How I Built It: $17K/Month Open Source SaaS — Starter Story

Nevo
- Built Postiz, an open-source social media scheduling SaaS.
- Grew the app to about $17,000 per month through open-source distribution.
- Got over 25,000 GitHub stars and millions of downloads through open-source communities.
- Uses open source as a differentiation strategy in a crowded software market.
Postiz
- Lets users schedule and publish social media posts across many platforms.
- Supports 25 social media channels, more than Nevo says other platforms support.
- Lets users customize content for each platform, schedule posts on a calendar, and use AI tools for images, video, and text.
- Includes a public API that developers use to automate social media posting through workflows or direct integrations.
Open Source Advantages
- Gives developers a free way to test and self-host the product without increasing Nevo’s usage costs.
- Builds brand through developer word of mouth, user-generated content, blog posts, reviews, and directory listings.
- Creates credibility because visitors can see recent GitHub activity, commits, and contributions.
- Generates feedback, bug reports, feature ideas, pull requests, forks, and community advocacy.
- Opens enterprise self-hosting and support opportunities where companies cannot put data into a hosted tool.
- Makes copying less threatening because copycats lack the original brand and often abandon their clones.
Open Source Launch Preparation
- Treat the GitHub repository like the main landing page.
- Explain clearly what the project does and, when relevant, position it as an open-source alternative to an existing product.
- Choose a license such as MIT, Apache 2, or AGPL3.
- Create GitHub issues so contributors can easily pick up work.
- Open a Discord server for fast developer communication.
- Write strong developer docs and provide Docker deployment to reduce setup friction.
Open Source Distribution Playbook
- Aim to reach GitHub trending by sending as much traffic as possible to the repository in a short window.
- Prepare Hacker News and Reddit accounts before launch so posts are less likely to be filtered.
- Publish launch or build articles on Dev.to, Medium, and Hackernoon.
- Use strong titles and cover images because Google Discover can drive major traffic to those articles.
- Submit a Show HN post on Hacker News and link directly to the GitHub repository.
- Post on /r/selfhosted, where open-source self-promotion is more accepted.
- Repost major new versions with feature updates and a humble build-in-public tone.
- Share the launch on X, LinkedIn, newsletters, and any owned channels during the same week.
Tech Stack And Tools
- Uses Railway for the backend and marketing website.
- Uses Vercel only for the Next.js application, not for API hosting.
- Uses Semrush, Ahrefs dashboard, Resend, Cloudflare R2, Dub.co, Plausible, OpenAI, Fal.ai, Transloadit, Outrank, Cursor, WebStorm, Beehiiv, Discord, Sentry, and GitHub Actions.
- Pays about $600 for video conversion because posts need to match each platform’s requirements.
- Keeps margins around 80%.
Lessons And Advice
- Learn the basics of marketing, offers, and lead generation before building, while avoiding analysis paralysis.
- Spend about half the time learning and half the time creating.
- Use open source to build brand and distribution when code itself is easier for competitors to recreate.

Summary