I'm going to pin this post to the top of my profile so there's a place for anyone to publicly ask me a question, and I'll do my best to reply when I can.
I'm happy to offer advice primarily on the intersection of software, entrepreneurship and career.
Happy coding!
Top comments (122)
Hey, can you explain how @dumb_dev_meme_bot works?
Scraping the latest Meme Monday and then using the API to post.
If you have any questions about the API feel free to post over at core.forem.com
Neat! Also, how does someone make or suggest a tag?
We don’t have any official place right now but I’ll come up with one and get back to you. In the meantime just let me know your idea.
Fan theories for both Gamer and Popcorn Movies and TV Forems, as they are vital parts of both communities.
Hi Ben,
First — thank you for building this platform. DEV has been the only space where I actually enjoy writing and engaging.
I'm Harsh, a freelance web developer from India. I've been writing on DEV for a few weeks now, and while I love the community, I'll admit — growth feels slow initially.
My question is:
As a new writer here, what's one thing you wish more people focused on instead of just chasing views?
Would love to hear your perspective. And regardless — appreciate what you and the team do. 🙏
Happy coding!
Honestly, the thing we always try and encourage more of is starting discussions — whether it's a post that conveys discussion (like this one) or one that is just a question to the community, this is always something we encourage more of vs pure blog posts that don't clearly convey discussion (which are great too!)
This is genuinely helpful, Ben. 🙏
I think I've been guilty of treating my posts as "articles" instead of "conversation starters." Reading this made me go back and look at my writing — and yeah, I can see the difference now.
Follow-up question:
When you see a post that tries to start a discussion but doesn't get many comments — is that usually a timing thing, a title thing, or does it just take time to build that kind of engaged audience?
Would love to know what signals YOU look for when scrolling through the feed. 👀
Thanks again for taking the time to reply. Means a lot coming from you. ❤️
Hey Ben! Just dropping by to say congrats on everything. Honestly, it feels like your days have more than 24 hours! lol. I see you everywhere and always active; it’s really admirable considering all the work you must be doing behind the scenes. Keep it up
Thank you Cesar!
Maybe it's just the winters in Northeast USA, plenty of time to sit around and create when it's cold and dark out :P
How did you grow enough of a following to launch a social network? Any advice for someone who wants to do the same?
Yes, can you please give us advice about how to grow an audience as a dev?
I made a promise to myself that I wouldn't stop working on the project for 10 years, even if traction took forever. Then I methodically worked on content creation and observing what stuck and could lead to further opportunities. It was years of growing on Twitter before even typing
rails newfor what became DEV.Giving myself the room to do a lot of observing while methodically building helped ensure some amount of success. But it's also an area that combines several different skillsets of mine.
FWIW it's going to be way easier for folks to build from scratch on Forem (the extraction from DEV we're working hard on).... We'll soon launch a Forem app which will act as a discovery mechanism for independent Forem social networks hosted in a distributed way, but discoverable through one app.... It's going to be really really cool.
You must have had exceptional belief in DEV community then
Thanks for answering!
I had belief in my own interest in seeing an improvement in online communities. My sense was that I wouldn't get bored of trying to help because I really cared. So with that in mind I also promised myself I wouldn't give up.
In prior ventures I'd either gotten bored or given up primarily because I either didn't truly care about the mission deep down, or got involved with people I didn't like or respect as founders and people. I made sure with this venture to solve for some of those fundamentals early on and let the success come with patience.
Sorry if I missed it, but how many years has it been (since the 10-year stop watch started, anathem-style)?
My snooping suggests ... 8-ish? Though this could be completely misguided.
Thanks for your public inbox. I'm searching for the way to communicated with people.
🙂
Do you now make enough money to support yourself with DEV?
DEV (Forem) was once a ramen story (not paying ourselves, running out of money etc)...
But now the company is pretty well funded and building a very sustainable business model around hosting Forems.
Special Announcement From the DEV Founders
Ben Halpern for The DEV Team ・ Nov 7 '19
Awesome 👏
Congratulations. I will do my best to read that other article.
Hi Ben, I hope you don't mind I used your avatar to create a Loader meme: dev.to/afif/i-made-100-more-css-lo... ?
PS: You may have missed my ping so I am writing you here.
Cheers!
Sorry I saw it, but didn't react. I love it 😅.
Hi Ben, is there any way to get analytics on a post made to dev.to? The number of views figures are nice to see but would love to be able to track where the visitors came from.
Thanks for the great work on this site.
Hi Ben, I read the manifesto essay for Forem recently and was quite excited to see so many of the issues with the current state of the internet expressed so eloquently :)
I was wondering if you have any advice for building successful business models for open source software?
Thanks for starting this, I'm excited to see more community focused software in the future!
Pay a lot of attention to what is established and working (read up on open core), but merge that with an exploration of what hasn’t been tried in the space you’re in — what is the unique way you’ll apply some good established ideas?
Thanks for the reply! I hadn't heard of open core I'll read up on that. I'm currently studying arts and social media at university, and its been very interesting to see how the design choices made by platforms are impacting their use (although also a bit maddening at times).
I think Forem's community-first approach is definitely the right track to be on. The values of open source seem to be pretty well aligned with the direction social media should be taking, though its surprising how rarely open source is considered as an option for that sort of every-day-person-facing software.
Hello Ben
i hope you know me a little bit about
but still I am krishna kakade. Currently I am in my last year of computer science and engineering from India and mostly working in web development related technologies. and i am interested in joining the devto/forem frontend development team as fresher student because i love to write blogs for forem and also i would to like to join core development team of forem and i also have to learn ruby and rails but i will learn it i can join within next 15 days you can also check my personal website here:- krishnadevz.github.io
and resume here :
I am ready to work hard and consistently for the betterment of the company's products.
thank you
have a nice day
kind regards
krishna kakade
Would you be thinking of this as an internship/apprenticeship sort of opportunity?
Yes and also I am about too graduate in next two months thank you 😊
any updates ?
?
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