Name: 我們是如何創建它的：價值 90 萬美元的開源 SaaS (How We Built It: $900K Open Source SaaS)
Uploaded: 2025-08-27T20:56:27.000Z
Duration: 14 min 37 s

我是朱莉，Papermark 的聯合創始人。

過去簡單式

This husband and wife duo built a near million dollar business thanks to this open source SaaS.

這對夫妻憑藉這一開源 SaaS 建立了近百萬美元的業務。

Yeah, I think off the bat, being open source was the right bet for us.

是的，我認為開源對我們來說是正確的選擇。

In just a year and a half, they took a weekend open source project to $75,000 MRR.

在短短一年半的時間裡，他們將一個週末開源項目的 MRR 提高到了 7.5 萬美元。

So I asked both of them to come onto the channel and break all of it down.

於是，我請他們兩位來到頻道，把所有事情都說清楚。

In this video, you'll learn why open source is actually a really genius business model, how there are loads of big companies just waiting to be open sourced, and how to grow in open source if you're just starting out today.

在本視頻中，您將瞭解到為什麼開源實際上是一種非常天才的商業模式，如何有大量的大公司正等待著開源，以及如果您今天剛剛開始創業，如何在開源領域發展壯大。

I'm Pat Walls, and this is Starter Story.

我是帕特-沃爾斯，這裡是《起動故事》。

Tell me about who you are, what you built, and what's your story?

告訴我你是誰，你建造了什麼，你有什麼故事？

Hey, Pat, I'm Marc, co-founder of Papermark.

嘿，帕特，我是馬克，Papermark 的聯合創始人。

It's the open source successor to DocSend for sharing documents and data rooms securely.

它是 DocSend 的開源繼承者，用於安全共享文檔和數據室。

Papermark started as an open source project on the side without the idea to actually go commercial.

Papermark 最初只是一個開源項目，並沒有商業化的想法。

And we are close to reach our first million MRR.

In 1.5 years, you guys basically built a million dollar business.

在 1.5 年的時間裡，你們基本上建立了一個價值百萬美元的企業。

Let's go back to how you guys found the idea for this.

讓我們回到你們是如何找到這個創意的。

您是如何想到創辦 Papermark 的？

I pushed out a tweet and I basically said, like, I'm going to build an open source alternative to DocSend.

我發了一條推文，基本上就是說，我要建立一個 DocSend 的開源替代方案。

Within a couple of hours, it got like 40,000 views.

幾個小時內，瀏覽量就達到了 4 萬次。

Lots of people mentioned that they would love to see this as an open source project.

很多人都提到，他們希望將其作為一個開源項目。

So over the weekend, I actually built it, at least their first MVP, the first version that was usable, and pushed out on Monday the launch tweet.

是以，在週末，我實際上構建了它，至少是他們的第一個 MVP，第一個可用的版本，並在週一推送了發佈推文。

And then soon after, the first customers came and were asking, like, can we give you money to buy the service?

不久之後，第一批客戶來了，他們問，我們能給你們錢購買服務嗎？

The amount of founders that I talked to that have built a business based off a single tweet is actually way higher than you'd think.

與我交談過的創始人中，僅憑一條推文就建立起企業的人其實比你想象的要多得多。

I just want to understand a little bit more about what Papermark is and what it does for our audience who may not totally be in this space.

我只是想更多地瞭解一下 Papermark 是什麼，以及它能為我們的閱聽人做些什麼，因為他們可能並不完全瞭解這個領域。

Can you briefly explain what Papermark actually does?

您能簡要解釋一下 Papermark 的實際作用嗎？

So essentially, the Papermark is a document analytics and sharing platform.

是以，從本質上講，Papermark 是一個文檔分析和共享平臺。

So you kind of turn your document into the link, which you later can share, protect with the password, with the watermark, and then get the whole analytics.

這樣，你就把文檔變成了鏈接，之後你就可以分享它，用密碼和水印保護它，然後獲得整個分析結果。

So they can see exactly, OK, someone was on my document for five minutes on this slide, one minute here.

這樣，他們就能清楚地看到：好的，有人在我的文檔中的這張幻燈片上停留了 5 分鐘，在這裡停留了 1 分鐘。

And the Papermark is essentially alternative to the DocSend.

而 Papermark 基本上是 DocSend 的替代品。

And other data room providers, which exist already for 10 years or more, but they like don't innovate anymore.

而其他數據室提供商，雖然已經存在了 10 年或更久，但他們好像不再創新了。

They mostly focus on the enterprise customers.

That's why the open source kind of new solution was needed in this market.

這就是為什麼這個市場需要開源的新解決方案。

So the main reason I wanted to bring you guys on the channel is that you built this business on top of open source, which is a super cool model.

所以，我想把你們請到頻道上來的主要原因是，你們在開源的基礎上建立了這個業務，這是一個超酷的模式。

You guys managed to find a way to not only build an open source project, but build a really, really nice business on top of it.

你們不僅設法建立了一個開源項目，還在此基礎上建立了一個非常非常好的業務。

Can you first explain to me just what open source is?

你能先向我解釋一下什麼是開放源代碼嗎？

And then we'll get into the business side of things.

然後，我們將討論業務方面的問題。

So open source, like the name says, the source code that's powering the project is publicly available.

是以，開放源代碼就像它的名字一樣，項目的源代碼是公開的。

So anyone can look at it, anyone can contribute to it.

是以，任何人都可以查看它，任何人都可以為它做出貢獻。

And the cool thing is that the entire history of the project is also publicly available.

最酷的是，整個項目的歷史也是公開的。

It also opens up the project globally to any developer in the open source ecosystem that likes to contribute or that is interested in the project and wants to contribute to it.

它還在全球範圍內向開放源碼生態系統中任何喜歡或對該項目感興趣並希望做出貢獻的開發人員開放該項目。

There are, of course, licenses that have some protective mechanism.

當然，也有一些許可證具有某種保護機制。

And in the end, you have these communities that form around each project and they can be larger or smaller, depending on the popularity of the project or the maintainer as well.

最後，每個項目周圍都會形成一些社區，這些社區有大有小，取決於項目或維護者的受歡迎程度。

A lot of developers these days, they want to show off their work.

現在很多開發人員都想炫耀自己的作品。

Maybe they can't find a job, but they can do open source projects.

也許他們找不到工作，但他們可以做開源項目。

They can contribute to open source in order to advance their own career.

他們可以為開放源代碼做出貢獻，以促進自己的職業發展。

So attracting early users, open source is great because you can just ultimately ship in public.

是以，要吸引早期用戶，開源是個好辦法，因為你最終可以公開發布。

How does this actually work for your business and how do you make money?

這對您的業務有何實際意義，您又是如何賺錢的？

So the business model for PaperMark is basically you can either self-hosted for free or for many of the users that maybe not be tech savvy, that don't want to host it themselves because they don't want to deal with the overhead or the maintenance.

是以，PaperMark 的商業模式基本上是，你可以免費自行託管，也可以為許多可能不懂技術、不想自己託管的用戶提供託管服務，因為他們不想處理開銷或維護問題。

We have a hosted version that we charge for for the open core model.

我們有一個託管版本，針對開放核心模式收費。

Our core software of PaperMark is open source and self-hostable.

我們的核心軟件 PaperMark 是開源的，可自行託管。

And then if you need advanced features, you can acquire a license and still run it on your infrastructure as a self-hosted version, but just with our enterprise license attached to it so that you can enjoy the full suite just as it is on PaperMark.com.

然後，如果您需要高級功能，您可以獲得許可證，並仍然在您的基礎架構上以自託管版本的形式運行，只是附加了我們的企業許可證，這樣您就可以像在 PaperMark.com 上一樣享受全套服務。

Looking back, what are the benefits to building open source that you've realized?

回顧過去，您意識到構建開放源代碼有哪些好處？

Number one, it's highly defensible because you have nothing to hide behind.

第一，這很好辯解，因為你沒有什麼可隱瞞的。

You essentially give away the core product for free.

你基本上是免費贈送核心產品。

There's no need for anyone else to kind of build the same project and charge anything for it, because it's essentially already as low as it can get.

其他任何人都沒有必要建立同樣的項目並收取任何費用，因為這基本上已經是最低的價格了。

Number two, it's very scalable because there's essentially zero barrier to entry.

第二，它的可擴展性很強，因為進入門檻基本上為零。

We have people coming to our project every day, looking at it, either contributing to it, running it for the small teams or then seeing the open source project and converting actually to PaperMark.com because they don't want to deal with the self-hosting of it.

每天都有人來到我們的項目，查看它，或者為它做出貢獻，或者為小型團隊運行它，或者在看到開源項目後轉換到 PaperMark.com，因為他們不想處理自我託管的問題。

They just come to us because we do the best service in hosting the solution.

他們來找我們，是因為我們在託管解決方案方面提供了最好的服務。

Number three, we have that community driven R&D velocity.

第三，我們擁有社區驅動的研發速度。

Incumbents only have like the employees that basically maintain the software.

在職員工只有像基本上維護軟件的員工。

We have the community that basically looking through the projects, monitoring it, seeing where they can contribute new features.

我們的社區基本上都在查看項目、監督項目，看看他們能在哪些方面貢獻新功能。

If they find like issues, they can immediately swoop in and like provide a solution for it.

如果發現類似問題，他們可以立即介入，提供解決方案。

The velocity with the community is just like immense.

And number four, it's very secure and has high trust.

第四，它非常安全，信任度高。

The code can be audited by any third party.

代碼可由任何第三方進行審核。

You're not hiding behind proprietary software that we need to grant access to someone at a bank that is trying to evaluate whether it would be a great fit for the infrastructure.

你不能躲在專有軟件的背後，我們需要允許銀行的某個人訪問這些軟件，以評估它是否非常適合基礎設施。

They have to run through so many checks and they can do that very easily.

他們必須通過許多檢查，而他們可以很容易地做到這一點。

But just by auditing our open source code and seeing that nothing nefarious is going on and everything is extremely secure.

但只要審核一下我們的開放源代碼，就會發現沒有任何不法行為，一切都非常安全。

All right, before we move on with the interview, I do want to talk about one thing.

好吧，在我們繼續採訪之前，我確實想談談一件事。

As a founder, you're likely moving fast towards product market fit, your next funding round or your next big enterprise deal.

作為創始人，你很可能正在快速實現產品的市場適應性、下一輪融資或下一筆大型企業交易。

But with AI accelerating how quickly startups are building and shipping, security expectations are higher earlier than ever.

但是，隨著人工智能加快了初創企業的構建和交付速度，人們對安全的期望也比以往任何時候都要高。

Getting security and compliance for your business right can unlock growth, but it can also stall it if you wait too long.

正確處理企業的安全性和合規性問題可以促進企業發展，但如果等待時間過長，也會阻礙企業發展。

With deep integrations and automated workflows built for fast moving teams, Vanta gets you audit ready fast.

Vanta 為快速移動的團隊提供深度集成和自動化工作流，讓您快速做好審計準備。

And it keeps you secure with continuous monitoring as your models, infrastructure and customers evolve.

隨著模型、基礎設施和客戶的不斷髮展，它還能通過持續監控確保您的安全。

Fast growing startups like LangChain, Rider and Cursor trusted Vanta to build a scalable foundation from the start.

LangChain、Rider 和 Cursor 等快速成長的初創企業信任 Vanta，從一開始就建立了可擴展的基礎。

Go to vanta.com slash starter story to get $1,000 off Vanta and join over 12,000 ambitious companies already scaling with the platform.

訪問 vanta.com slash starter story，即可獲得 1,000 美元的 Vanta 折扣，並加入 12,000 多家雄心勃勃的公司的行列，這些公司已在利用該平臺擴大規模。

That's vanta.com slash starter story for $1,000 off.

這是 vanta.com 的斜槓入門故事，可優惠 1,000 美元。

I'll put a link in the top of the description for you to check it out.

我會在說明的頂部放一個鏈接，供你查看。

Thank you Vanta for sponsoring the channel.

I love the platform that you're building.