OpenPlains Inc. A First-Year Retrospective

FOSS4G NA 2024, St. Louis Missouri

Corey T. White

2024-09-10

Part 1. From Academia to Startup

Ph.D. in Geospatial Analytics (2023)

Democratizing Geospatial Modeling

Regional NSF I-Corps

NSF Customer Discorvery

  • 20 Customer Interviews
  • Identify Value Prop
  • Market Size

Value Prop

Democratize interactive geospatial modeling in flood resilience and urban growth planning through scenario-based civic engagement.

IP | License | COI

  • GPL v3
  • University does not want to pursue licensing
  • Conflict of Interest

Company Formation

  • c-corp?
  • non-profit?

  • Free
  • 12 Week
  • In-Person

Testing Assumptions

Trust in unfamiliar models

Stormwater Pilot

Funding

  • SBIR Grant?
  • State Specific Funding?
  • Bootstrapping?
  • Venture?

End of year 1

Operating Costs

  • Taxes
  • Lawyers
  • Cloud Services (Email, drive, etc)
  • Servers
  • Time and energy

Mentorship

Thank you to my Mentors

  • Find mentors
  • Don’t pay for mentorship

Part 2. Open Source as an Economic Driver

  1. Open source facilitates economic development
  2. Drives innovation
  3. Needs to be supported to be sustainable

Link to Full Image

Link to Full Image

Community Relations

  • What should a company’s relationship be with the open source communities it depends on?

Open Source Sustainability

Community

OpenPlains is dependent on GRASS GIS

  • I’m part of the GRASS community

  • How can OpenPlains support GRASS as it grows?

  • Donate

    • Time
    • Money

  • Profit Sharing…

  • Open-Source Corp…

    • Include language in articles of incorporation

Discussion & Questions

  • How can companies support thier open source community?
  • How can you growing your own open source community?