My friend was working on admin theme for themeforest for 6 month but admins didn't aprove his theme. What he did?

He made it opensource! And got 2000+ stars on github in one month. 6 month leter he has 7000 stars on github that turn into 2 big clients and a lot of $$$

Take for example Buffer. They created 2 Free relevant products for their field to create buzz around Buffer, ex pablo.buffer.com