I never thought I ever do such a thing. It was an outstanding feeling! 😀

Stats:

In top 5 for 20+ hours.
334 points, 112 comments.
~60k visitors on the landing page.
+800 Github stars - and still counting.
+300 Twitter followers - and still counting.

What did I do to achieve this? Nothing.

Thanks for reading, have a nice day. 😁

If you are still here, you can read the full story below. Enjoy - I guess; you will understand why I'm saying this.

Sunny morning ☀

The day started as a normal day. Woke up, take care of kids, one in home-school, the other one in home-kindergarten, my wife home-working as well as me - you know, just a normal day during lockdown and this COVID thing what everybody talks about.

Working normally with a laptop on my lap, trying to code, talking with colleagues with one hand, and building a toy train with my other hand. 💻 📱🚄

Everything was OK until someone called me on the phone in the afternoon.

Cloudy afternoon ⛈

It was my mom. One of my relatives was between life and death due to COVID. I was shocked. I know she got symptoms a week before, but not that she is in this terrible state. I was shattered.

While I was in this state, I decided to start doing something because I could not help her, so I would like to think of something else.

Started coding -> It was painful - I could not concentrate.

Started reading things online -> Kinda distracts me and my brain from the situation.

I ended up on HackerNews, reading through submissions.

And the like a lightning strike from nowhere. ⚡

What if I post Coolify?

So yeah, that's how it happened. I decided to post Coolify because why not? Without any prior research/marketing/followers/blabla/anything, like when to post it to get more attention (timezones), how to write a catchy title (it already has one btw), etc.

Just posted it.

What happened next?

It literally blew up! 💥

Why? No idea. After an hour or two, It was still going up, like a train.

It was in the top 5 for 20+hours

I wasn't ready for this. Especially not mentally. Answering comments - and especially negative ones - were not what I would like to do in this state. But I somehow managed it.

It boosted my feeling pretty much.

Conclusion

What I learned by publishing Coolify to the world and posting on HackerNews could be summarized in one tiny e-book... I wonder how long it does take to write it down. 🤔

Oh, wait. I already did it! And it's FREE! 😁

You can download it from here

What happened on the next days?

Not just my online presence has grown a bit, but these happened as well, which are insane!

Featured in a blog post by Adnan Issadeen

Thanks, Adnan! 🙏

Appeared in a newsletter by Simon Plenderleith:

Thanks, Simon! 🙏

In a Twitter thread by Sebastien Lorber:

https://twitter.com/sebastienlorber/status/1379094995437826048?s=20

Thanks, Sebastien! 🙏

And you won't believe this.

I even got an email from an American venture capital to tell me about my vision of Coolify and talk about a partnership. 🤯

Summary

This meme summarizes everything.

Thanks to Tom Hanks for the communicative memes.

If you would like to follow my journey or get updates regarding my side-projects, you can find me on Twitter! I'm open to any questions, suggestions, roasts, negative comments!

Or if you would like to support my work on coolLabs, buy me a ko-fi!