Community Building

Summary

Sponsorship-based revenue requires community, and community requires 6-12 months of visible, consistent building before it converts to money. The funnel is linear: awareness, usage, trust, gratitude, sponsorship. Open source sponsorship conversion rates run 0.1-0.5% of users — substantially below SaaS (1-3%). At 5,000-20,000 year-1 installs, that implies 5-100 sponsors, not hundreds.

The reference data points are Sindre Sorhus and Caleb Porzio, both at $100K+/yrinsponsorship.Bothsharethesametrait:peopleknowwhotheyare.Peoplesponsorpeople,notcompanynames.ThepracticalimplicationisthatMikeandBrandonneedpublicfacesontheproject,not"AllySoftLLC"branding.The21st.devproofpointsetsaceilingforMCP-specifictools:adeveloperMCPserverhit$10K MRR in 6 weeks with zero marketing, driven entirely by registry placement and organic word-of-mouth.

The launch plan is front-loaded into Week 1 (README, Show HN, Product Hunt, DevHunt, Reddit) to generate the initial install base, then Month 1 expands to MCP registries and GitHub Discussions to establish ongoing community infrastructure. Show HN historically drives 10K-80K visitors per post. Ongoing work is consistent cadence — dev updates, fast issue response, contributor spotlights — not paid ads or growth tactics.

Timeline

• 2026-04-13: Community and sponsorship strategy documented in v2 research plan. Expected sponsor ramp: 0-3 (month 1), 5-10 (months 2-3), 15-30 (months 3-6), 40-80 (months 6-12), 80-150+ (year 1+).

Current State

Pre-launch. No community infrastructure exists yet. Week 1 launch plan is defined but not executed. The first step is a public GitHub repo with a strong README (problem statement, demo GIF, pip install, sponsor button).

Key Decisions

• 2026-04-13: Personal identity over company branding for sponsorship — sponsorship research consistently shows individuals convert better than org accounts.
• 2026-04-13: No paid ads or growth hacks — wrong audience, burns budget, damages developer trust.
• 2026-04-13: $0 revenue for 3-6 months is the expected baseline, not a failure signal.

Open Questions

• Who owns the “building in public” cadence — Mike, Brandon, or both? Which channels (GitHub Discussions, Bluesky, Dev.to, Twitter/X)?
• Personal vs. project identity: do sponsorships go to individual GitHub accounts or the project org?
• What is the actual weekly time budget for community work, given other active projects?
• What is the patience threshold — at what month with what install count does the strategy get revisited?

Sources

• 2026-04-13-v2-research-plan.md