Making Discord bots accessible — no experience needed
DiscordBot-Script was an npm project that helped you make a Discord bot without previous knowledge. You could build the bot and host it on their servers for free — zero barrier to entry for anyone who wanted to get something running.
The core promise was accessibility. The Discord developer ecosystem has always had a skill gap: the official documentation and most existing libraries assume you already know how to code. DiscordBot-Script sat in the middle — it wrapped enough of the complexity that a beginner could get something working in minutes, while still being flexible enough that developers with more experience could do meaningful things with it.
People with less advanced coding knowledge could easily code their own simple or advanced bot — and the download numbers showed how much demand there was for exactly that.
Two years as PM, marketer, and developer
I was project manager, marketer, and part-time developer for DiscordBot-Script for over two years. That combination of roles is unusual — most open source projects have separate people handling community, documentation, promotion, and code. I wore all of those hats simultaneously.
As project manager, I kept development organized — managing the roadmap, coordinating contributors, deciding what shipped and what didn't, and making sure the project kept moving forward without the chaos that kills most open source side projects.
As marketer, I grew the install count through developer communities, Discord servers, and documentation quality. In open source, your documentation is your marketing. Clear docs, good examples, and a frictionless getting-started experience were the growth strategy.
As a developer, I contributed to the codebase — handling parts of the API design, writing and reviewing code, and making sure the abstractions stayed clean as the feature set grew.
100,000 installs, then deprecated
DiscordBot-Script reached 100,000+ npm installs — a real milestone for an open source developer tool. Since leaving the team, the package has been deprecated, but its install history on npm stands as a record of what it did.
The package link is at npmjs.com/package/discordbot-script.
For startups and companies looking for a freelance developer in Rochester MN who can operate across the full product lifecycle — not just write code but manage direction and grow adoption — this project is a direct illustration of that.