How do I get startups to use my open-code project?

I recently noticed that some easy tickets I get during my day job can be solved with a single prompt, so I built a simple open-code orchestration system between Jiran, Coding agents (cursor/claude), and github.

The goal is to automate the easy tickets that every decent engineer will solve in roughly the same way, and let us just accept a ready PR.

Now I'm stuck on a different problem: how do you get the first real startups to actually try an open source tool like this?

I have posted about my tool in X, reddit, and here. I have received stars and even some positive comments so it does seem like there is some interest in the idea, but AFAIK there isn't a startup that actually uses it.

I'm really not sure how to go about it, I'm not trying to make money from it, so I don't want to start cold approaching companies - but I like building stuff in my spare time and would have loved to see it really being used by startups.

How do I do that?

Repo if anyone is curious: https://github.com/ErezShahaf/Anabranch

4 points | by ErezShahaf 3 hours ago

4 comments

  • endless-forge 1 hour ago
    Find one YC startup whose public job postings mention Jira + Claude/Cursor. They already have the exact stack. DM the CTO directly on X with a one-liner: "built something that automates your easy Jira tickets into PRs automatically — want to try it?" That's your shortest path to a real user.
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    • ErezShahaf 1 hour ago
      I was a little bit reluctant to do it because it is a free product, but maybe it will even feel more authentic.. I'll consider that :)
  • olemdy 2 hours ago
    I wonder if there is a way for one not to connect to Jira but provide PRD or link to a md file with changes to be made, access to code base (fe & be) and your project can implement changes, test fixes and create gitlab MR.

    I am looking into this for my team

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    • ErezShahaf 1 hour ago
      So you would have preferred if this was managed actively? But then how would that be better than providing MCPs to cursor? I use mcps which can access all the comments in the company I work at including the PRDs, logs, databases, etc.

      The idea of my project is that it is all done asynchronously, is that what you mean? You want it to happen outside of your personal computer?

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      • olemdy 12 minutes ago
        Your flow can still work but for those wanting to test it out, you may need to give them a direct path to seeing what it can do locally first then they can add async flow. The one caveat is supporting various tools like ClickUp / Gitlab which we use as an example.
  • Mnexium 2 hours ago
    I generally am curious too - Im running into a similar issue with my tool build.

    Difficult just to get feedback. This seems like a cool project, I dont have a ticketing system otherwise i'd try it.

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    • ErezShahaf 1 hour ago
      Thanks! I wonder if it's easier to get people to use "B2C" opensource projects..
  • satvikpendem 1 hour ago
    Learn sales and marketing. There are many threads on HN about how to do so.
    [-]
    • ErezShahaf 1 hour ago
      Yeah, I definitely miss the marketing skill in "B2B" products.. thanks