The 8-Figure Open Source SaaS Playbook
From The SaaS Podcast - Real Lessons on Growing Profitable SaaS by Omer Khan
April 28, 2026 · 1h 6m · Episode 480
About this episode
Ev Kontsevoy shares how he transformed an open source SaaS side project into an 8-figure ARR business with Teleport.
He built a free tool as a lead magnet. Then customers started calling his cell phone, begging to pay for it. Ev Kontsevoy turned an open source SaaS side project into Teleport, now an 8-figure ARR business with 500+ customers. Founders will hear how a free GitHub project became an open source SaaS business worth eight figures - and why selling to the wrong buyer persona nearly capped growth. Ev reveals how he spotted the signal that his side project was more valuable than his flagship product, why shifting from engineers to VP buyers nearly tripled average deal size, and how open source monetization built trust closed-source competitors could never match. Teleport started as one component of Gravity, which was doing $4M ARR. COVID killed Gravity's pipeline while accelerating Teleport demand. The company now serves 500+ customers in 8-figure ARR, with AI agent identity emerging as a major growth driver. This episode is brought to you by: 🌎 ThreatLocker → Book a demo 🔍 Respona → Get featured in AI answers on ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews 🔑 Key Lessons 🛠️ Your open source SaaS lead magnet might be your real product: Teleport was built as free demand generation for Gravity, but…
People in this episode
Host: Omer Khan
Guest: Ev Kontsevoy
Topics covered
- open source SaaS
- business growth
- customer acquisition
- product-market fit
- lead generation
Keywords
- open source
- SaaS
- lead magnet
- customer persona
- business growth
- AI
- monetization
Sponsors
ThreatLocker, Respona
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Teleport, Gravity
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