Andrey Sitnik, Evil Martians
I am working at
20 Years in Open Source
since 2004
Sharing Real Experience
Nano ID
Browserslist
PostCSS
Autoprefixer
130 M
180 M
300 M
75 M
Downloads per month
Chapter 1
Why should you create open source project?
“You must have OS to find a job”
HR
“Success Formula”
Idea
GitHub
Popularity
Success
South Park, Go Fund Yourself episode
Open Source dream is a lie
Popular project ≠ many followers
Better ways to be popular
Articles
Talks
GitHub project ≠ good resume
1 month of work → few stars
vs
2 weeks → commit to Babel
Better ways to be popular
Create app
Fix docs in popular projects
Use beta version → fix bugs
App from slides.com/keziyahlewis/deck
The best reason: change the world
My reason for Autoprefixer:
kill Compass
My reason for PostCSS:
CSS tools diversity
Stylelint
cssnano
RTLCSS
My reason for Size Limit:
reduce JS lib size
Chapter 2
Success formula
False formula
Good idea → Popular project
False
My open source projects
Nano ID
Browserslist
PostCSS
Autoprefixer
The real list of my projects
52 non-popular
and only 4 popular
The real success formula
Project popularity =
Your popularity
Promotion
Benefits for users
Luck
+
+
+
Idea is not important
Idea
Project popularity =
Your popularity
Promotion
Benefits for users
Luck
+
+
+
Useless projects can’t be promoted
Project popularity =
Your popularity
Promotion
Benefits for users
Luck
+
+
+
Chapter 3
Base axioms
Axiom 1: Success formula
Project popularity =
Your popularity
Promotion
Benefits for users
Luck
+
+
+
How we think people choose tools
Rational choice across all options
False
Rational choice across all options
How we think people choose tools
Axiom 2: How people choose tools
Irrational choice across popular options
How we think people read docs
How we think people read
False
Axiom 3: How people read docs
Chapter 4
Preparations
Success formula has Popularity
on both sides
Project popularity =
Your popularity
Promotion
Benefits for users
Luck
+
+
+
My mistake: only announce in Russian
My mistake: nobody to mention
Advice 1: Create English account
Success formula is based on luck
Project popularity =
Your popularity
Promotion
Benefits for users
Luck
+
+
+
Advice 2: Be ready to try many times
Project popularity =
Your popularity
Promotion
Benefits for users
No Luck
+
+
+
Project popularity =
Your popularity
Promotion
Benefits for users
No Luck
+
+
+
Project popularity =
Your popularity
Promotion
Benefits for users
No Luck
+
+
+
Project popularity =
Your popularity
Promotion
Benefits for users
No Luck
+
+
+
Project popularity =
Your popularity
Promotion
Benefits for users
No Luck
+
+
+
Project popularity =
Your popularity
Promotion
Benefits for users
Luck
+
+
+
Chapter 5
README.md
README.md is your main entry point
How people read docs
What users need?
Project popularity =
Your popularity
Promotion
Benefits for users
Luck
+
+
+
Advice 3: Start from the reason
to read docs
First block of PostCSS
PostCSS is a tool for transforming styles with JS plugins.
These plugins can lint your CSS, support variables and mixins, transpile future CSS syntax, inline images, and more.
PostCSS is used by industry leaders including Wikipedia, Twitter, Alibaba, and JetBrains. The Autoprefixer PostCSS plugin is one of the most popular CSS processors.
Clear description
How it could be useful
Why it is important
It’s OK to spend a week
on the first block
First block of Autoprefixer
PostCSS plugin to parse CSS and add vendor prefixes to CSS rules using values from Can I Use.
It is recommended by Google and used in Twitter and Alibaba.
Clear description
Why it is important
First block of Nano ID
A tiny, secure, URL-friendly, unique string ID generator for JS.
- Small. 116 bytes (minified and brotlied). No dependencies.
- Safe. It uses cryptographically strong random APIs and tests distribution of symbols.
- Fast. It’s 16% faster than UUID.
- Compact. It uses a larger alphabet than UUID (A-Za-z0-9_-).
Clear description
Difference from analogs
What should be in first block
- Clear description
- How the product is useful for users
- The difference from other products
Bad example of first sentence
Svelte is cybernetically enhanced web apps
Svelte is JS framework with unique compiler
which generate smaller JS files
Not clear
How to make good description
You in the bar with friends.
”So, I created …”
And then cut it 2-4 times
What do you think people read
What people actually read
Progressive JPEG
Advice 4: illustration or code example
Advice 5: More lists and bold
Important parts are highlighted
Advice 6: Use real proofs
Size Limit to prove “small”
Benchmarks to prove “fast”
Code example to prove “good API”
Advice 7: Step-by-step starting guide
Your users
Be very specific
Help with choice
Sections for specific use cases
Test your guide on new project
npm init
…
everything works
Chapter 6
Slow growing
Wrong way to promote the project
Post 1 tweet
Got 4 retweets
Grow by small iterations
Each iteration contains
- Action (feature, tweet, article, etc)
- Feedback
- Fixing the project according to feedback
Next iteration is a little bigger
- Bigger action
- More feedback
- More things to fix
1st step: explain the idea to friends
And find the way to describe the project
2nd step: convince colleagues to try
Fix issues, DX,
and install docs
3rd step: social networks
And find the best way to describe projects
And tweet again each big feature
Good tweet
Code example or screenshot
Project description
New feature which was added
4th step: reddit and hacker news
And fix compatibility issues
5th step: write English article
dev.to
smashingmagazine.com
css-tricks.com
6th step: send PRs
Use success in next iterations
Don’t stop making iterations
Don’t spam: be regular
every 2 weeks or every month
Why do you need multiple posts?
Why do you need many iterations?
Feedback will help to fix it
How people choose
Irrational choice across popular options
How long will they support the project?
How many resources are behind the project?
Regular posts answer
to these questions
Irrational choice across popular options
How long will they support the project?
How many resources are behind the project?
Chapter 7
Working with community
You did everything right
Explain benefits in docs
Good step-by-step intructions
Regular posts, articles, talks
And got issues from users
The circle of guilt
Many issues without answer
Blaming yourself for being bad maintaner
Depression and lack of productivity
Even more issues without answer
You don’t need to write code
15 min in the morning
to answer new issues
It’s OK to ask people to wait
Just 1 response could make an ally
Avoid this issues in future
Add warning
Stopped issues about using PostCSS for Sass sources
Add note to docs
Ask issue authors to change docs
How to deal with negative feedback?
There is no ideal answer
Start asking questions
Sometimes, people just need to talk
They can become your fan
after a talk
Competitor means freedom
Chapter 8
Resume
Success formula
Project popularity =
Your popularity
Promotion
Benefits for users
Luck
+
+
+
How people choose
Irrational choice across popular options
How people read
README.md is critical
- Clear description
- How the product is useful for users
- The difference from other products
- Easy step-by-step instruction
Regular posts, articles, talks
Thanks
How to Make Popular Open Source Project
By Andrey Sitnik
