DEV Community: Jonathan Reimer

Should every developer tool follow product-led growth? with Prashant Sridharan (Tinybird)

Jonathan Reimer — Tue, 19 Sep 2023 07:58:46 +0000

Welcome to a new episode of the Developer-led Podcast! In this episode, we sit down with Prashant Sridharan, the VP of Developer Relations and Marketing at Tinybird, a real-time platform for data and engineering teams. With an impressive 25-year career that includes stops at Microsoft, Twitter, Facebook, and AWS, Prashant shares his invaluable insights into the world of developer products and marketing. Let's dive into the key takeaways from our conversation.

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1. The Role of Developer Relations and Marketing

Emphasizing the need to combine advocacy and marketing efforts, Prashant believes in starting with advocacy to establish a strong presence and build a developer community.

2. Learning from Mistakes: Three Key Lessons

Reflecting on his career, Prashant identified three major mistakes:

Not taking enough chances early in his career.
Overlooking diverse input when developing marketing strategies.
Failing to understand his team's strengths and weaknesses as a leader.

3. Honesty and Transparency in Developer Marketing

Prashant stressed the importance of honesty and transparency in developer marketing. He emphasized that developers expect truthfulness and that marketing should provide valuable information about a product's capabilities over time.

4. Should any Developer Product implement Product-Led Growth (PLG)?

Prashant offered a nuanced perspective on PLG, rejecting absolute notions. He highlighted how PLG can be instrumental for getting started with a product, especially for smaller teams or startups. However, he also advocated for a flexible approach, where PLG can evolve into enterprise contracts.

5. Introducing the ACES framework for PLG adoption

Introducing his ACES framework (Awareness, Conversion, Expansion, and Systems), Prashant guided companies through the phases of PLG adoption, from building awareness to nurturing expansion and developing measurement systems for success.

6. Content, Events, and Paid Ads: Building Developer Engagement

Prashant emphasized the role of founders in driving customer and messaging discovery. Founders have the moral authority to lead these efforts, essential for achieving product-market fit. He discussed the importance of content creation to earn credibility and crafting messaging that resonates with the target audience.

7. The Power of In-Person Events

Highlighting the value of in-person events, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic, Prashant underlined the importance of building relationships and networking in person. He also discussed how messaging evolves based on the company's stage and presence at events.

8. The Ever-Evolving Role of Messaging

Prashant explained how messaging changes over time and the importance of confidently communicating these changes to teams. He stressed the need for listening to customer feedback and incorporating it into messaging strategies.

9. Collaboration and Customer Feedback

Prashant recommended creating a central repository for customer feedback and meeting notes to ensure everyone in the company is aware of customer interactions. He underlined the importance of involving the entire team in the feedback loop.

10. Building Vision and Leadership

Encouraging leaders to build a clear vision for their products and bring the team along as they institute change, Prashant underscored the value of hiring great people and letting them excel in their roles.

To connect with Prashant and follow his insights, you can reach out to him on LinkedIn. In conclusion, Prashant Sridharan provides a wealth of knowledge and experience in the realm of developer marketing. His insights on the intersection of developer relations, marketing, and PLG offer valuable guidance for anyone looking to build and grow successful developer-focused products. Don't miss out on the full podcast episode to delve deeper into these valuable insights.

How to grow a developer blog to 3M annual visitors? with Jakub Czakon (Neptune.ai)

Jonathan Reimer — Thu, 24 Aug 2023 09:06:33 +0000

Welcome to another episode of The Developer-led Podcast, where we dive into the strategies modern companies use to build and grow their developer tools. In this exciting episode, we're joined by Jakub Czakon, the CMO at Neptune.ai, a startup that assists developers in efficiently managing their machine-learning model data. Jakub is renowned not only for his role at Neptune.ai but also for his developer marketing endeavors, including the influential newsletter Developer Markepear and a thriving developer marketing Slack community.

In this episode, Jakub sheds light on his journey, his involvement in developer marketing, and the remarkable achievement of scaling Neptune.ai's blog traffic to a staggering 3 million annual visitors. Let's explore the key insights from this conversation.

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Seizing the Opportunity: Building a Thriving Developer Community

Jakub recognized the significance of cultivating a vibrant developer community early on. He kicked off Neptune.ai's developer marketing initiatives by establishing an engaging Slack community and a resourceful newsletter. The objective was simple: foster collaboration and share valuable insights with like-minded individuals interested in developer marketing.

The Art of Crafting Engaging Content

Neptune.ai's impressive feat of drawing 3 million unique visitors annually to their blog didn't happen by chance. Jakub explains that the process was strategically planned and executed. They tapped into the power of content creation to target various stages of the buyer's journey—ranging from classic marketing to product-aware stages. By identifying gaps in existing content and addressing long-tail keywords, Neptune.ai managed to cater to specific user needs.

Writing for the Right Audience

One crucial aspect of Neptune.ai's success was their ability to tailor content to their audience. Jakub emphasized the importance of understanding the readers and writing content that resonates with them. Whether addressing developers, technical architects, or business executives, Neptune.ai ensured their content was relevant, informative, and impactful.

The Intersection of Developer Marketing and Sales

Connecting developer marketing efforts to sales is an essential aspect of Neptune.ai's strategy. Jakub highlights the concept of "product-led sales," emphasizing the importance of providing strong signals of adoption to technical users. He points out that developer-geared content should offer solutions to real problems developers face, making it more likely for them to engage with the sales process.

Curating Knowledge for Continuous Learning

To stay informed and continually improve, Jakub employs a methodical approach to consuming information. He actively seeks out podcasts, books, and resources on developer marketing and scaling devtools. By diving deep into topics, following experts, and staying updated with the latest trends, Jakub ensures he's well-equipped to drive Neptune.ai's growth.

Through strategic content creation, audience-focused writing, and a keen focus on connecting developer marketing with sales, Neptune.ai's success story offers a roadmap for other developer-focused companies looking to expand their reach. If you're interested in diving deeper into the world of developer marketing and learning from Jakub's experiences, make sure to check out the full podcast episode on The Developer-led Podcast. With the right strategies and dedication, achieving significant growth in the developer community is well within reach.

How to Acquire Users for Your Developer Tool? with Rishabh Kaul (Appsmith)

Jonathan Reimer — Thu, 10 Aug 2023 14:06:46 +0000

Welcome to another exciting episode of the Development Podcast! In today's installment, we're diving into the world of developer marketing with a special guest, Rishabh Kaul, the Head of Marketing at Appsmith. Appsmith is an open-source platform that empowers developers to build custom applications on top of their data sources efficiently. Rishabh, with a background spanning impact investing, robotics, and HR tech, now leads marketing efforts at Appsmith. Let's explore his journey, the strategies behind Appsmith's growth, and his insights into developer marketing.

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From HR Tech to Developer Tools: A Journey of Accidental Expertise

Rishabh's professional journey is nothing short of a captivating adventure. His trajectory has led him from impact investing to robotics, HR tech, and finally to the realm of developer tools. He describes it as a series of accidents, with each experience contributing unique perspectives and insights. Transitioning from marketing HR tech to developer tools was a remarkable shift, involving moving from HR and recruiting professionals to the world of developers, who are known for their strong opinions and technical expertise.
Rishabh's fascination with the B2B space, along with his experience building internal tools in his previous startup, played a crucial role in shaping his path toward developer marketing. This expertise laid the foundation for his role at Appsmith, where he now focuses on reaching developers and addressing their needs effectively.

Empowering Developers with Appsmith: The Essence of the Platform

At its core, Appsmith aims to simplify the process of building custom software for organizations. Many critical operational applications are built on top of proprietary data sources, requiring specialized functionalities and integrations. Traditionally, backend engineers were responsible for developing front-end interfaces, which often wasn't their area of expertise. Appsmith steps in by providing an open-source platform that offers additional functionalities like role-based access control, audit logs, and single sign-on, enabling backend engineers to concentrate on business logic rather than frontend design.
Appsmith's open-source nature makes it particularly attractive to users dealing with sensitive data. Self-hosting and code visibility empower users to maintain control over their data, aligning with modern data security concerns.

Journey to 28,000 GitHub Stars: Unveiling the Growth Strategy

Appsmith's popularity is evident from its impressive 28,000 GitHub stars, but how did they reach this milestone? Rishabh shares some key insights into their growth journey:

Leveraging Online Platforms

In the early days, Appsmith leveraged platforms like dev.to and Hashnode to share their product. Being open source, GitHub was a natural fit for distribution, free from ads and ideal for reaching a tech-savvy audience.

Crafting Comprehensive Content

Appsmith embraced content creation, focusing on creating valuable and relevant content across various platforms. Canonical URLs enabled them to reach wider audiences, contributing to their steady rise in popularity.

Tapping into Communities

Engaging with communities like Reddit and Hacker News provided access to relevant audiences. While front-page placement on Hacker News might be challenging, active participation in discussions and providing valuable insights proved beneficial.

Nurturing Word-of-Mouth

Appsmith's Discord community and podcast collaborations created a network effect, enabling recurring traffic and building brand recognition over time. Nurturing these platforms allowed them to tap into referrals and exponential growth.

Content Strategy Evolution: Finding the Sweet Spot

Appsmith's content strategy evolved with an intentional focus on use case marketing. Rather than just discussing features, they started addressing specific functionalities that were missing in popular tools. This approach, popularized by tools like Zapier, resonated well with audiences seeking practical solutions to their challenges.

Lessons in Developer Marketing: Unveiling Rishabh's Insights

Multichannel Approach

Appsmith has found success in multiple channels like Reddit, LinkedIn, and Discord. However, they acknowledge that each channel has its unique dynamics, and a tailored approach is crucial.

Focus on Word-of-Mouth

Referral traffic and community engagement through platforms like Discord can lead to consistent and exponential growth, making word-of-mouth a powerful strategy.

Thoughtful Feature Marketing

Rather than overwhelming users with a laundry list of features, Appsmith focuses on highlighting how the platform solves specific problems and empowers users.

Evolution of Personas

Rishabh emphasizes the evolving personas in the developer marketing landscape, including non-technical team members. Appsmith's messaging accommodates this shift by addressing a wider audience.

Connect with Rishabh Kaul

Rishabh Kaul is open to connecting with fellow enthusiasts and professionals in the developer marketing space. You can find him on Twitter (@rishabhkaul) and LinkedIn. Whether you want to exchange ideas, learn from his experiences, or explore potential collaborations, Rishabh is eager to engage.

In a dynamic world where developer tools play a pivotal role in innovation, Rishabh Kaul's insights shed light on effective strategies for acquiring users and nurturing a thriving developer community. Appsmith's journey from 0 to 28,000 GitHub stars serves as an inspiring case study for those looking to make their mark in the developer tool landscape.

How to bootstrap an open-source company to $1M ARR? with Ben Rometsch (Flagsmith)

Jonathan Reimer — Tue, 25 Jul 2023 15:11:03 +0000

In this exciting interview, we sit down with Ben Rometsch. Ben is the Founder & CEO of Flagsmith - an Open Source Feature Flag, Remote Config, and AB testing platform. Started in 2019, the open-source company is fully bootstrapped and makes over $1M in annual recurring revenue from companies like Citi Bank, United Health Group, or Komercni Bank. Besides Flagsmith, Ben founded several other companies and serves on the OpenFeature Governance Board of CNCF. He is also the host of the “The Craft of Open Source Podcast”, where he interviews creators and maintainers from the open-source community.

Ben shares the founding story of Flagsmith and how it evolved from a side project within his software agency to a successful independent business. He also discusses the reasons behind their decision to bootstrap the company and the challenges they faced in the process. Additionally, Ben provides valuable insights into their go-to-market strategy and the importance of identifying the ideal customer profile to drive growth. Let's dive into the key takeaways from the interview.

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From Side Project to Independent Business

The founding story of Flagsmith is a classic tale of a side project that emerged from Ben Rometsch's software agency in London. Initially, the platform was built to solve coordination challenges between multiple teams working on different projects. However, as it evolved, it became evident that there was a market need for an open-source feature flagging platform, which led to Flagsmith becoming a standalone business.

The Decision to Bootstrap

One of the remarkable aspects of Flagsmith's journey is that they chose to bootstrap the company, avoiding external funding sources. This decision was driven by several factors. Firstly, the team preferred to maintain complete control over the company's direction without external pressure. Secondly, they wanted to build a business that was profitable early on, and their agency provided the financial flexibility to do so. Finally, as inbound leads from large enterprises started coming in, it became evident that external funding was unnecessary.

Go-to-Market Strategy and Early Ideal Customer Profile

In the early stages, Flagsmith's go-to-market strategy relied on inbound leads from organizations looking for self-hosted, on-premise, or open-source feature flagging solutions. By identifying the gaps in their product offering and listening to potential customers' needs, they refined their ideal customer profile. This process helped them align their product roadmap and prioritize features that addressed customers' pain points.

Sustainable Growth and Competitive Edge

As a bootstrapped company, Flagsmith focuses on sustainable growth and maintaining a competitive edge in the market. They have a growing team, and while they are aware of well-funded competitors, they believe in the power of small teams to drive innovation. Their commitment to open-source values and transparency is a unique selling point, helping them gain the trust of customers who prefer a sustainable and reliable solution.

Looking Ahead - The Future of Flagsmith

In the next five years, Flagsmith envisions steady growth, continuous profitability, and remaining true to their open-source roots. They prioritize staying relevant to customers' needs and keeping the platform user-friendly while expanding their feature set. The goal is to maintain a healthy perspective on growth without feeling the pressure to chase funding or outpace competitors.

Conclusion

The journey of Flagsmith from a side project to a successful open-source company holds valuable lessons for aspiring entrepreneurs and developers. Ben Rometsch's insights on bootstrapping, go-to-market strategy, and customer-centric development provide a roadmap for building a sustainable and profitable business. As Flagsmith continues to grow, its commitment to open-source values and customer satisfaction remains unwavering, making it a standout player in the feature flagging landscape.

To learn more about Flagsmith and stay updated on their progress, you can follow Flagsmith on GitHub and catch Ben’s thoughts on Twitter or LinkedIn.

Why is GitHub not open-source? with Zach Holman (ex GitHub & GitLab)

Jonathan Reimer — Mon, 10 Jul 2023 12:45:38 +0000

GitHub, a widely popular platform for developers, has revolutionized the way code is shared, collaborated on, and managed. However, despite its commitment to open-source software, GitHub itself is not open-source. In a recent interview with Zach Holman, an engineer who worked at GitHub for five years and later advised GitLab, we gain insights into the factors that contributed to GitHub's success, its approach to building a developer community, and the decision to keep the platform closed-source. Let's explore the key takeaways from this conversation.

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Timing and Building a Developer Community

One of the significant factors that played a crucial role in GitHub's success was timing. Zach Holman emphasizes the importance of seizing the right moment to launch a product. GitHub's founders had a deep understanding of the Ruby community, which allowed them to build a strong initial user base. By capturing the attention of influential developers and providing a valuable platform, GitHub started gaining traction organically.

Culture and Developer Evangelism

Zach Holman sheds light on the role of culture and developer evangelism in GitHub's growth. GitHub embraced an open-source approach internally, modeling itself after successful open-source projects. This approach fostered a culture of collaboration and transparency, resonating with developers worldwide. Zach Holman played a pivotal role in promoting this culture through conference talks and advocating for the open-source way of working.

Transitioning to a Larger Organization

As GitHub grew from a small team to a company of 250 employees, it faced unique challenges in maintaining its culture. The addition of managers and the need for more structured processes became inevitable. Zach acknowledges that scaling the company culture while maintaining productivity and innovation was a complex task. The transition from a managerless organization to one with a hierarchical structure required careful implementation and adjustments.

The Open-Source Dilemma

The decision to keep GitHub itself closed-source, despite its focus on open-source software, was a subject of ongoing discussion within the company. Zach Holman acknowledges the merits of both approaches. While open-sourcing aspects of the product can promote transparency and community collaboration, it also presents challenges in managing contributions, dealing with potential negativity, and maintaining a competitive advantage. GitHub's experience and exposure to various scenarios influenced the team's perspective on open-sourcing their entire product.

GitHub vs. GitLab: Differences and Perspectives

Having also advised GitLab, another prominent platform for developers, Zach Holman provides insights into the significant differences between the two companies. GitLab's strong commitment to open-source principles and its transparent decision-making processes set it apart. Zach acknowledges that GitLab's open-sourceness has a significant impact on its culture and product development pace. However, he emphasizes that both GitHub and GitLab have found success by employing different approaches, proving that there isn't a single correct path.

Transitioning from Engineering to Angel Investing

Zach Holman's journey from engineering at GitHub to angel investing brings a unique perspective to the discussion. He highlights the advantage of having technical knowledge when investing in tech companies. By advising and investing in different startups, Zach gained valuable insights into diverse industries, broadening his perspective. Investing became an extension of his advisory role, allowing him to leverage his experience to make informed decisions.

Wrapping up

The interview with Zach Holman provides valuable insights into the growth of GitHub, the challenges of scaling company culture, and the decision-making process behind keeping the platform closed-source. GitHub's success can be attributed to factors such as perfect timing, a strong developer community, and an open-source culture. While GitHub remains closed-source, the conversation also highlights the merits of open-sourcing aspects of a product. Ultimately, the success of platforms like GitHub and GitLab showcases that different approaches can lead to remarkable achievements in the developer community.

What are Developer Relations? with Tanay Pant (ex Okta, n8n, Crate)

Jonathan Reimer — Mon, 19 Jun 2023 09:19:43 +0000

In the fast-paced world of software development, building strong relationships with developers is crucial for the success of products and platforms. Developer Relations (DevRel) is a field that focuses on fostering these relationships and empowering developers to be successful. In this episode of Developer-led, we will explore key insights from Tanay Pant, as he shares his journey into DevRel and provides valuable perspectives on the field.

Tanay Pant is a 4 times author, software developer, and open-source advocate. He is best known for his work on "Building a Virtual Assistant for Raspberry Pi" and "Learning Firefox OS Application Development". He has been acknowledged for his contributions to the different open-source projects of the Mozilla Foundation. Based in Berlin, Tanay has been working in several Developer Relation roles over the last years for companies including Okta, n8n, and Crate.

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Finding Inspiration in Open Source Communities

Tanay Pant's journey into DevRel was not a premeditated plan but rather a natural progression of his involvement in open source communities, particularly the Mozilla Foundation. He engaged in activities such as working with Firefox student ambassadors, organizing events, and writing books. Through these experiences, he discovered the overlap between his work and the activities of DevRel professionals. This realization sparked his interest in exploring the field further.

Defining Developer Relations

Developer Relations can be defined by four key components: evangelism, experience, advocacy, and community. Evangelism focuses on making developers aware of products and solutions that can address their specific needs. Experience ensures that developers who discover these products have a seamless and successful journey. Advocacy empowers community members to advocate for and promote the products they love. Lastly, community building involves creating an engaged and supportive developer community. Not all companies prioritize every aspect of DevRel, as their focus depends on their specific business goals and stage of development.

Balancing Business Objectives and Developer Interests

A critical aspect of DevRel is striking a balance between the business objectives of the company and the interests of developers within the community. Tanay Pant emphasizes the importance of transparency and clear communication to avoid misalignments. If significant differences arise between company objectives and community interests, it is crucial to reflect on the strategies and promises made to the community. Transparency helps ensure that the community remains engaged and that decision-making involves their input.

Measuring the Value of Developer Relations

Before hiring a DevRel team, it is essential to clearly define the value it will bring to the company. Tanay Pant suggests that metrics should be established upfront, aligning with high-level company objectives. These metrics should guide the team's activities and provide measurable outcomes. Strategies employed in early-stage startups may differ from those in larger companies, considering the different personas and communities involved.

Building and Maintaining Developer Relationships

Empathy is key to building and maintaining relationships with developers in a community. Understanding their challenges, pain points, and aspirations is crucial. Engaging with developers through various channels, such as product onboarding sessions, support forums, and participating in broader discussions, helps foster meaningful connections. Tanay Pant mentions using tools like Equalize to monitor conversations and engage with relevant content.

Controversial View: DevRel Might Not Be Necessary for All Companies

Tanay Pant shares a controversial view that not all companies, especially early-stage startups, may require a dedicated DevRel function. Instead, they might benefit from specific expertise such as growth hacking or marketing. For such cases, consulting with DevRel professionals can provide the required guidance and support without establishing a full-fledged DevRel team.

The Future of Developer Relations

As DevRel continues to grow, Tanay Pant envisions the emergence of more consultancies specializing in the field. These consultancies can assist companies in building and nurturing developer communities. Additionally, he predicts that the DevRel industry will further cultivate a culture of career growth and development within the field.

How to grow a GitHub project to 20k stars? with Nevo David (Novu)

Jonathan Reimer — Tue, 30 May 2023 10:00:00 +0000

In the world of open source, gaining traction and attracting GitHub stars is a common goal for companies. However, achieving significant growth in a short period of time is no easy feat. In this episode of Developer-led, we will delve into the key insights shared by Nevo David, the growth wizard behind Novu, an open source notification infrastructure for developers. Nevo managed to skyrocket Novu's GitHub repository from 2,000 to over 20,000 stars in just one year, employing a combination of engineering, marketing, growth hacking, and community tactics. Join us as we explore Nevo's journey from developer to growth marketer and uncover the strategies that propelled Novu to rapid success.

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From Developer to Growth Marketer

Nevo David shares his transition from a decade-long career as a developer to embracing his passion for entrepreneurship and marketing. As a digital nomad, Nevo had the freedom to explore his entrepreneurial instincts and learned valuable lessons from his early projects. He discovered the importance of achieving product-market fit and realized that simply building a product does not guarantee its success. This realization sparked his interest in marketing and growth hacking, ultimately leading him to the role of growth expert at Novu.

Systematic Growth Strategies

Unlike many open source startups that rely on long-term organic growth, Novu's growth trajectory was nothing short of remarkable. Nevo shares the systematic strategies that propelled Novu's repository from 2,000 to over 20,000 stars in less than a year. The key was to maximize visibility and drive traffic to the project. Nevo and his team focused on becoming trending repositories on GitHub by leveraging external platforms such as DEV, Medium, Hacker News or Reddit. They published articles and collaborated with influencers, strategically choosing platforms and content formats that resonated with their target audience.

Leveraging Developer Influencers for Growth

Nevo reveals the role of influencers in Novu's growth strategy. While influencers may attract a predominantly junior audience, they hold significant traffic potential. Nevo collaborated with influencers who aligned with Novu's target market and generated buzz around the project. By leveraging influencer partnerships, Novu was able to tap into new networks, gain exposure, and attract more stars to the repository. Nevo emphasizes the need to diversify influencer collaborations to reach different regions and maximize impact.

Crafting an Effective Readme and Documentation

Beyond marketing tactics, Nevo highlights the importance of a well-crafted Readme file and comprehensive documentation. These resources play a vital role in capturing the attention of potential users. Nevo advises developers to create clear, concise, and engaging descriptions of their projects, catering to both technical and non-technical audiences. He shares insights on how to experiment with different formats, including memes and captivating one-liners, to pique curiosity and drive interest.

Short-term Focus and Niche Audience

Nevo stresses the significance of short-term goals and targeting niche audiences. Rather than solely focusing on long-term plans, he recommends dedicating attention to immediate growth opportunities. By honing in on a specific audience and delivering value through targeted marketing efforts, developers can generate initial momentum. Nevo emphasizes the need to balance development and marketing efforts, highlighting his personal experience of achieving substantial growth by prioritizing marketing activities for several months.

Conclusion

Growing a GitHub project to over 20,000 stars in a short period requires a strategic blend of engineering, marketing, and community tactics. Nevo David's insights provide valuable guidance for open source founders and developers looking to achieve rapid growth. By embracing marketing, leveraging influencers, optimizing documentation, and focusing on short-term goals, developers can maximize their project's visibility, attract a dedicated user base, and achieve significant growth on GitHub. You can learn more about how Nevo grew Novu from 2k to 20k GitHub stars on his website github20k.com.

If you liked this podcast episode, make sure to follow me on Twitter. I'm regularly publishing podcasts and other content on all things open-source growth.

ossjobs.dev 👋 land your next job in open source

Jonathan Reimer — Tue, 23 May 2023 15:24:40 +0000

We at crowd.dev are excited to share something we’ve been working on in the background for our community: ossjobs.dev. 🚀

ossjobs.dev is a job board to help passionate individuals find their next career opportunity, specifically in the open-source space.

The idea for the job board came to us when we were busy hiring at crowd.dev last month. During the process, two things stuck out to us:

An ever-growing number of talented professionals (not just developers!) are passionate and highly motivated to work in the open-source sector.
Current open-source job boards tend to focus solely on developer roles or require companies to pay hefty fees to post job listings.

Noticing this gap in the market, our Growth Engineer, Igor Kotua, went out and built ossjobs.dev over a weekend.

The platform already includes 30+ job openings in various open-source startups, covering roles in engineering, marketing, and people management. We've tried to make it super simple to find a suitable role, and you can filter by remote work possibilities, salary range, category, and company.

And the best part for open source companies? It's 100% free to post your job openings.

If you are currently eyeing up your next career move, we encourage you to try out ossjobs.dev or share it with anyone you know on the hunt for an opportunity with one of many thriving open-source startups.

On the flip side, if you are part of an open-source company searching for open-source enthusiasts to fill your vacant roles, make sure to upload your listing on the platform.

Our goal with ossjobs.dev is to help make the process of finding and filling these roles a simpler and more targeted experience for all involved.

In today's hiring market, we genuinely hope that ossjobs.dev can help someone find a great new gig. So join us in spreading the word and happy job hunting! ❤️

If you like ossjobs.dev and you want to support our work, please feel free to leave a GitHub star for crowd.dev (the company sponsoring this project). ⭐️

How to build a developer community: a step-by-step guide‍

Jonathan Reimer — Mon, 15 May 2023 23:35:20 +0000

For companies targeting developers, a healthy community is crucial to get a product off the ground and grow sustainably in the long term. However, building a vibrant community is not an easy task.

Developers tend to be cautious and skeptical about how brands engage with them. The usual marketing and sales speak won't work with this audience, and you don't get a second chance to make a good first impression (for more, we wrote about why traditional marketing doesn't work for developers here). Developer-focused businesses have identified community building based on authentic interactions as a more effective strategy for expansion than marketing.

While positive effects on growth is the outcome, building a community that provides actual value and authentic interactions to its members needs to be the primary goal. If you get this right, it will have a positive impact on your product and company.

But where do you begin, especially if you don't have a dedicated community or DevRel department yet? We created this guide to help you lay the groundwork for your community approach, provide advice on how to get started, and then keep the engagement going.

‍

Here is what we will cover:

Defining (developer) communities and why they are important
Developing your community strategy
Choosing your community platform
Finding your community members
Creating rich content for your community
Creating consistent engagement & finding your advocates
Building relationships
Writing a Code of Conduct
Measuring the success of your community

‍

First, what is a (developer) community, and why is it important?

A community is a group of people unified by a common characteristic. This commonality may be shared interests, attitudes, values, and needs. Originally communities tended to share geographical space, but nowadays, it's often through virtual community platforms. Developer communities are a group of developers that come together to learn, share ideas, support each other, and build software through collective knowledge.

Some common platforms developers gather include Discord, Twitter, Slack, Reddit, GitHub, and others. Virtual or in-person events are also common ways for developer communities to assemble.

So why should you care?

Done right, a community of like-minded people with shared interests and goals can be an efficient tool for exploring and solving problems together. They can be the basis for successful bottom-up adoption to accelerate customer acquisition, retention, and engagement. They help developer-focused companies stay close to their user base and get unique insights into their needs and ways of working towards product-market fit and widespread adoption. Some companies that have subscribed much of their success to their community include Figma, Notion, GitLab, and Stripe.

Hopefully, you're convinced now, so let's dive deeper into how to start a developer community.

Do your research and develop your community strategy

Starting a Discord or Slack server and pointing to it on your homepage doesn't mean you have a community. Especially in the early days, when very few people know about your project, you need to do the legwork to get it going.

The good thing about starting from scratch is that you can be intentional about how you set up your community. You can create an environment that delivers value to your community and fits your business goal. For example, if you want a community that helps you generate content for specific use cases, your questions and interactions will be different than if your goal is for developers to share their best practices with each other.

Based on the project or business you are building, there are a few questions you should ask yourself to develop your community strategy:

What are the needs of the developers you hope will join your community?
What value can the community bring to your members that fulfill their needs?
Is it mainly to provide support content?
Do you want to share helpful information about your product?
Are you hoping to stimulate some contributions to your open-source project?
How will you be communicating that value to your members?
Will a community bring you closer to your company mission?
How much time will you have to commit to engaging your community? How many times a day/week/month will you post in your community?
Who in your team is responsible for which tasks around your community?
What kind of core values do you want within your community?
Where do your target community members spend their time? How will you convince them to join your community?
What platforms do your target community members like using? Do you want your community to be on a public or closed channel?

To stimulate some thoughts and clarify all this, think about the (developer) communities you or your team members have been a part of. Which were successful and which maybe weren't so inspiring? Can you take some learnings from these communities and bring them into the one you are building? There are already many case studies and blogs out there from businesses that created thriving communities. For example, you can check out the following:

Write down your answers to the questions above and articulate your strategy and goals accordingly. Like you have hopefully done for your business, write your community vision, mission, and values statements. At this point, you can also start thinking about what kind of content you could prepare in advance to get a community going and encourage initial interactions between members.

Our advice: Be strategic. Think thoroughly about your community's target audience and goals before you start. Most importantly, identify the value you can bring to your members and what this will look like in practice. Really articulate it and write it down somewhere.

Choose where you want to build a community

As mentioned, there are a lot of different channels where developer communities gather and interact. It can range from your followers on Twitter and contributors on GitHub to your invite-only Discord server. Your community will be dispersed depending on where you are already active and building your developer tool. And this is a good thing; you want to meet developers where they are and have several points of entry for interested individuals to find and engage with you.

However, as far as you can, and especially when it comes to your owned communication platforms, e.g., Discord, Slack, or Mattermost, we encourage you to pick one and master it. Figure out the best channel and format for your group of developers. Ask yourself: How many members do I want to reach? Are there any specific functionalities you need?

We have written a few guides on different platforms and communications tools where you can get a detailed overview:

If you focus on building your community on too many channels simultaneously, it will be challenging to create and tailor content accordingly. Additionally, they will look and feel more empty because your members will be scattered. If you focus on one channel, you can create richer content, it will fill more steadily, engagement will rise, and you can directly reach a more significant portion of your community through it.

Our advice: Be intentional about where you build your community, focus your efforts on one channel first and grow from there.

Find your first community members and create a strong core

Your first thought when building a community might be to grow as fast as possible*. *However, we recommend first building a strong and active core. This core consists of a handful of members who share the same passion for the space you are building in as you do. So again, this might sound counterintuitive at first, but start small and grow slowly.

With a small, hand-picked group of people, you can more easily shape and model your community to align with your strategy. It is much harder to change directions with a large number of people. Also, it can help your initial members feel more valued and influential. As you may have heard before, building a product that a few people love, rather than thousands, turns out to be more potent at the start.

So try starting small. Invite 10-50 members to your community launch. Let them know you hand-picked them to be part of your small group and say why you would love them to join. Those people will be your founding members, the backbone of your community. Make sure that you can tick the following boxes for your founding members:

They are interested in what you are building and happy to provide feedback on MVPs
They are very willing to join the community and are likely to be active members
They share the same values and community culture
They see value in being founding members
Bonus: they have a high reach and strong network in your space

Don't underestimate the impact your founding members have on the development of your future community. These founding members will interact with each other, share content, and create a culture that hopefully represents your vision. Members that join later will see, observe and replicate their behavior.

For inspiration on getting your first community members, check out first1000members.com for an overview of how successful open-source projects grew their communities at the start.

Our advice: Start small, be selective, and grow slowly.

Nurture and grow your community with content

Content really is king for developer community building. Not only can it help you attract your first members who might have otherwise never heard about you, but it is also the primary way you can create value for your community members. Which, as we discussed, is key to a thriving community.

For developers, content is at its best when it's highly technical, specific, and informative. Developers in your community tend to have an existing broad knowledge base of the space and industry you are building in and will have a high degree of technical knowledge. That's why content needs to be extremely rich and specific to add more to their current understanding.

The right content helps you achieve your growth goals. Great content tends to be shared; if just a few people in your community do this, the effect can be huge.

A few essential buckets of content that will help bring your developers to you, support them in adopting and contributing to your project, and keep them engaged:

Blogs: Including, for example, detailed how-to pieces, case studies, interviews, and industry news and trends
Technical Product Docs: These will include detailed information on your product architecture (check out crowd.dev product docs as a reference here)
A Newsletter: A monthly newsletter with product updates or community news
FAQs/Support channel: A place where developers can turn to to get their questions answered

Your community will also be a great source for future content. If you keep close tabs on everything going on in your community, you'll be able to identify what types of content are still missing and are being requested. On top of that, you can even crowdsource content from your community; GitLab, for example, works very closely with its developer community to generate their technical documentation and blog posts.

Our advice: Invest a substantial amount of time into content, as it's the lifeblood of your community. Make sure it's highly targeted to your developer audience. We definitely vote for quality over quantity when it comes to content and build-up over time.

Create lasting engagement & find your advocates

We have talked to hundreds of DevTool founders, and one of the biggest challenges of starting and growing a community is to keep the engagement going after an initial spike and excitement. Disclaimer: community building and bottom-up growth take continuous effort. You can't just put in the time upfront and then leave it up to your members to keep the momentum going.

One essential engagement tool will be your content which we discussed earlier. A constant stream of high-quality content will give you and your members plenty to discuss. You can ask your members for their opinions and experiences to encourage them to learn from each other. When members are genuinely involved, that makes a difference and turns a community into a community.

The main idea is to give people a platform to share their experiences and insights about your product and the entire ecosystem around your product.

Here are a few more ways to engage your community and encourage interaction:

Have a well-planned onboarding - Welcome your new members, ask them to introduce themselves, and provide some background (make a list of things that would be useful in relation to your product and community goals).
Ask for feedback on your product - For example, whenever you ship a new feature or are deciding on your product roadmap ask your community for some feedback. Pro tip: highlight to the community when you have incorporated their feedback and give specific people shout-outs, kudos, or swag for being extra supportive.
Be responsive - A big part is just answering all questions and comments in a timely and interested way. Avoid dead-end or one-word answers and keep the conversation flowing once one has started.

Potentially the most potent tool for long-term and high engagement is finding some developer advocates and keeping them enchanted with you and your product. Find your community's most active and high-reach developers and treat them well. These individuals can take on a leading role in and outside your community to spread awareness and excitement around your product. We will go over some more ways to encourage these individuals in the next section.

With crowd.dev, our developer-focused community growth platform, we easily allow you to filter and spot influential or highly engaged individuals.

Our advice: Walk the talk, share content for discussion, and ask for feedback from your members. If you see some who have the potential to become advocates, give them some extra love and attention - it will be worth your while.

Build authentic relationships

Your task as a community leader is to increase engagement and grow your community. You can do this by recognizing valuable members and giving them the limelight they deserve. For example, you can hand out kudos, and share individual member stories in a blog post or a podcast.

If you want to go above and beyond, you can implement a rewards system: statuses, points, badges of honor, or even give out awards. This will motivate your members to contribute productively and make them feel appreciated. SWAG or free services are also a great way of winning people over - who doesn't love a good hoodie?

Another approach is through events. They can either be online, like a webinar or hackathon or in person at a conference or a down-to-earth pizza and beer event at your office. You can invite expert speakers to share their projects or do live coding tutorials, whatever suits your community best. Hosting these events gives you insights into your community's interests and lets you know what kind of content works with your audience and what doesn't. We recommend you host these events regularly, at least once per quarter but preferably once per month.

Later, when you have established a relationship with your community, you can start thinking about community-led events. Let the community members organize events themselves. It personalizes the community experience, and the hosts probably understand the community's needs better than you.

We pointed out that the founding members provide a specific value for your community. So you should put in extra effort to let them know they are highly valued. You can do this by:

Hosting dinners (in-person)
Private Zoom calls
Live experiences
Swag
Discounts
Asking for their opinion & feedback
Letting them host events
Giving away privileges and responsibilities

Our advice: Build a strong community bond by doing things like implementing a rewards system and hosting events.

Implement a code of conduct

For a community to thrive, you need a safe atmosphere. Your members should feel welcome and free to share their thoughts without worrying about judgment or harsh commentary. What we don't want is for our community to turn into another hostile Reddit thread.

You want your community to be active, share insights, learn from, and debate with each other. Sometimes developers (as we all) can be passionate about a topic and end up being less professional in tone - especially behind the barrier of the internet. Act as a social guide and watch your participants' interactions. Interfere if necessary. Participants should feel heard and respected.

However, you also need to strike a balance and don't want to go overboard with your restrictions and rules, as this may block real conversation.

As a leader, it is your responsibility to shape the culture of your community by carrying through a healthy policy. It goes without saying that sexism, racism, harassment, and any kind of discrimination shouldn't be tolerated. You should create a code of conduct and share it within your community. Maintaining a contact page where members can report violations and take action when necessary sends a solid message to your community.

Our advice: Make clear there is no space for discrimination in your community by creating and implementing a code of conduct - think of it as your community manifesto.

Measure & manage the success of your community

Without the right tools, this one is a challenge. How do you really measure and track the health and success of your community efforts? It's time-consuming and continuous work, especially when your community is spread across platforms and multiple conversations are going on at any one time. However, we do recommend measuring as much as you can; otherwise, you won't know what is working and what's not. It's also important to choose metrics that relate to your business and growth goals, not just vanity metrics like community size and likes.

We have written extensively about the top metrics to measure for open-source communities here. It will depend somewhat on your goals and type of product, however, some of the most important ones include:

Community sentiment
Time to first response
Number of qualified leads within the community
Amount of feedback collected
Engagement level (also related to specific content)
% of active members
Community growth

To help, we've built crowd.dev, the community-led growth engine for developer-first companies. crowd.dev makes tracking, getting insights from, and turning community into real growth much more effortless. We give you rich information on all your community members across platforms and can provide valuable metrics like sentiment analysis. You can also quickly identify members that are highly engaged, but also those are likely to slip away so you can take targeted action.

We also know that metrics without a reference can be pretty meaningless. We strive to give you reports based on industry best practices and benchmarks to show you whether your community is healthy. You can download it for free and choose from a hosted version or host it yourself.

Whether it's with crowd.dev or through manual tracking, gaining an understanding of the impact your community efforts have is critical to shaping your future actions.

Our advice: Find the metrics that suit your goals and continuously measure your community right from the start.

Key Takeaways

Be strategic. Think thoroughly about your community's target audience and goals before you start. Most importantly, identify the value you can bring to your members and what this will look like in practice. Really articulate it and write it down somewhere.
Be intentional about where you build your community, focus your efforts on one channel first and grow from there.
Invest a substantial amount of time into content as it's the lifeblood of your community. Make sure it is highly targeted to your technical developer audience. We definitely vote for quality over quantity when it comes to content and build-up over time.
Walk the talk, share content for discussion, and ask for feedback from your members. If you see some who have the potential to become advocates, give them some extra love and attention - it will be worth your while.
Build a strong community bond by doing things like implementing a rewards system and hosting events.
Make clear there is no space for discrimination in your community by creating and implementing a code of conduct - think of it as your community manifesto.
Find the metrics that suit your goals and continuously measure your community right from the start.

If you liked this article and you want to support our work, leave crowd.dev a GitHub star. ⭐️

How to build a developer community? with Jana Iris (Employee #10, HashiCorp)

Jonathan Reimer — Wed, 10 May 2023 14:01:13 +0000

Welcome to the first episode of Developer-led - the show where we explore how modern companies build and distribute developer products. We’re honored to have Jana Iris joining us for the very first episode.

Jana is one of the OGs in developer community building. As employee number 10 at HashiCorp, she has scaled one of the most iconic developer communities from 0 to millions of developers. Furthermore, she was involved in building developer communities at companies like Engine Yard, New Relic, and Sourcegraph. Starting in 2022, she angel invested in over 10 early stage startups - mostly in the open-source and DevTool space - until she turned her side project into a full-time profession and joined TQ Ventures, a small but mighty firm that raised $500m.

In this interview, Jana shares her journey into the world of developer communities, the importance of education, empathy, and consistent efforts in building a thriving community. She also talks about the future of developer communities and the potential role of AI.

Listen to this Podcast 🎧
You can listen to this episode of Developer-led on all regular podcast platforms.

Entering the World of Developer Communities

Jana's journey into community building began when she started working at Engine Yard in 2008. Back then, there wasn't a playbook on how to build developer communities, so they started by sponsoring open source projects and contributors, hiring open source contributors full time, and hosting meetups. These naturally occurring actions laid the groundwork for what is nowadays considered “community building”.

The Evolution of Developer Communities

Over the past 10 years, the role of developer communities has changed significantly. Companies have embraced a bottom-up marketing approach focusing on developers adopting and loving a tool, product, or service. This shift has resulted in a rise in community-led and product-led growth strategies.

Building a Developer Community: The Playbook

When founders ask Jana how to build a developer community, she emphasizes that there is no single answer. Instead, it's important to be consistent and focus on the core pillars of community building, such as education, peer-to-peer validation, and empathy. These principles, combined with strategic programs like ambassador programs and user feedback initiatives, help foster a community-building mindset within a team. Learn more about the Five Pillars of Building a Developer Community on Jana’s blog.

The Importance of Metrics in Community Building

Jana wishes she had focused more on tracking metrics and aligning community-building efforts with company goals earlier in her career. By measuring and tracking from the beginning, community leaders can better demonstrate the value of their work and contribute to the overall success of the company.

The Future of Developer Communities

While it's difficult to predict the future of developer communities, Jana believes that embracing emerging tools and technologies, such as AI, will be crucial for community builders. AI could help simplify tasks, curate content, and facilitate introductions within the community, but human involvement will still be essential in designing and implementing these programs.

As the landscape of developer communities continues to evolve, it's essential for companies and community leaders to adapt and explore new ways to engage and support their audiences. By staying true to the core principles of education, validation, and empathy, community builders can continue to create meaningful connections and drive success for their organizations.

Developer-led is brought to you by crowd.dev - the open-source platform to centralize community, product, and customer data.

If you want to support our work, leave a star on GitHub ⭐️.

Eagle Eye - Grow your DevTool by engaging with content

Jonathan Reimer — Tue, 14 Mar 2023 10:30:50 +0000

90% of developers visit online communities to get help when they are stuck (Stack Overflow, 2020). It’s safe to say that communities are the lifeline of the developer world. It’s where developers explore new products, ask questions to peers, and make buying decisions.

However, starting and growing developer communities around your DevTool is hard work. Developers don't respond well to traditional marketing. They don't like to be sold to, are active on specific social platforms, and trust their peers more than anything else. Therefore, ads, whitepapers, or cold emails have notoriously low conversion rates.

What does work well is building relationships with developers based on common interests. One of the most effective ways to do this is to spot content related to your DevTool and insert yourself in the conversation.

That’s why we built Eagle Eye (live on Product Hunt today!).

Eagle Eye lets you discover and engage with the most relevant content in your developer niche. It continuously monitors 10+ developer-focused platforms and generates a personalized feed for you to jump into discussions and add value. If you demonstrate expertise, developers will get curious and check out your profile, learning more about your DevTool.

‍Eagle Eye will help you never miss a discussion in your developer niche or even about your product. It’s an organic and systematic way to grow your DevTool and will bring you a long way in developer adoption if used consistently.

If you would like to support us 👉 Product Hunt Launch 🚀

Discover useful insights about any GitHub repo

Jonathan Reimer — Thu, 12 Jan 2023 13:55:19 +0000

There are over 368 million public repositories on GitHub. And over 100k are added every day.

It's nearly impossible to stay ahead of things and distinguish between "good" & "bad" projects.

Therefore, many people are relying on Stars to evaluate the relevance of a project. But Stars are a vanity metric and don't say more than Twitter followers or Facebook likes.

That's why we built AnalyzeMyRepo.com. 🔍

It's a free & open-source tool we built to make your life easier when analyzing and discovering GitHub repositories. It gives you an analysis of the adoption, contribution, diversity, and governance of any open-source repository.

It crunches data from 150k+ repositories daily and provides charts, checklists, and written summaries.

My favorite feature is the GPT-3 powered search that lets you discover open-source projects with search queries like "game engines in rust". It really works like magic.

We launched analyzemyrepo.com on ProductHunt today and would really appreciate your feedback there. 🙌

What's the first repo that you're going to analyze?