Overview
Open Source Qualified Leads (OQLs) are individuals or organizations that show a measurable level of engagement within your open-source community or project. OQLs tend to convert faster and more frequently than other types of leads, because they are already getting value from your open-source project.
In this playbook, we’ll show you how to combine different types of actions within your open-source community or project to easily identify commercial intent and build your open source funnel.
What you’ll need:
Scarf (sign up for free)
Step 0: Create an Organization
To create an organization, in the header menu, click on Organization.
Alternatively, you can access it via the + icon and selecting New Organization.
If you haven't already set up an organization, you will be presented with the following screen:
As you can see, you are presented with two options:
- Create Organization: Select this option if you are happy to keep your user and create a freestanding organization.
- Convert Account to Organization: If it happens that you've added lots of new packages and found that you'd like to put these under an organization umbrella, this is the perfect way to achieve that. By doing this, you will be able to share data from Scarf Packages and Pixels you’ve created with others within your organization.
For now, we will only cover how to create a new organization. You can learn more about converting your account to an organization.
After clicking on Create Organization, the next screen will prompt you to add your new organization name and other details, click Save.
Having done this, you now have an organization you can edit by clicking Organizations, and then selecting the pencil icon.
Pro Tip: Opt for an organization name familiar to you and potential members. Your company or project name is often the most recognizable choice.
To access your new organization from the Scarf App Home Page, click the dropdown menu in the upper right corner and select your organization.
You will now be able to create Scarf Packages and Pixels within your organization and access it whenever you want.
Pro Tip: When looking at the menu in the upper right corner, you will now see two circles. The larger being what organization you are accessing and the smaller one being the user you are doing it with.
Step 1: Define what you’ll track
First, you need to have decided what actions you want to track within your open source ecosystem. With Scarf, you can track:
- Downloads of your software at the point of distribution, regardless of how they are distributed (Docker containers, binaries, Python packages, npm packages, and more).
- User interactions with your web artifacts (marketing site, documentation, and READMEs).
- Clicks on any links and social monitoring.
- Custom telemetry from within your application.
- Enriching any existing data you're already collecting on software usage.
If you need help setting these up, please refer to our documentation.
Step 2: Choose the level of importance of an action when you set up Scarf Packages or Pixels
Event Importance allows you to determine the weight that certain events carry over others. For instance, a download should carry more weight than a page view on your public website, as it shows higher interest. This importance can be defined when setting up a new pixel or package and can be edited at any time. The importance will default to medium.
Event Importance will also define the points Scarf assigns to each action. Knowing which actions are more important for your particular use case will allow us to define how far down the open source funnel is an OQL. The pre-set funnel stages in Scarf are the following:
- Interest:
A company enters this stage following initial events. For example, viewing your documentation, README, or site (pixel activity only - a download would trigger the investigation stage).
- Investigation:
Enough activity has occurred for us to suspect the user/organization is actively investigating your project. This stage includes the occurrence of multiple events such as at least one package download with multiple docs views or at least two weeks of consecutive pixel view activity, and the company has been active in the last 30 days.
- Experimentation:
Sufficient activity has occurred for us to suspect the company is actively using your OSS for one or more production systems. Events such as multiple downloads and page views will have occurred over 30 days or a single download and multiple page views over 60 days, and the company has had activity in the last 90 days.
- Ongoing Usage:
Companies in this stage may be ready to become paying customers and should be moved into your sales/marketing pipeline where available. For non-commercial open-source projects, companies in this stage may be good sponsorship targets or valuable advocates in the community. These companies will have event activity over the course of the past 90 days, such as continued downloads or views.
- Inactive:
Companies may move into an inactive stage when activity drops off and does not resume over 60 or more days. If activity resumes, the company will return to the last active stage.
You can learn more about Scarf OQL Point System or Funnel Stages.
Step 3: Identify your OQLs
In the Scarf App, click Tools to open the dropdown, then click Company Insights.
Learn more about the Company Insights page:
Step 4: Sort Companies with our Recommended Sort
This sort option lets you view the companies most worthy of your attention first.
The Recommended Sort reorders the list of companies in the activity table in descending order, first by their point value, then by number of events, and finally by most recent to oldest action.
Step 5: Investigate each OQL’s journey and utilize the data
We can drill down further from here if we want to. Click any company name to view their journey in greater detail. We suggest you start with the companies that appear first in the Recommended Sort.
The company’s current funnel stage will be displayed in the top left, next to STATUS. Hover over the graphical calendar in the Company Journey to see details of the views and downloads that occurred over time. Below the graphical calendar are aggregated views of the total activity within each stage, including the current stage.
Utilize the data to track trends in usage over time to indicate your ideal customer profile, highlight opportunities and risks, such as early indicators of potential churn, or documentation that needs more frequent updating.
Using the OQL methodology can be a game-changer for both open-source projects and businesses. It helps you get a full picture of user engagement, needs, and behaviors, paving the way for growth, community involvement, and even sales opportunities.