What I learned open-sourcing FormTo before it had any users

I run a small AI automation agency. FormTo started as a side project — a form backend service for developers, alternative to Formspree and Basin.

Most founders would build in private, polish the MVP, then launch on Product Hunt. I did the opposite. I open-sourced the entire codebase on GitHub before I had a single paying customer.

Here's what that taught me.

Open source forced me to write code I wasn't embarrassed by.

When I knew the repo was public, I stopped writing throwaway hacks. Every commit was something I'd be okay with a stranger reading. The codebase ended up cleaner than anything I'd built in private.

It didn't bring users. Not directly.

I expected GitHub stars to translate into signups. They didn't. Developers who star a repo aren't necessarily customers — they're often other developers curious about the implementation, not people who'd pay for the hosted version.

But it made every sales conversation easier.

When a potential customer asked "what if you disappear" or "what if the service shuts down" — I just pointed at the repo. They can self-host. That single fact closed conversations that would've stalled otherwise.

Free tier matters more than I thought.

I launched with a $0 tier (50 submissions/month). Almost everyone signs up on free first. The conversion to paid happens later, when their form actually starts getting traffic. If I'd launched paid-only, most of those people would never have tried it.

What I'd do differently:

Launch on Product Hunt earlier. I kept polishing because the product "wasn't ready." It was ready three months before I admitted it was ready. Perfectionism just delayed the feedback I needed.

Also: validate the pricing earlier. I picked tier prices ($9 / $24 / $49) based on competitor research, not on talking to actual users. Some of those tiers might be wrong. I won't know until more people are on them.

Anyone else here open-sourced before launch? Curious whether it paid off for you long-term or just made the early days harder.