OSS helped because I could build it in my spare time with little investment or risk. I spent the first two years building Sidekiq and Sidekiq Pro and was able to build up an audience by blogging and tweeting.

I spent 15 years working at various startups and earned little more than a typical dev salary in the end. Today I'm making several times my previous salary so the business has been a big success for me.

As for visibility, I'm happy owning my own little niche of Ruby background jobs. I don't advertise or market much, just provide the best product I can, support it every day and developer word of mouth does the rest.