档案库 · 开发与企业工具 · 财务决策 · 2007–2010
GitHub 赌开发者愿为私有仓库付费——自举创业，2010 年实现盈利
周末项目变身生意：免费公开托管，收费私有仓库——到 2010 年 8 月，拥有数十万用户，无外部融资。
GitHub
做的是什么生意
GitHub is web-based source code hosting for git and Subversion — 'Wikipedia for programmers' — where public repositories are free, private ones are paid, alongside git training and open-source sponsorship.
启动资金：A domain, a cheap Slicehost server, some stock art, and a few hundred dollars for the legal entity; the founders supported themselves with consulting and full-time jobs while the business ramped.
起因
At a sports bar after a local programming meetup in late 2007, Tom Preston-Werner pitched Chris Wanstrath his idea for a git hosting site — 'a git hub.' They met on Saturdays to build it, and once the basics were in place they used GitHub daily at Chris's day job, a startup he had cofounded with PJ Hyett, which showed them what was missing. Tom had learned at Gravatar that giving away a resource-intensive service was a losing proposition, so from the start they knew hosting costs had to be recovered.
经过
The free public beta immediately took off, and soon people were emailing to ask how they could pay for private repositories. PJ Hyett became a cofounder, the three stopped working on their startup, and they launched officially on April 10, 2008 with unlimited free public repositories and paid private ones. They started with a domain, a cheap Slicehost slice and stock art, plus a few hundred dollars for the legal entity; Chris and PJ consulted and Tom worked full time, and they scaled their own paychecks month by month only when revenue goals were hit. Tom Preston-Werner turned down a Microsoft offer — salary plus $300,000 over three years after Powerset's acquisition — to go full time. An early partnership traded free Engine Yard hosting for publicity, and the business grew without any outside funding.
结果
By August 2010 GitHub was profitable and still had taken no venture capital. The Q&A reported hundreds of thousands of users, tens of thousands of paying customers and almost a million repositories, with thousands more added each day — in just over two years since launch — and 37signals ran the profile in a series for companies with $1MM+ in revenues that did not take VC.
背景
GitHub 始于 2007 年底 Tom Preston-Werner 和 Chris Wanstrath 的一个周末项目，他们喜欢 Git，但当时没有合适的方式与他人分享代码。他们每周六开发网站，一旦基础功能可用，他们便开始在 Chris 的日常工作中每天使用它，那是一家他与 PJ Hyett 共同创立的初创公司——一个持续的、真实的测试，看看缺少什么。
向朋友开放的免费公开测试版迅速走红。人们开始将其用于商业代码，很快用户发邮件询问如何付费使用私有仓库。创始人意识到 GitHub 不仅仅是一种收回服务器成本的方式：PJ Hyett 加入成为联合创始人，公司于 2008 年 4 月 10 日正式成立，保持无限公开仓库免费，对私有仓库收费——“向那些要求付费的人收费。”
公司几乎完全自掏腰包融资：一个域名、一台廉价的 Slicehost 切片、现成图片和几百美元的法律实体费用。Chris 和 PJ 做咨询以支付账单，Tom 做全职工作，三人仅当收入目标达成时才逐月提高薪水。Tom Preston-Werner 拒绝了微软的保留 offer（薪水加 30 万美元）而全职投入 GitHub，一项早期合作让 GitHub 获得免费 Engine Yard 托管，以换取宣传。
到 2010 年 8 月，这一赌注得到了回报：GitHub 在没有外部资金的情况下实现盈利，用户达数十万，付费客户数万，仓库近百万，每天新增数千。37signals 在“自举、盈利、自豪”系列中介绍了该公司，创始人认为，尽早发布、倾听客户并忽略传统建议一直是真正的优势。
这件事要成立，得有什么
- 创始人自己就是付费工作环境中的第一批用户，因此产品缺口——没有合适的方式分享 Git 仓库——是第一手的、持续存在的。
- Gravatar 的经历让 Tom Preston-Werner 明白，提供高资源消耗的免费服务是亏本买卖，这从一开始就推动 GitHub 走向收费。
- 客户在定价存在之前就要求付费，因此免费公共和付费私有之间的免费增值划分是需求驱动的，而非发明出来的。
- 将创始人的薪水与月度收入目标挂钩，迫使公司在招聘和支出膨胀之前实现盈利，这正是公司避免风险投资的原因。
可借鉴之处
让免费用户定价：GitHub 保持公共代码免费，仅对私有托管收费，并将薪水与收入挂钩——证明开发者工具可以通过付费意愿实现自举创业。
后续进展
截至 2010-08-03，GitHub 仍为自举且盈利：没有外部资金，用户达数十万，付费客户数万，仓库近百万，每天新增数千个仓库。三位创始人从旧金山一间小办公室运营一家分布式公司，没有经理，37signals 的专题将 GitHub 列入“自举、盈利、自豪”系列，面向收入百万美元以上且未接受风投的公司。本记录涵盖了公司的创立及其自举增长至该时点。
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