[sgbeal]

> What are we missing?

To re-frame the question: why do you care how many stars (presumably you're talking about github stars?) you have? Does the number of stars change what you develop or how you develop it?

Losing sleep over github star count is akin to losing sleep over up/downvotes on HackerNews or thumbs on Your Favorite Social Media Site. Tying one's self-worth to them, or one's self-image of one's own works to them, is... well, kinda sad.

> i might just be wrong about what the market wants right now.

Github stars are no indication of "what the market wants" - they're an indication of how many people (or scripted bots) have seen the project, thought "huh, interesting," and clicked the star so that they have a bookmark of it for later reference in their github settings.

[lilwing]

Yes i was talking about GitHub stars. We don't care about stars for vanity, more because star velocity is the primary signal GitHub uses for trending, which would drive discovery for us. We don't have any kind of presence anywhere or marketing budget so I thought this would be the best way for developers to find us organically. But yeah you're right, stars don't equal market validation.

I think it's just frustrating to see hype about a weak product when ours is much more thought-through and developed.

I mean do you have any other better recommendations for reach? I just want to effectively convey what my product does to the right audience.

[sgbeal]

> We don't care about stars for vanity, more because star velocity is the primary signal GitHub uses for trending, which would drive discovery for us.

Spoken like a marketer, as opposed to a developer ;).

> I mean do you have any other better recommendations for reach?

Unfortunately no. All of my code gets posted on my own site (not github) and is left there to die, with no real concern for whether other folks make use of it. That's not a popular approach, nor does it lead to any popularity for me or my projects, so is not necessarily a model for others to follow.

> I just want to effectively convey what my product does to the right audience.

_That_ is entirely up to your docs, not the hosting platform. What you're asking about is more a function of (A) the hosting platform and (B) the various channels which drive people to that platform. i'm roughly 0% qualified to suggest any approaches to that than just "throw it over the wall" :/.

[lilwing]

Between you and me I am the marketing director for our product hehe ;)

That's sort of where I'm coming from here looking for advice. I appreciate you engaging in this convo and giving me your honest feedback. I dont come from a technical background and am trying to figure out how to navigate this space. Its been tough!!