# How I Grew My Open Source SaaS to $17K/month Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPM4ImzcIFc Recap page: https://rapidrecap.app/video/RPM4ImzcIFc Generated: 2026-01-28T18:35:53.86+00:00 --- ## Quick Overview Nevo successfully grew his open-source social media scheduling tool, Postiz, to $17,000 MRR by focusing heavily on open-source marketing, which provided massive developer awareness, built brand credibility, and generated high-quality feedback, contrasting with the typical failure of self-hosted SaaS products that lack strong distribution. **Key Points:** - Postiz achieved $17,000 MRR, growing from zero to $32,000 ARR (self-hosted) in two years using open-source marketing. - The open-source strategy provided developer awareness through building brand, word-of-mouth, UGC content, blog posts/SEO, and higher credibility. - Nevo's Open Source Playbook consists of 5 steps: Prepare (GitHub landing page, choose license, create issues, open Discord, create docs), Launch (Hacker News, Reddit, Dev.to, Medium, Lemmy), and then focusing on growth and B2B sales. - The tech stack for Postiz costs approximately $250/month for paid services (Railway, Vercel, Semrush, Ahrefs, Resend, Short.io, Plausible, Midjourney, Webflow), with GitHub, Sentry, and Outrank being free for open source. - A key piece of advice is to "Show, Don't Sell," meaning to be humble and let the product speak for itself, rather than aggressively marketing it, especially on platforms like Reddit. - Nevo emphasizes that open source acts as a powerful distribution channel, driving traffic from platforms like Hacker News and Reddit, which is superior to relying solely on traditional B2C or B2B marketing. ![Screenshot at 00:03: The video opens with a slide displaying the core concept: "Your agentic social media scheduling tool," highlighting the product Postiz and its $17,000 MRR achievement.](https://ss.rapidrecap.app/screens/RPM4ImzcIFc/00-00-03.jpg) **Context:** This video features an interview between Pat Walls of Starter Story and Nevo David, the creator of Postiz, an open-source social media scheduling tool. Nevo details his journey of building Postiz, which currently generates $17,000 in monthly recurring revenue (MRR), largely attributing this success to his specific, multi-channel open-source marketing strategy, which he outlines in his '2026 Open Source Opportunity' playbook. ## Detailed Analysis Nevo David shares his blueprint for growing an open-source SaaS product, Postiz, from zero to $17,000 MRR, emphasizing that the primary value of open source is distribution, not just code quality. He outlines a five-step 'Open Source Playbook.' Step 1, Preparation, involves creating a polished GitHub landing page, selecting an appropriate open-source license (like MIT or AGPLv3), creating introductory issues for developers, setting up a Discord server for community, and writing thorough help documentation. Step 2, Launch, focuses on simultaneously posting on key developer and community platforms like Hacker News, Reddit (specifically self-hosted subreddits like r/selfhosted), Dev.to, Medium, and Lemmy. Step 3 (Hacker News) and Step 4 (Reddit) are critical for initial traffic spikes. Nevo advises packaging articles well for these platforms. Step 5 involves driving traffic from other sources like Twitter and YouTube. He notes that open source builds brand awareness, word-of-mouth, UGC content, and credibility, offering massive benefits that self-hosted B2C SaaS often lacks. The tech stack supporting Postiz costs around $250/month for paid services (Railway for hosting, Vercel for Next.js, Semrush/Ahrefs for SEO, etc.), but many essential tools like GitHub for code/issues and Sentry for monitoring are used for free via open-source tiers. Nevo's ultimate advice is to 'Show, Don't Sell' and to focus heavily on distribution, as that is where the biggest money is made in the modern software landscape. ### Open Source Success Metrics - $17,000 MRR achieved in two years - Developer awareness drives growth - Open source acts as distribution, not just code access ### Nevo's Open Source Playbook - Preparation - Create GitHub landing page - Choose a license (MIT, AGPLv3, etc.) - Create issues for devs - Open Discord - Create help docs ### Nevo's Open Source Playbook - Launch - Post simultaneously on Hacker News, Reddit (r/selfhosted, r/webdev, r/programming, r/LocalLLaMA, r/AI_Agents, r/LangChain), Dev.to, Medium, and Lemmy ### Tech Stack Costs - Total monthly cost for paid services is ~$250 (Railway $150, Vercel $20, Semrush $120, Ahrefs $20, Resend $99, Short.io $99, Plausible $39, Image Generation $200, Video Conversion $600, Outrank $99, Cursor $20, WebSlow $10, Beehiiv $169, AScod.io Free) - GitHub, Sentry, and GitHub Code Editor are free for open source. ### Key Advice - 'Show, Don't Sell' - Don't reinvent the wheel for B2C/B2B marketing - Focus on distribution to gain traction quickly ![Screenshot at 00:03: The video opens with a slide displaying the core concept: "Your agentic social media scheduling tool," highlighting the product Postiz and its $17,000 MRR achievement.](https://ss.rapidrecap.app/screens/RPM4ImzcIFc/00-00-03.jpg) ![Screenshot at 00:37: A slide outlines the three main parts of Nevo's Open Source Launch Playbook: The No. 1 open source secret, the open source launch playbook, and building open source in 2026.](https://ss.rapidrecap.app/screens/RPM4ImzcIFc/00-00-37.jpg) ![Screenshot at 01:16: A slide detailing 'The Playbook: Communities' from Starter Story, highlighting insights from Pat Walls and featuring success stories like $4M/year and $14K/month.](https://ss.rapidrecap.app/screens/RPM4ImzcIFc/00-01-16.jpg) ![Screenshot at 03:01: The billing overview dashboard shows Postiz's revenue metrics, including $17,008.52 in MRR.](https://ss.rapidrecap.app/screens/RPM4ImzcIFc/00-03-01.jpg) ![Screenshot at 11:20: A slide detailing the preparation phase of the open source playbook, showing steps like creating a GitHub landing page, choosing a license, creating issues, opening Discord, and creating help docs.](https://ss.rapidrecap.app/screens/RPM4ImzcIFc/00-11-20.jpg)