GitHub stars won't pay your rent
summary
Builds Sizzy from a quick Chrome extension into a paid Electron browser, using Electron + Next.js + MobX, open-sources it and gets 5,000 GitHub stars but earns $92 in two years as a free project. Repackages as a paid app at $5/month, sells globally, then faces blocked IP from refreshing the payments dashboard, relentless customer support, hiring headaches, frequent discount requests, marketing skepticism and burnout that make revenue imperfect compensation for the workload.
AI-written summary · about
chapters (7)
- 0:00Introduction and speaker background
- 3:38Building for personal problems
- 10:54Open source monetization reality
- 18:31Launching a paid product
- 19:13Why startups fail emotionally
- 26:55The myth of being your own boss
- 31:07Final thoughts and Q&A
related talks
34mGithub stars won't pay your rent - KITZE
05mClosing Remarks
29mHow I made a $1M on the App Store before I knew how to use GitHub
28mMaking Open Source Profitable
31mOpen Source: Charity or Business?
20mNow What? Monetizing your React skills
26mProductive Unemployment
23mThe $10,000 Horror I Don’t Regret