Three weeks of launching an open-source product: 27 stars, 270 sessions, 0 comments

Description and use

Three weeks after launching Deckgauge, the project gained 27 GitHub stars, 183 site users, and 0 paying customers. The biggest traffic boost came from an unpaid YouTube demo.

Problem

Launching an open‑source product with measurable impact while managing limited marketing resources.

Outcome

Deckgauge achieved modest growth: 27 GitHub stars, 183 site users, and no paying customers after three weeks, with the largest traffic boost from an unpaid YouTube demo.

Workflow

• 1. Developed Deckgauge and hosted it publicly.
• 2. Launched on Product Hunt, a Reddit megathread, dev.to, listing sites, and a YouTube channel.
• 3. Spent $54 on advertising.
• 4. Monitored GitHub stars, site traffic, article views, and comments.
• 5. Analyzed traffic sources, noting a YouTube demo doubled direct traffic.
• 6. Reflected on lessons learned and future actions.

Evidence

GitHub: 27 stars, 3 forks (it was 1 star before launch)

Source

Site traffic: 183 users in September. August gave us 61.

Source

The single best source wasn't a submission form. It was a YouTuber with 55,000 subscribers demoing the board on screen for 38 seconds — The Next New Thing, who found the repo, argued with me about whether it should exist, then demoed it anyway.

Source

Every directory and submission channel we paid or applied for produced less than that one unpaid segment.

Source