Why don't stars matter?

Last week I wrote about why I think focusing on stars is a sign of a company’s immaturity. Many people agreed, but some said they think stars are a good metric for a seed-stage company. So I should have been more clear… I actually don’t think stars are an awesome metric even for a young company.

Why not? Because open source adoption does not equal guaranteed commercial success. Even if stars were a perfect metric for open source adoption (you know they’re not, right?), I’ve seen a lot of companies struggle to translate widespread open source adoption into cash. Granted, my sample is distorted because often this is why companies come to me for help, but there are plenty of companies that are pretty high-profile who struggle with this that I suspect struggling to monetize open source adoption is the default, quick, hockey-stick revenue growth is the exception. This is why there are companies out there with $40 million in funding (or more!) and less ARR than the bakery down the street.

I might go further. I think boasting about, and focusing energy on, GitHub stars is a sign of immaturity of the individual doing the boasting, not of the company/project they represent. It usually means that the person, individually, doesn’t realize that monetizing an open source project is tricky, and/or doesn’t realize that the name of the game is to make money.