[midPoint] Blog: Early Years of Evolveum

Fri Aug 6 09:35:09 CEST 2021

Dear midPoint community,

Back in early 2010s we had a product, we had a brand new company and we 
were dressed for success. Yet, the success was not exactly waiting for 
us in the early years. We are quite successful now, but it was harder 
and it took longer than we have originally anticipated.

A decade ago, in 2011 we established Evolveum 
<https://evolveum.com/establishing-evolveum/>. Evolveum has been running 
midPoint <https://evolveum.com/ten-years-of-midpoint/>, an open source 
identity management project. In theory, we should have enjoyed ideal 
conditions to start up a business in early 2010s. The economy was 
recovering from 2008 crisis, investors were looking for opportunities, 
open source was winning over the world. Yet, originating in Eastern 
Europe with almost no capital, the journey was not exactly easy for us.

We were on a very tight budget since the beginning, using our personal 
savings to start up the development. We were aware that the money would 
run out very quickly, therefore we wanted to secure some income. Of 
course, we tried to get income from midPoint. In 2012, roughly a year 
after the project started, midPoint was ready for some deployments. 
However, it was not easy to win customers with new product, without any 
references, especially when that product was supposed to be “free”.

Engineers in our team were deploying IDM systems since early 2000s, 
mostly dealing with Sun IDM deployments. In 2010s, Sun IDM was 
effectively dead. Obviously, we have tried to migrate our Sun IDM 
customers from the past to midPoint. The customers liked the general 
idea, the technology was there, yet the business did not happen. The 
customers around us, the customers that we knew, customers that trusted 
us, they were reluctant to pay for midPoint. In fact, in 2012, our 
income from midPoint was pretty much zero.

We did not have income, but there were costs. If there was any chance 
for success, we needed full-time developers working on midPoint. We had 
to get the money from any available sources. We got any paid work that 
we could get. We were deploying competing commercial IDM solutions. It 
was painful from both the technology and business point of view, but we 
had to pay the bills. We were delivering basic Linux trainings. We were 
consulting. We were leasing engineers and developers to other projects. 
We were often earning money during the day, working on midPoint in the 
evening.

We had no money to spare, yet we have to run a company. That led to some 
“innovative” solutions. A friend was decommissioning a data center, 
having a dozen of old machines that would probably end up as electronic 
waste. We re-used the components, improvising a testing environment. The 
machines burned electricity like crazy and they required some 
baby-sitting. Yet, it worked, and it was still cheaper than the 
alternatives.

https://evolveum.com/wp-content/uploads/2012-machines-1.jpg 
<https://evolveum.com/wp-content/uploads/2012-machines-1.jpg>

https://evolveum.com/wp-content/uploads/2012-machines-2.jpg 
<https://evolveum.com/wp-content/uploads/2012-machines-2.jpg>

Then there was a question of “corporate identity”. We had our first 
website <https://evolveum.com/preparing-evolveums-look/> running. It was 
a disaster, but it had to do for the time being. We needed business 
cards. We could get the usual business cards printed, and it would not 
even be that expensive. Yet, it would be entirely boring. We had to make 
an impression, but had no money to pay a professional designer. 
Therefore, as usual, we were improvising. Maintaining that “proper 20th 
century engineering” theme, we tried to print the business cards on 
tracing paper. It worked. Kind of.

https://evolveum.com/wp-content/uploads/2011-business-card.jpg 
<https://evolveum.com/wp-content/uploads/2011-business-card.jpg>

The cards certainly made an impression, even though it was not always 
the kind of impression that we wanted. Despite that, we had been using 
this type of business cards for many years. As for our website, it 
eventually got redesigned too.

https://evolveum.com/wp-content/uploads/web-2014.png 
<https://evolveum.com/wp-content/uploads/web-2014.png>

In 2013-2014 we were supposed to reach a break-even point, according to 
our original business plan 
<https://evolveum.com/establishing-evolveum/>. Yet, the reality was 
slightly different. We were pretty much broke. But miracles do happen. 
Our persistence has finally paid off in 2014. We were cooperating with 
partners. The technology has matured and midPoint was ready for serious 
deployments. The first serious customers came, for which I will be 
forever grateful. The income from midPoint deployment projects and 
subscriptions grew as well. Even business analysts finally noticed that 
we exist. Our business was slowly growing. We finally got to the 
break-even point around 2015-2016. Well, better late than never, as they 
say. Quite ironically, nearby customers that we hoped to win in early 
years were among the last to convert to midPoint. So much for business 
plans and sales forecasts.

https://evolveum.com/wp-content/uploads/2014-munich.jpg 
<https://evolveum.com/wp-content/uploads/2014-munich.jpg>

In later years, the finances have stabilized and the business grew. The 
company grew as well, which brought organizational challenges that we 
were not entirely prepared for. Yet, we were no longer an unstable 
start-up. We got the technology, partner network, customers, steady 
income … all the basic structure of a business. Now, we are certainly 
going to face new challenges in the future. However, now we are firmly 
established in business. One decade is behind us, more decades are ahead.

(Reposted from Evolveum blog 
<https://evolveum.com/early-years-of-evolveum/>)

-- 
Radovan Semancik
Software Architect
evolveum.com

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