What business value being open source brings to the company (20:48)
• How Cal.com positions itself in the market (24:13)
• Interesting mistakes Peer has made as an entrepreneur (28:22)
• How “free” is the software (30:57)
• Peer’s parting words (32:27)
• Where listeners can connect with Peer and learn more about Cal.com (33:04)

Links:

Peer

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peer-richelsen-221233138/
• Twitter: @peer_rich
• Company: https://cal.com/