---
title: When It Stops Being Just Yours
date: 2026-05-11
description: The surreal feeling of watching strangers submit meaningful PRs and building a tiny ecosystem.
---

Almost 1,000 downloads, on the road to [100 GitHub stars](https://github.com/tsiger/widgetizer) and the first contributor constantly submitting PRs (all merged).

This is the first time I'm really trying to build a small ecosystem around my open source project. I've put code out there before, but this feels different. The feedback and initial reaction was something else. I genuinely wasn't expecting this warm of a reaction by the people who've been following this journey.

It feels completely surreal to watch someone you don't know submit PRs. You write some code, push it, and suddenly someone else understands the exact problem you're trying to solve. They spend their own time making your tool better. It stops being just yours.

I haven't had so much fun building a piece of software in a while. 

Things are moving faster than I anticipated. The open source version is in people's hands now, and I am figuring it out. The next phase is going to be interesting.