Secrets of Building Global Software Companies with a User-Base Business Model - Workshop by Monty Widenius, Developer & Community Wizard and Tom Henriksson, Partner at Open Ocean at the NOAH 2013 Conference in London, Old Billingsgate on the 13th of November 2013.

1. Secrets of building global software companies
with a user-base business model
Monty Widenius, Developer & Community Wizard
Tom Henriksson, Partner

2. AGENDA
Content
•
•
•
Briefly about Open Ocean Capital
Six keys to rapid growth with a user-base model
Q&A

3. Open Ocean Capital – Investing in European Software
Start-ups
•
•
Open Ocean was started after the MySQL acquisition by Sun
Microsystems, to finance and build “new MySQL companies”
Focus on European software start-ups with large user-bases /
communities
•
Currently investing from Fund Three with 45M€ in fresh capital
•
Investing in companies with a product proven by the user-base
–
typically A or B rounds, 0.5-2M€ as the initial investment
–
12 investments so far

4. Open Ocean’s Partners – Complementing MySQL history
Monty Widenius
Ralf Wahlsten
The Developer
and Community
Wizard
The Strategist
and Business
Angel
Tom Henriksson
Patrik Backman
The Venture
Capital Investor
The Executive
merging Technology
and Business

5. MySQL AB – User base growth driving value creation

6. SIX KEYS TO RAPID GROWTH
WITH A USER-BASE MODEL

7. 1. Users as Core Product Developers…

8. … Or (More Typically) Helping Develop Plans and
Broaden the Offering

9. 2. The Commercial Offering is Very Different

10. 3. Achieving Effective Marketing…

11. … but we admit is difficult to get started with the userbase

12. 4. Identifying & Nurturing (Low Cost) Sales Leads

13. 5. Finding the Perfect Sales Model

14. Note: Even Pure Online (SaaS Product) Sales Bifurcate
Vs.

15. 6. Providing the Data to Make “Go Global” Decisions
Product(s), Markets, Customer segments, Pricing, etc.

16. DISCUSSION

17. THANK YOU!
tom@openoceancapital.com
monty@openoceancapital.com