From GitHub Issue Mining to Paid Security Retainers
I spent three months turning GitHub issue mining into a repeatable pipeline that feeds a $49 security audit product. Here's the exact process, the numbers that mattered, and where it broke. The Starting Assumption Security researchers publish findings constantly. Most go unread. Maintainers ignore them. Companies don't know they exist. If I could systematically collect, verify, and package those…
Three months of work transformed GitHub issue mining into a lucrative security audit product, generating $49 per audit. The process began with the assumption that security researchers publish constant findings that go unnoticed by companies. The author focused on Supabase's row-level security (RLS) misconfigurations, a common and high-impact issue with deterministic fixes.
Of the 80 GitHub issues scanned, only 9 qualified for further action, representing an 11% hit rate. After passing through four qualification stages, nine qualified candidates were identified. Each candidate underwent verification of a verifiable direct email, an essential step to ensure deliverability and protect the sender's reputation.
The outreach was limited to a maximum of three messages per day to avoid triggering email infrastructure flags. The author offers a fixed-scope audit priced at $49, which includes a fixed timeline for remediation. Following a successful audit, some clients have requested ongoing retainer services, such as monthly RLS policy reviews, pre-deployment security checks, and incident response on-call.
The author does not push for retainer sales during the initial outreach. Instead, the audit serves as a proof of competence, leading to conversations about continuity. The author plans to automate email verification, expand issue sources, and productize the audit fix to increase conversion rates and justifying higher pricing. The core loop remains manual, measurable, and bounded, turning public security noise into paid work.
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