peat dot org

I’ve been talking with a bunch of people about releasing the next version of UpSale as an open source project, and I want your opinion on the matter.

We’ve managed to find a niche that doesn’t seem well served by existing open source projects — light weight ERP tools for small businesses that make and sell their own products. Our customers deal with the same sorts of supply chain, manufacturing, marketing, sales, and customer relationship issues that big companies face, but on a different scale, with different priorities, and restricted financial and technical capabilities.

I have a burning desire to see small upstarts upset the status quo, especially when it comes to local businesses with an eye for sustainable products. Stepping up and embracing open source makes a lot of sense for how we run our business, how we want to serve our customers, and empowers independent developers and the small business community as a whole.

All that said, there’s a lot that goes into sponsoring and building a successful open source project, and we don’t want to jump in unprepared. I’m poking my friends and colleagues to see what sorts of things make open source projects attractive and successful, and I’d love to hear from the folks who read my blog as well.

Your thoughts?

Here’s a fun story about Queen Bee Creations.

They’re a hot company here in Portland that makes tres cool bags (amongst other things), and they’re growing like crazy.  They desperately needed a new website to support their burgeoning business, and no off-the-shelf e-commerce system could do the job right.  Besides requiring 100% creative control over the presentation of their site, they needed a system for managing retail and wholesale customers, tools to match their manufacturing and fulfillment processes, and a platform that would scale with their business through the holiday season and beyond.

That was eight weeks ago, and today they’re open for business.  We couldn’t have done it without a great client, or the kick ass design team at Fresh Fruit.

And we definitely couldn’t have done it without UpSale, the e-commerce platform we built specifically for growing retailers who need sophisticated tools and a high degree of customization.  We’re excited by how quickly it let us build the Queen Bee site, and with two more sites coming down the pipeline, it’s turning out to be everything we hoped it would.

Anyhow.  Enough self promotion.  Queen Bee Creations has gorgeous products and is run by fantastic people, and I’m thrilled we were able to work with them on this project.

Cheers!