Creating a project

If you have an idea for your own project, by all means, go ahead and churn out an MVP and see if others find it useful. However, if you want your code to help as many people as possible, it might be a good idea to take a look at existing projects and see if your idea makes more sense as a pull request on another project. Older projects often have more active contributors, users, code reviewers, features, etc. These things are all likely to increase the impact of your code. Reach out to the maintainers of projects you find and get their opinion on your project idea.

If you've done some Googling and believe that your best option is to start your own project, then it's time to make your project as easy as possible for others to join.

The first step: get some code up as soon as you can. It doesn't have to be perfect, but if you have code and a few issues filed, it'll be much easier for other people to join and know how to help.

Once you've done that, check out the tips in Attracting a team.