I run a relatively popular open source project. I think that there are some strange forces in the tech industry which make it nearly impossible to get big companies to use your project.
Maybe it's not right but I really feel like not being based in Silicon Valley has something to do with it... Related to branding, social networks, bloggers. Outside of SV, it's very tough.
Only small startups were using my project initially; literally hundreds or maybe even thousands of small startups but not one large corporation (that I knew about).
It's been 4 years though and the good thing is that now several of the startups that were using my project got really big and are growing fast. Still no big corporations but it doesn't matter anymore. Me and one other contributor are now able to make money offering consulting to those startups which grew. Also we have a sponsorship deal now.
Maybe it's not right but I really feel like not being based in Silicon Valley has something to do with it... Related to branding, social networks, bloggers. Outside of SV, it's very tough.
Only small startups were using my project initially; literally hundreds or maybe even thousands of small startups but not one large corporation (that I knew about).
It's been 4 years though and the good thing is that now several of the startups that were using my project got really big and are growing fast. Still no big corporations but it doesn't matter anymore. Me and one other contributor are now able to make money offering consulting to those startups which grew. Also we have a sponsorship deal now.