Sure! I've actually though that it was a relatively small number :) I've reached 8k users around 1/1.5 years ago, so the times are even shorter.
I did not plan for exposure (audience size); however, looking at the stats, I think that there is a clear indication.
My articles are often more or less deep dives into mainstream topics; I believe that the consequences of this approach are two:
1. the articles get exposure because the topics are common, and frequently searched by developers;
2. by being deep dives, I think they slowsly get used as references and linked by other sites.
I think this is a specific approach with pros and cons.
The pros are that it slowly grows a good audience over the time, and that it tends to have a stable minimum (since the references are there). Also, repeated deep dives in a given field will get attention from known people working in it, which is very significant.
The downside is that this type of articles is a pain to write (and I'm not sure I'll continue).
I had at least one article that exploded in popularity, however, while that's nice to see, it's a type of article that doesn't provide any value in the long term (on the other hand, short term is also important; I got interviewed because of it).
I think the numbers are generally normal to reach if one focuses on at least one subject, and dives in it. My blog is intentionally very scattered - if I focused, say, on databases, I would have certainly multiplied the users, but that's not my end goal.
All the best! :) The blog is https://saveriomiroddi.github.io, by the way :)