Scaling DevTools: Recent Episodes
Jack Bridger
We investigate what it takes to grow a developer tool. Topics include developer marketing, DevRel, developer advocacy and developer experience.
Steve Krouse is the founder of Val.town - a social website where you can write and run code.
- Introduction to Val.Town's vision 0:00
- How long it took Github to make money on Steve
- Val Town is a social website where you can write and run javascript or typescript, run the code on servers, and see the results.
- Knocking down friction points 2:12
- Val Town is making it so that programmers can create cool stuff without having to go through the pain of sending an email.
- Zapier for developers is another kind of tagline that has been seen other people that you've interviewed on this podcast.
- Categorising use cases on the website. 4:45
- Val Town recently made a list of favourite use cases and categorised them on the website. The challenge is explaining to people what it is and what it can be used for.
- What can be made with Val.town section
- How to get people to make cool things with your tool 15:51
- People hear about Val Town because other people are using it. The more people sign up, the more people are signing up for it.
- Val Town has a smaller number of people who are excited about it and use it a lot, but it's not a mythical product market fit.
- Every Thursday, the team is not allowed to work on the product. They all have to try and make Vals to go viral, which is a really fun creative day.
- The last one that went viral was hacker news follow, which was branded as an installable script.
- How do you think about notifications? 24:30
- Val Town is perfect for programmatic customization of notification emails, so that installing those into your account will be part of the tutorial.
- Val is passionate about education, and it feels like that's a big challenge because there's lots of new stuff with val.
- Medium-term ambition, build a learn to code interactive course on top of Val Town. Long term ambition is to have hundreds or thousands of Learn to Code courses on Val Town, embedded in the product.
- Future of coding meetups. 29:36
- An interview with Brian Dougie, early at Github, and how he helped with bootcamps and how to run code with Netlify.
- Future of coding meetup in london.
- Managing a community is a funny thing. The people who start and manage communities are often weird people.
- Date Me Docs 35:33
- Some people are looking for a unique snowflake, while others are sensitive and don't want attention on their date me docs.
- The future of dating is a great exercise to go through to get clear in words about who you are and what you're looking for.
Links:- Val Town - https://www.val.town/
- Steve's Twitter - https://twitter.com/stevekrouse
Dax Raad is building SST - an open-source framework that makes it easy to build serverless apps.
- What Is SST? 0:00
- The theory in January was to make content that has nothing to do with SST and still convert people. Dax validated the theory within the first hour.
- Dax tells us a little bit about SST, a framework for building applications on AWS, and how it works.
- The importance of marketing and content. 2:42
- The focus now has to be on marketing.
- The top of the funnel is when someone has no idea who you are.
- Pitching the idea to his boss. 5:16
- Dax pitched the idea and Fred Schott was immediately down. He spent a day just watching every single episode of Between Two Ferns and wrote down all the patterns of jokes.
- He learned a lot from the first one, and is doing another one today at 230.
- How much goes into the show? 8:04
- The original show is fully done and edits, and that is true of the one that video was made. The video was not close to what actually happened, but it was his response to the video.
- The original is very specific and it's funny how specific the jokes are.
- The importance of having a unique angle. 10:40
- For most companies, announcing an integration is not the most exciting thing to announce.
- The bar is incredibly low, and the expectations are super low.
- Invest more in marketing and content. 12:35
- They are looking to hire a comedian or someone who makes good content on YouTube.
- They are planning a series A, and are looking for people who are talented and can help them.
- Educational vs entertaining content. 14:57
- The only way to capture someone like you is through a different angle.
- The theory in January was to make content that has nothing to do with SST and still convert people into trying out SST.
- Finding an angle that is genuine for yourself.
- How he got over the hump of clickbait. 17:54
- He went through the same hump that everyone goes through when trying to publish content on youtube.
- He was sent a video by a guy who was very successful on youtube and he was explaining why he does what he does.
- The importance of having a good content. 20:51
- Youtube is an amazing place. People will watch it if it's good.
- Marketing is a huge lever. 23:20
- They are a very small company. They are able to do a lot given their small size and they are going to continue to be a small company, so they need to find ways to find leverage anywhere they can.
- They are excited about what they can invest in.
- Dax would love to work with someone who is good at filmmaking and editing to keep it engaging and keep it fun. He also thinks about shows that are authentic.
- Key takeaways for anyone listening, remember that if you're building a company you do need to do marketing.
Links:
- SST https://sst.dev/
- Dax's twitter https://twitter.com/thdxr
- Between Two Nerds https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-I2Xep0GTQY&ab_channel=SST
Gabriel Savit is the founder and CEO of Runway - a tool to coordinate and automate mobile app releases.
- Introductions 0:00
- Introduction to Gabe
- Underlying themes of runway mobile release management.
- What’s it like to work with mobile teams? 2:19
- Challenges for mobile teams to keep tabs on.
- The third party ecosystem problem.
- The origin story of the team.
- The process of running a release was something that resonated immediately. Different teams set this up differently. 8:23
- What was the next step after you gathered the feedback? 10:38
- The first round of interviews to validate the problem space.
- How the interviews were conducted.
- The feedback loop is not always closed.
- The next step after gathering the feedback.
- How do you get an MVP out quickly? 15:31
- Starting with one integration, one part of the process.
- The first few pilots.
- How did you get your first customer to buy in? 18:24
- Onboarding the first customer or first user.
- Getting the first cohort involved.
- Aligning with the overall vision of the platform.
- What is the go to market motion? 33:14
- Go-to-market motion, demo, sync, sign up, demo.
- Self-service, keeping the entry point open.
- What’s the future direction of the platform? 36:18
Links:- https://twitter.com/gabrielsavit
- https://runway.team/
Brian Douglas - or bdougie - is the founder of OpenSauced - an open source intelligence tool. Brian was previously Developer Experience Lead at Netlify and Director of Developer Advocacy at GitHub
Summary
- Every engineer is an advocate. 0:00
- Joining GitHub with a 30/60/90 plan. 1:17
- What was the goal when you joined Netlify? 3:16
- How to get started with bootcamps. 7:53
- What are the top projects in open source? 10:52
- The bottom up strategy for adoption at GitHub. 15:22
- Netlify’s Aha moment. 21:19
- How do you get started in reaching out to community and consistently? 25:57
Links:
- https://opensauced.pizza/
- https://twitter.com/bdougieYO
Ruben is the founder of Windmill https://www.windmill.dev/ which helps you turn scripts into workflows and UIs in minutes
Some of the things we talk about:
- Getting to the threshold of being useful.
- Speed is the key to success.
- The second mover advantage
- Getting early users of the product.
- Why infra is an interesting market for him.
- The challenges of being a solo founder.
- The recipe for a digital startup is to be really passionate about the project.
- Advice for founders who are building ambitious projects.
- Doing everything that no one wants to do.
You can find Ruben at https://twitter.com/rubenfiszel
Josh Twist is the founder of Zuplo, an API gateway
- Introducing Josh Twist, the founder of Zuplo. 0:00
- Zuplo vs Azure API management.
- How do you make this fit into the developer workflow? 3:06
- How Zuplo fits into the development workflow.
- How to democratize API management and make it something every business wants to use.
- Best practices for implementing API key authentication.
- Stripe quality API out of the box.
- The power of removing friction in creating a better experience. 8:58
- The power of removing friction from the process.
- How do you create a product that is easy for beginners but still has a powerful experience? 11:31
- Loom is a great example of a product that exists only because it removes friction.
- Building a product is like building a video game.
- How to keep both the developer and the customer experience in mind.
- The formula one analogy for designing a product from scratch.
- What’s going to go into the next generation of Zuplo? 17:27
- How Zuplo keeps things simple and makes decisions.
- Why you have to have a lot of customer empathy and invest in tools. 19:39
- The importance of customer empathy.
- Why Josh made the decision to switch over to OpenAPI.
- Killing features can be hard as a business-to-business company.
- One chart to think about.
- The importance of partnerships and content. 24:29
- Making videos for supabase customers.
- Partnerships with other small businesses.
- How Zuplo got their first customers.
- Zuplo rate limiting feature. 28:02
- Rate limiting in Zuplo and Supabase.
- Developers who are small-scale loving Zuplo
- Making videos
- Removing friction and building an 11-star experience.
Zuplo - https://zuplo.com/
Josh Twist - https://twitter.com/joshtwist
Dan is head of DevRel at Fusion Auth - Auth Built for Devs, by Devs
- Fusion’s journey from moderation to auth provider. 0:00
- Introduction to Dan Moore, head of dev rel at fusion.
- Fusion's journey
- Free to use for many users, but also a cloud offering.
- Synchronous communication vs asynchronous communication. 5:04
- Synchronous communication vs asynchronous communication.
- 10% of their traffic is coming from forum pages.
- No one ever searches on Stack Overflow.
- What are some of the experiments that have gone well? 13:04
- Efforts to promote community feel.
- Community stories, finding out user pain points and wins.
- The importance of getting your community to know each other.
- Getting 20 or 30 blog posts on the blog.
- Dan's experience on Screaming into the cloud.
Dan's Twitter - https://twitter.com/mooreds
Fusion auth - https://fusionauth.io/
Nikolaus West is the founder of Rerun.io - Visualize computer vision.
What we discuss:
- Finding a problem to work on
- What are some of the features that will be free and open source?
- What’s the difference between a commercial and a free service?
- The most important thing is that we’re building something that will be useful
- How to get into the minds of computer vision developers
- Why build in Rust
Rerun - https://www.rerun.io/
Niko's Twitter - https://twitter.com/NikolausWest
How do you do onboarding in a way developers actually like?
Kilian is the founder of Polypane - The browser for ambitious web developers https://polypane.app/
Kilian's Twitter - https://twitter.com/kilianvalkhof
Karl Clement is the founder of https://codeowners.com/
CODEOWNERS is the single source of truth for code ownership.
Summary
- Introducing Karl
- Code ownership
- What are the types of people that are implementing code Code Ownership
- How to find and reach platform engineers.
- What are some of the key metrics that organisations are looking for to measure the value of their tooling?
- Dora metrics
- Mean time to resolution, MTTR
- What is Backstage and how has it been used?
- Improving the developer experience with Backstage.
- Backstage implementation is essentially a signal that a company is willing to invest in the organisation but the developer experience as a whole, which is great
- Backstage implementation is a signal of investment in the organisation.
- How venture capital can help with product development.
- If you’re building a product in a space that no one else is in, you are reducing your odds
Ramiro Nuñez Dosio is a Growth Marketer at Supabase. Supabase is a platform designed to help devs streamline the creation of modern apps.
Scaling DevTools is the podcast that investigates how DevTools go from zero to one. Created by Jack Bridger, founder of BitReach. BitReach helps DevTool companies reach more developers. In scaling DevTools, Jack explores how startups sell to developers, build tools and become successful.
What we cover
- The Supabase marketing approach
- Launch weeks at Supabase
- Keeping focus
- Marketing processes
- How to measure success
- How to distribute content
Where to hear from Ramiro
- Twitter: @ramiro__nd
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ramiro-nd/
- https://supabase.com/
Where to hear from us
- Twitter: @JackSBridger
- https://blog.bitreach.io
- Newsletter: https://www.bitreach.io/
Thomas Peham is the VP of Marketing and Julius Hemingway is an Analyst Relations Manager at Storyblok. Storyblok harnesses a headless, API-driven CMS architecture empowering developers to build anything, publish everywhere, and integrate with any technology stack.
Scaling DevTools is the podcast that investigates how DevTools go from zero to one. Created by Jack Bridger, founder of BitReach. BitReach helps DevTool companies reach more developers. In scaling DevTools, Jack explores how startups sell to developers, build tools and become successful.
What we cover
- What do you do at Storyblok?
- Growing up fast
- Product market fit
- Advice for startups
- Collaborating with partners
- What opportunities do you see out there, working with analyst companies?
Where to hear from Thomas & Julius
- Thomas: @tompeham
- Julius: https://www.linkedin.com/in/julius-hemingway-b720b1136/
- https://www.storyblok.com/
Where to hear from us
- Twitter: @JackSBridger
- https://blog.bitreach.io
- Newsletter: https://www.bitreach.io/
Colin Sidoti is the CEO of Clerk.dev. Clerk helps developers build user management. They provide streamlined user experiences for your users to sign up, sign in, and manage their profile.
Scaling DevTools is the podcast that investigates how DevTools go from zero to one. Created by Jack Bridger, founder of BitReach. BitReach helps DevTool companies reach more developers. In scaling DevTools, Jack explores how startups sell to developers, build tools and become successful.
What we cover
- Hasn't auth been solved already?
- Growth and new customers
- Pitching Clerk
- Communities
- User journey
Where to hear from Colin
- https://twitter.com/tweetsbycolin
- https://twitter.com/ClerkDev
- https://clerk.dev/
Where to hear from us
- Twitter: @JackSBridger
- https://blog.bitreach.io
- Newsletter: https://www.bitreach.io/
Sean Falconer is the Head of Developer Relations & Product Marketing at Skyflow. Skyflow is a privacy API for sensitive data that is built on a customer data vault.
Scaling DevTools is the podcast that investigates how DevTools go from zero to one. Created by Jack Bridger, founder of BitReach. BitReach helps DevTool companies reach more developers. In scaling DevTools, Jack explores how startups sell to developers, build tools and become successful.
What we cover
- Building a DevRel function from the ground up
- An MVP DevRel team
- A real content strategy
- Hiring the right person
- Measuring performance in the early stages
- How do DevRel and marketing interplay?
Where to hear from Sean
- @seanfalconer
- https://www.skyflow.com/
- https://www.skyflow.com/podcast
Where to hear from us
- Twitter: @JackSBridger
- https://blog.bitreach.io
- Newsletter: https://www.bitreach.io/
P.s. thanks so much to Harpreet Sahota for listening and suggesting we invite Sean!
Zivit Katz is the VP of Marketing at Zigi. Zigi is an AI-powered personal assistant for developers. By managing your dev workflow and handling all your mundane, non-programming tasks across multiple apps directly from Slack.
Scaling DevTools is the podcast that investigates how DevTools go from zero to one. Created by Jack Bridger, founder of BitReach. BitReach helps DevTool companies reach more developers. In scaling DevTools, Jack explores how startups sell to developers, build tools and become successful.
What we cover
- Marketing at Zigi
- The market and users
- Learning the right language
- Understanding the developer
- The importance of marketing plans
Where to hear from Zivit
- Zivit's Linkedin
- Zigi's Linkedin
- https://www.zigi.ai/
Where to hear from us
- Twitter: @JackSBridger
- https://blog.bitreach.io
- Newsletter: https://www.bitreach.io/
James Hawkins is the CEO & Co-founder of PostHog. PostHog is an open-source product analytics suite, built for engineers.
Scaling DevTools is the podcast that investigates how DevTools go from zero to one. Created by Jack Bridger, founder of BitReach. BitReach helps DevTool companies reach more developers. In scaling DevTools, Jack explores how startups sell to developers, build tools and become successful.
What we cover
- PostHog - implement without ever getting up from your desk
- How PostHog have cracked being bold and transparent
- Small cross-functional teams at PostHog
- Two people in Sales > $100Million of revenue
- Working with enterprise clients
Where to hear from James
- @james406
- https://posthog.com/
- The handbook - https://posthog.com/handbook
Where to hear from us
- Twitter: @JackSBridger
- https://blog.bitreach.io
- Newsletter: https://www.bitreach.io/
Brandon Gubitosa is a Senior Content Marketer at Plural. Plural is a software development company that is on a mission to help DevOps teams access and deploy open-source solutions that are recognised as top-tier.
Scaling DevTools is the podcast that investigates how DevTools go from zero to one. Created by Jack Bridger, founder of BitReach. BitReach helps DevTool companies reach more developers. In scaling DevTools, Jack explores how startups sell to developers, build tools and become successful.
What we cover
- An introduction to Plural and it’s growth
- Distributing content
- Why startups under distribute content
- Using metrics to help define if something should be pursued
- How to decide on a compelling piece of content
- Leveraging open source communities to drive growth
- Content agency Vs In-house
Where to hear from Brandon
- https://www.plural.sh/
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/bgubitosa/
Where to hear from us
- Twitter: @JackSBridger
- https://blog.bitreach.io
- Newsletter: https://www.bitreach.io/
André Eriksson is the founder of Encore. Encore is a backend development engine built on the belief that escaping complexity unleashes a higher state of creativity.
Scaling DevTools is the podcast that investigates how DevTools go from zero to one. Created by Jack Bridger, founder of BitReach. BitReach helps DevTool companies reach more developers. In scaling DevTools, Jack explores how startups sell to developers, build tools and become successful.
What we cover
- An introduction to Encore's Go framework
- What drove André to create Encore and where he found his conviction from frustration
- Problems faced by experienced backend developers
- Obtaining your first customers who immediately get it
- Focusing on content to bring developers to you
- Sales at Encore - tailoring everything to what is important to customers
- Building technical trust - can you trust it will do what I want?
- Building business trust with open source
Where to hear from André
- Twitter: @_eandre
- https://encore.dev/
Where to hear from us
- Twitter: @JackSBridger
- https://blog.bitreach.io
- Newsletter: https://www.bitreach.io/
Ana Hevesi is a Developer Experience Researcher and Ecosystem Consultant. She has experience marshalling technical products and communities at companies including Stack Overflow, Nodejitsu and MongoDB.
Scaling DevTools is the podcast that investigates how DevTools go from zero to one. Created by Jack Bridger, founder of BitReach. BitReach helps DevTool companies reach more developers. In this series, Jack will explore how startups sell to developers, build tools and become successful.
What we cover
- An introduction to developer user research
- Research at DevTools startups
- How to use findings and insights
- How user research can help extend runway at a startup
Where to hear from Ana
- Twitter: @anthrocypher
- https://www.anahevesi.com/
Tools Anna loves
- Dovetail
Where to hear from us
- Twitter: @JackSBridger
- https://blog.bitreach.io
- Newsletter: https://www.bitreach.io/
Nimrod Kramer is the CEO at Daily.dev. Daily.dev is a community of developers getting together and exploring Dev news.
Scaling DevTools is the podcast that investigates how DevTools go from zero to one. Created by Jack Bridger, founder of BitReach. BitReach helps DevTool companies reach more developers. In this series, Jack will explore how startups sell to developers, build tools and become successful.
What we cover
(00:39): Why has Daily.dev been such a sensation from your perspective?
(02:13): Could you share your thoughts on good developer marketing and what it is?
(04:52): Could you talk about how you work with Francesco and how that's been working?
(07:28) Could you talk a little bit about examples?
(09:19) What is a developer?
(13:12) Have you got any examples of companies that have created really successful marketing campaigns with Daily.dev?
Where to hear from Nimrod
- Twitter: @NimrodKramer
- https://daily.dev/
Where to hear from us
- Twitter: @JackSBridger
- https://blog.bitreach.io
- Newsletter: https://www.bitreach.io/
Megan Reynolds is an investor at Crane Venture Partners. Crane are an early stage VC who have invested in developer tools such as Gitpod, Encore and Novu.
Scaling DevTools is the podcast that investigates how DevTools go from zero to one. Created by Jack Bridger, founder of BitReach. BitReach helps DevTool companies reach more developers. In this series, Jack will explore how startups sell to developers, build tools and become successful.
What we cover
- What is happening in the market right now?
- Critical path for developers
- What can devtools do to make themselves more critical?
- Understanding your landscape
- What are the good founders doing? Gitpod example
- Why Megan invested in Novu
- What Megan is looking for in devtools
Where to hear from Megan
- Twitter: @meganreyno
- https://crane.vc/
Dev Tools mentioned
- Gitpod - open source remote developer collaboration
- Gitpod // Factorial case study
- Novu - open source notification infrastructure
- Encore - backend development engine
- Firebase- backend as a service
- Supabase(open source alternative to firebase)
- Posthog (open source alternative to mixpanel)
Where to hear from us
- Twitter: @JackSBridger
- https://blog.bitreach.io
- Newsletter: https://www.bitreach.io/
Richard Moot is the Head of Developer Advocacy at Square. Square helps millions of sellers run their business-from secure credit card processing to point of sale solutions.
Scaling DevTools is the podcast that investigates how DevTools go from zero to one. Created by Jack Bridger, founder of BitReach. BitReach helps DevTool companies reach more developers. In this series, Jack will explore how startups sell to developers, build tools and become successful.
What we cover
(00:32): Could you tell us about the work that you're doing on YouTube with Square?
(01:00): If a startup is thinking of getting started with YouTube, how would you suggest they get started?
(03:39): Could you talk us through the types of tasks that you or other members of the team do?
(07:28) Could you talk a little bit about examples?
(09:16) How do you approach them quality vs quantity when it comes to good examples?
(11:52) Where and how does fun come into it all?
Where to hear from Richard
- Twitter: @wootmoot
- https://squareup.com
- https://developer.squareup.com/us/en
- https://www.youtube.com/c/SquareDev
Where to hear from us
- Twitter: @JackSBridger
- https://blog.bitreach.io
- Newsletter: https://www.bitreach.io/
Wesley Faulkner is a Senior Community Manager at AWS. Amazon Web Services provides on-demand cloud computing platforms and APIs to individuals, companies, and governments, on a metered pay-as-you-go basis.
Scaling DevTools is the podcast that investigates how DevTools go from zero to one. Created by Jack Bridger, founder of BitReach. BitReach helps DevTool companies reach more developers. In this series, Jack will explore how startups sell to developers, build tools and become successful.
(00:40): Would you be able to tell us a little bit more about higher-order thinking?
(05:31): Could you share some examples of higher-order thinking versus a lower-order marketing campaign or communication that didn't work so well?
(11:06): Could you share your thoughts on developers wanting to understand how things work?
(13:38) When it comes to higher-order thinking and understanding your audience, investing long-term sometimes feels like it may have a slower payoff. How do we justify this kind of investment? Especially if we're a startup that needs users or signups really quickly.
Tweet we are discussing
Where to hear from Wesley
- Twitter: @wesley83
- https://aws.amazon.com/
- https://www.communitypulse.io/
Where to hear from us
- Twitter: @JackSBridger
- https://blog.bitreach.io
- Newsletter: https://www.bitreach.io/
Dylan Fox is the Founder & CEO of AssemblyAI. AssemblyAI is an AI company that researches, trains, and deploys State-of-the-Art AI models. Thousands of developers and product teams build with AssemblyAI's simple API to automatically transcribe and understand audio data at scale.
Scaling DevTools is the podcast that investigates how DevTools go from zero to one. Created by Jack Bridger, founder of BitReach. BitReach helps DevTool companies reach more developers. In this series, Jack will explore how startups sell to developers, build tools and become successful.
What we cover
(00:20): Could you tell us a little bit about AssemblyAI?
(01:10): Could you talk about your content strategy?
(03:37): How do you balance the goal of promoting AssemblyAI with creating authentic, useful pieces of content?
(09:59) How are you able to produce such in-depth content?
(11:22) What was it like going through YC and acquiring your first users?
Where to hear from Dylan
- Twitter: @YouveGotFox
- https://www.assemblyai.com/
- https://twitter.com/AssemblyAI
Where to hear from us
- Twitter: @JackSBridger
- https://blog.bitreach.io
- Newsletter: https://www.bitreach.io/
Juri Strumpflohner is the Director of Developer Experience at Nrwl Technologies. Nrwl works with global enterprises to provide remote consulting, training, and engineering. NX is Nrwl’s open source product which provides advanced tools that help scale enterprise development.
Scaling DevTools is the podcast that investigates how DevTools go from zero to one. Created by Jack Bridger, founder of BitReach. BitReach helps DevTool companies reach more developers. In this series, Jack will explore how startups sell to developers, build tools and become successful.
What we cover
- The story, Nrwl, and NX?
- Solve the problems you see
- Open source business model
- How NX got to 2million downloads per week
- Hiring for growth
- Taking over an existing open source proejct
Where to hear from Juri
- Twitter: @juristr
- https://nrwl.io/
- https://nx.dev/
- https://www.youtube.com/c/Nrwl_io
- https://nx.dev/conf
Where to hear from us
- Twitter: @JackSBridger
- https://blog.bitreach.io
- Newsletter: https://www.bitreach.io/
Ronak Ganatra is the Director of Marketing at Lano, a global software solution enabling businesses to hire and pay full-time employees and contractors. Ronak was previously VP of Marketing at Hygraph and has also founded https://marketingto.dev/.
Scaling DevTools is the podcast that investigates how DevTools go from zero to one. Created by Jack Bridger, founder of BitReach. BitReach helps DevTool companies reach more developers. In this series, Jack will explore how startups sell to developers, build tools and become successful.
What we cover
(00:37): What was it like on your first day working at Hygraph versus three years later?
(07:03): What do you think being a better developer marketer means?
(08:36): How do you approach things like performance marketing?
(12:17) How should developer marketing teams be working with sales teams?
Where to hear from Ronak
- Twitter: @gunnyganatra
- https://www.lano.io
- https://marketingto.dev
Where to hear from us
- Twitter: @JackSBridger
- https://blog.bitreach.io
- Newsletter: https://www.bitreach.io/
Scaling DevTools is the podcast that investigates how DevTools go from zero to one. Created by Jack Bridger, founder of BitReach. BitReach helps DevTool companies reach more developers. In this series, Jack will explore how startups sell to developers, build tools and become successful.
What we cover
(00:21): How should early-stage startups be thinking about community?
(06:09): Once the community has found momentum, what would the next focus be?
(12:27): In terms of tangibly measuring how well you're doing, what kind of things do you care about?
(18:39): Community can sometimes be put on the back burner, but at the same time you see so many of the most successful dev startups invested in community really early on. Do you see a pattern or do you have any advice for startups that are at this stage?
Links mentioned by SJ
- Twitter: @SarahJaneMorris
- https://www.hubspot.com
- https://haxor.sh/
- https://www.twilio.com/
- https://www.commonroom.io/
- https://projectinclude.org/
Where to hear from us
- Twitter: @JackSBridger
- Scaling DevTools Blog
- Scaling DevTools Newsletter
Scaling DevTools is the podcast that investigates how DevTools go from zero to one. Created by Jack Bridger, founder of BitReach. BitReach helps DevTool companies reach more developers. In this series, Jack will explore how startups sell to developers, build tools and become successful.
What we cover(00:28): What has growth been like at tiiny.host?
(04:44): Why does the world need a new hosting provider?
(10:50): How did you decide to position tiiny.host?
Where to hear from Phil
- Twitter: @_baretto
- https://tiiny.host/
Where to hear from us
- Twitter: @JackSBridger
- https://blog.bitreach.io
- Newsletter: https://www.bitreach.io/
Scaling DevTools is the podcast that investigates how DevTools go from zero to one. Created by Jack Bridger, founder of BitReach. BitReach helps DevTool companies reach more developers. In this series, Jack will explore how startups sell to developers, build tools and become successful.
What we cover
(00:42): What does community mean to Stream?
(01:37): What are good events like in the developer space?
(02:31): How did you find having a blank canvas of events that you could run and sponsors that you could find?
(03:30): Do you have any advice for anyone at a startup where they aren’t doing any events or sponsorship?
(05:20): Do you think sponsors and events play into the product in terms of how it develops, as well as all the relationships that you are building with different communities?
(07:38): What do you do when you have a successful sponsor, what happens next?
(08:25) Would you recommend for someone just getting started to allocate their budget between different events and sponsors?
Where to hear from Kimmy
- Twitter: @LeslieKimmy
- Stream - https://getstream.io/
Where to hear from us
- Twitter: @JackSBridger
- https://blog.bitreach.io
- Newsletter: https://www.bitreach.io/
Scaling DevTools is the podcast that investigates how DevTools go from zero to one. Created by Jack Bridger, founder of BitReach. BitReach helps DevTool companies reach more developers. In this series, Jack will explore how startups sell to developers, build tools and become successful.
What we cover
(00:54): How should we be doing developer marketing?
(01:06): How are you applying your four pillars of developer marketing at Neptune?
(11:00): How are you thinking about SEO?
(13:21): How are you allocating your resources now that you are the CMO of Neptune?
Where to hear from Kuba
- Twitter: @JCzakon
- https://neptune.ai/
- https://www.developermarkepear.com/
- Developer Marketing community - https://marketingto.dev/
Where to hear from us
- Twitter: @JackSBridger
- https://blog.bitreach.io
- Newsletter: https://www.bitreach.io/
Nico Botha is the founder of Ship SaaS, a Next.js Saas boilerplate that allows you to ship your SaaS in no time. Nico is also co-founder of Supermeme.ai *an AI meme generator. *
Scaling DevTools
Scaling DevTools is the podcast that investigates how DevTools go from zero to one. Created by Jack Bridger, founder of BitReach. BitReach helps DevTool companies reach more developers. In this series, Jack will explore how startups sell to developers, build tools and become successful.
What we cover
(00:28): What made you start Ship SaaS?
(01:06): How did you go about getting your first customer?
(01:29): Do you have any advice for someone starting to build a tool for Developers?
(02:06): When you describe justifying your tech stack and developers asking lots of questions, how can someone ensure they prepare their tool for that kind of scrutiny?
(02:54): Could you dig a little more into how you plan to grow Ship SaaS and your plans for the future?
(03:38): How have you currently been thinking about SEO?
(04:52): Did you specifically set out to rank for that key term? Or were you just creating content that you thought would be useful?
(05:12): One of your other projects is Supermeme, a tool for generating memes using AI. How do you think memes can play into Developer marketing?
Nico's links:
- Twitter: @nwbotha
- https://shipsaas.com(Nico's SaaS boilerplate)
- https://www.supermeme.ai(Nico's other project - a meme tool)
- https://katlinks.io - SEO tool (Nico uses this)
Where to hear from us
- Twitter: @JackSBridger
- https://blog.bitreach.io
- Newsletter: https://www.bitreach.io/
Scaling DevTools is the podcast that investigates how DevTools go from zero to one. Created by Jack Bridger, founder of BitReach. BitReach helps DevTool companies reach more developers. In this series, Jack will explore how startups sell to developers, build tools and become successful.
What we cover
(00:37): Could you tell us a bit about the kinds of things you're working on at Algolia?
(02:58): How do you cultivate a community of trust at Algolia?
(04:57): What is it that you and your partner focus on?
(06:25): What do you think attracts developers to want to join Algolia's live sessions or developer conferences?
(07:24): Could you tell us a little bit about how you approach co-marketing?
(09:10): Could you share a bit about the culture at Algolia?
(10:47): What changes have you seen in Algolia in the last five years?
(11:55): In the five years that you've been there, what do you think Algolia does well that's led to its success?
Where to hear from Julie
- Twitter: @juliereboul
- https://www.algolia.com
- Podcast: https://developerexperience.buzzsprout.com
Where to hear from us
- Twitter: @JackSBridger
- https://blog.bitreach.io
- Newsletter: https://www.bitreach.io/
Scaling DevTools is the podcast that investigates how DevTools go from zero to one. Created by Jack Bridger, founder of BitReach. BitReach helps DevTool companies reach more developers. In this series, Jack will explore how startups sell to developers, build tools and become successful.
What we cover
(01:07): Being a Sales Development rep.
(03:34): When a salesperson gets an inbound lead, it's a euphoric moment.
(03:09): Developers rarely check emails.
(05:04): Connect with people that already have a problem.
(05:48): Qualify your leads.
(07:04): Think about sales in terms of champions.
Where to hear from us
- Twitter: @JackSBridger
- https://blog.bitreach.io
- Newsletter: https://www.bitreach.io/
Scaling DevTools is the podcast that investigates how DevTools go from zero to one. Created by Jack Bridger, founder of BitReach. BitReach helps DevTool companies reach more developers. In this series, Jack will explore how startups sell to developers, build tools and become successful.
What we cover
(00:43): How do you think we should think about developer marketing when we're just getting started?
(03:34): Are there things we can do to create that experimental culture?
(07:10): It's about not being afraid to do things that you don't have a lot of knowledge on and try them out just because they seem like a good idea. But also try to get at least a little bit of expertise thrown in there so that you're not, for instance, doing an SEO experiment over 24 hours and expecting to see some results.
(09:48): When you're experimenting with different things, does that play into brand building?
(12:12): When we talk about experimentation, is it experimenting within constraints? How would you describe the kind of process?
Where to hear from Natwar
- Twitter: @natwar86
- https://www.algolia.com
- Newsletter: https://www.engineeringbrew.com
Where to hear from us
- Twitter: @JackSBridger
- https://blog.bitreach.io
- Newsletter: https://www.bitreach.io/
Scaling DevTools is the podcast that investigates how DevTools go from zero to one. Created by Jack Bridger, founder of BitReach. BitReach helps DevTool companies reach more developers. In this series, Jack will explore how startups sell to developers, build tools and become successful.
What we cover
(01:20): Content is pretty much accepted as one of the most predictable paths to grow for developer tools, but the payback is also sometimes a little slower than other channels. Karl, against this backdrop, how should DevTools startups be thinking about content?
(09:44): How does the reputation of your DevTool come into it?
(12:42): I'd love to hear about how you think about promotion, and especially at the moment if there's anything that startups can be doing to shorten the payback of some of their content?
(16:12): Have you had any experiences with developer content on TikTok?
Where to hear more from Karl
- Twitter: @KarlLHughes
- https://draft.dev
- Blog: https://draft.dev/learn/
Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Scaling DevTools. To keep up to date with the podcast, check out the below links.
Where to hear more from us
- Twitter: @JackSBridger
- Blog: https://blog.bitreach.io
- Newsletter: https://www.bitreach.io/
Michael Christofides is the co-founder of pgMustard, a Postgres tool that speeds up your journey from knowing which query is a problem to working out what can be done about it. The aim of pgMustard is to build a small, sustainable business that is the best at what it does. pgMustard recently celebrated their 100th subscriber - so they are well on their way! Michael also consults, talks at conferences and writes about Postgres performance.
Scaling DevToolsScaling DevTools is the podcast that investigates how DevTools go from zero to one. Created by Jack Bridger, founder of BitReach. BitReach helps DevTool companies reach more developers. In this series Jack will explore how startups sell to developers, build tools and become successful.
What we cover
(00:41): Could you tell us a bit about where pgMustard is right now and what your focuses are at the moment?
(01:22): Could you tell us a bit about what you're currently doing in terms of growth and, what's keeping you up at night at the moment with pgMustard?
(02:47): One of the things that I’ve noticed when I go to the pgMustard website, is that you’re very ethical. There’s no small print, everything is as kind as it could be. Is that something you’ve consciously gone after?
(04:22): Let's say some founders are considering this. Has there been any tangible benefits that could persuade them to become whiter than white?
(06:52): You have previously worked as a Head of Customer Success at a big, what could be described as a DevTools, startup GoCardless. Do you think this is where some of your approach came from?
(09:42): Stepping back from pgMustard, what has and hasn't worked in terms of growth?
(14:09): Are there any kind of general lessons that you would give to maybe yourself starting again? Or another DevTools founder?
(19:54): How can people learn more about you and about pgMustard?
Guest links
Twitter: @michristofides
Site link: https://www.pgmustard.com
Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Scaling DevTools. To keep up to date with the podcast, check out the below links.
- Twitter: @JackSBridger
- Site link: https://blog.bitreach.io
- Newsletter: https://www.bitreach.io/
Scaling DevTools is the podcast that investigates how dev tools go from zero to one. Created by Jack Bridger, founder of BitReach. BitReach helps DevTool companies reach more developers. In this series Jack will explore how startups sell to developers, build tools and become successful.
Brandon West
Brandon West is among the most qualified people on the planet to tell you how to become more popular with developers. In this episode of Scaling DevTools we discuss what DevRel looks like in the early stages, how to build credibility and learnings from passed roles.
What we cover
(00:57): What does DevRel look like at startups at the earliest stage?
(05:13): How do you balance doing the right things and building credibility with the fact that you're also willing to push and demo things, which aren't perfect yet.
(07:13): What was it like when you were at SendGrid?
(11:46): What did the relationship look like with the product team?
(17:04): Where can people learn more?
Guest links
Twitter: @bwest
Site link: http://bwe.st
DataDog: https://www.datadoghq.com/
CoScreen: https://www.coscreen.co/
Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Scaling DevTools. To keep up to date with the podcast, check out the below links.
- Twitter: @JackSBridger
- Site link: https://blog.bitreach.io
- Newsletter: https://www.bitreach.io/
Scaling DevTools is the podcast that investigates how dev tools go from zero to one. Created by Jack Bridger, founder of Bitreach. BitReach helps Devtool companies reach more developers. In this series Jack will explore how startups sell to developers, build tools and become successful.
Adam DuVander
Adam Duvander is the founder of Every Developer and author of Developer Marketing does not exist. He helps dev-focused marketers build content strategies to reach more developers. Adam was the perfect person to have on for our first episode because he literally wrote the book on developer marketing.
What we cover
- (01:47): How should these type of startups be thinking about prioritisation of content versus other things that they could be doing?
- (04:13): Where do they start?
- (05:44): You've written a lot in one of your talks about opinions and pushing an opinionated view of things.
- (07:43): How do you get those developers to also be writing great content?
- (13:55): How do they know if it was a good piece of content?
- (19:51): Where can people learn more about Adam and about all of the amazing insights that you have on developer marketing?
Guest links
- Twitter: @adamd
- Every Developer: https://everydeveloper.com
- Book: Developer Marketing Does Not Exist
Thank you so much for listening to the first episode of Scaling DevTools.
To keep up to date with the podcast, check out the below links.
- Twitter: @JackBridger9
- Site link: https://blog.bitreach.io
- Newsletter: https://www.bitreach.io/
Created by Jack Bridger, founder of Bitreach. BitReach helpsDevtool companies reach more developers. In this series Jack will explore how startups sell to developers, build tools and become successful.