Franchising is a powerful growth strategy that has been proven to be one of the most efficient ways for a brand to attain global coverage. Would it be possible to use franchising to help Drupal spread more efficiently? Could we make it easier for consultants to start a specialized Drupal business around a certain distribution? Could freelancers co-create a business plan that uses Drupal to address new market niches that require localized support?
In the last few years I've initiated 3 Drupal CXO-days events: a free event where Drupal business leaders come together to share knowledge with their peers. Drupal CXO Brussels, Drupal Process meet up in Amsterdam, Drupal product meet up in Rome. At these events some of the key business people in our community shared a lot of information about their business models. What would need to happen to take that to the next level and start one or several co-created open source franchises in the Drupal community?
I've been exploring this concept at my blog http://kvantomme.be/co-creating-open-source-franchise