Unlocking the ‘aha’ moment: Developer relations for startups

Developer relations (DevRel) can be a cornerstone of product adoption and growth for early-stage companies, but too often early-stage companies end up focusing on the wrong things. The linchpin for success lies in how quickly developers reach their first "aha" moment—that pivotal interaction when they truly grasp your product's core value and potential. This moment might occur when a developer successfully integrates an API, deploys their first app, or sees the output from code they've written using your tools. 

Hello, I’m Jarod Reyes, Head of Developer Community for SignalFire. Before I joined SignalFire, I spent my career building high-performing developer relations teams at Twilio, Auth0, and PlanetScale and advising startups on how to do DevRel at an early stage. While many startups are eager to build a community from day one, doing DevRel well at an early stage requires you to focus your limited resources. In this article, I’ll cover:

• Focusing on tight product loops in order to accelerate product-market fit
• The importance of getting developers to the “aha” moment in your product and how using a product marketing mindset can help
• How to identify the “aha” moment within your early users
• How to build an incredible developer experience, from documentation to code samples to product onboarding
• The pitfalls of trying to be “everywhere, all the time” as a young company
• Leveraging open source as a way to drive growth and build a community simultaneously

DevRel as product marketing in disguise: Fast-track to 'aha'

The "aha" moment is when a developer first experiences your product's core value. For Twilio, it was when developers sent their first text or made a phone ring with code. For Docker, it was when developers realized they could quickly containerize an entire application. These moments transform casual users into passionate advocates. 

In early-stage companies, developer relations is essentially your product marketing. Every interaction—from documentation to demos—should quickly drive developers to this pivotal moment. At Twilio, we focused all our efforts on getting developers to send that first text or make that first call, but only after we briefly described the larger mission of making communications programmatic. This approach aligned our marketing with developers' needs and expectations and tied it back to a mission that they could imagine using in different ways (notably that tied back to revenue for Twilio). 

Of course as dev tools and tech products move deeper into the engineering org, the “aha” moments might be hard to recognize; the value of your product is not going to be the same as Twilio or Docker. 

To develop your product's "aha" moment:

1. Identify the key action that demonstrates your product's value.
   1. In most cases, this is the action within your product that helps the developer or business unlock the most value. So think beyond the empty state to where early customers have gotten excited. 
   2. Examples: 
      1. Inviting another team member to the project 
      2. Creating a workflow that posts to Slack
      3. Importing a database
      4. Successfully connecting to a staging environment 
2. Streamline the path to that action.
3. Measure the time it takes users to reach it.
4. Continuously optimize this process.

By prioritizing swift value delivery, you're more likely to turn developers into champions for your technology. This strategy is crucial for early-stage companies—every new advocate can significantly impact growth.

Tactic: 

• Structure your content and demos around problem-solving journeys rather than feature explanations. 
• Create micro-tutorials and observe your early adopters completing them. This validates your assumptions and timeboxes your content efforts, avoiding monolithic docs that repel early adopters. 

Measuring the “aha”: Track the time-to-value for new developers. How long does it take from sign-up to their first meaningful interaction (like deploying code or using an API successfully)? You can measure this by monitoring actions such as completing a quickstart guide, running their first successful API call, or making their first deployment.

Create tight feedback loops for every new release

Throughout my career in developer relations, I've witnessed the transformative power of co-creating products with developers. Instead of developing features in isolation, I've found that actively involving users in the process yields remarkable results. By running micro-experiments, beta tests, and alpha groups, we can tap into the collective wisdom of our early adopters.

This collaborative approach has consistently delivered two major advantages:

• It provides us with unmistakable signals of product-market fit.
• It cultivates a core group of passionate champions.

I've seen firsthand how champions can multiply marketing efforts. At PlanetScale our early adopters (and beta testers) created videos, wrote tutorials, and drove much of our early growth. Their authentic excitement and deep understanding of the product resonated with other developers in a way that traditional marketing simply couldn’t match.

Moreover, this co-creation process often leads to unexpected innovations. Developers using your product in real-world scenarios frequently uncover use cases or potential features that you might not have considered otherwise. This continuous feedback loop keeps your team agile and ensures that your product evolves in alignment with actual user needs, rather than your assumptions.

Tactic: Host micro-experiments like hackathons or closed beta tests. Let your engineers sit with developers as they use your product to get direct feedback on the developer experience. This positions developer relations as an extension of the product management team.

Measuring engagement: Track how many developers participate in these co-creation events and how many continue to engage with your product afterward. Monitor the quality and quantity of feedback received and how it influences your product roadmap.

Building a stellar developer experience 

After identifying your product's “aha” moment and co-creating with early adopters, it's crucial to focus on crafting an exceptional developer experience. This means removing barriers and elevating the quality of your documentation, SDKs, APIs, and product onboarding process. The goal is to enable builders to quickly validate your product within their team and organization.

Companies like Stripe and Plaid are renowned for their excellent SDKs and phenomenal developer experience. Stripe's well-designed APIs and comprehensive documentation make it easy for developers to integrate payment processing into their applications. Plaid's developer-friendly approach to financial data access has made it a favorite among FinTech builders. These companies understand that a smooth, intuitive developer experience is key to rapid adoption and organic growth.

Jacob Petrie, who leads Developer Relations at Datadog and formerly Stripe (and is a SignalFire mentor), says, “Docs lead as the primary entry point and driver of understanding your product with developers. They are a factual representation of your product and how it works and should avoid sales or marketing language. Their purpose is to educate so that the reader can make decisions on if, and how, the product will solve their needs.”

When developers can easily integrate your product and see immediate value, they become internal champions. They're more likely to advocate for your solution within their organization, leading to early sales wins. This positive experience spreads through word of mouth as developers share their success stories with peers at meetups, conferences, and online forums.

Remember, a great developer experience isn't just about the technical aspects. Responsive support channels, regular updates, and a willingness to act on feedback all contribute to a positive perception of your product and company.

By prioritizing developer experience, you're not just making it easier for individuals to use your product—you're laying the groundwork for viral adoption within organizations and across the broader developer community.

Tactic:

• Focus on creating clear, concise documentation with plenty of code examples and use cases. 
• Offer SDKs in multiple popular languages to reduce friction for developers working in different tech stacks. 
• Ensure your APIs are well documented, follow best practices, and are versioned appropriately to avoid breaking changes.

Bonus: Consider providing interactive tutorials or sandbox environments where developers can experiment with your product without committing to a full integration. This allows for quick validation and helps build confidence in your solution.

Measuring developer experience:

1. Net Promoter Score (NPS) for developers

2. Documentation quality score (based on user ratings and feedback)

3. Time to first successful API call

4. Support ticket resolution time

5. SDK adoption rate

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Focus—don’t try to be ‘everywhere, all the time'

Nascent startups must resist the temptation to cast a wide net with their developer relations initiatives. A targeted approach is not only more cost-effective but also yields better results. By honing in on highly engaged niche communities that perfectly align with your product, you can maximize your impact. 

Examine your early adopters—those enthusiastic individuals who jumped at the chance to test your alphas and betas—to guide your focus. By avoiding the pitfall of spreading yourself too thin, you create the bandwidth necessary to refine your product, documentation, and support channels, ultimately leading to stronger connections with your core user base and more sustainable growth.

Tactic:

• Identify the job titles and roles of your early champions. If your target audience is SREs, focus only on the channels that SREs frequent. 
• Should you sponsor conferences? It depends on your goals. If you are trying to generate pipeline you should consider sponsoring conferences where you know your P0 audience will be in high attendance. One word of advice however: if you’re seeking product activation, consider only sponsoring a conference where you have an accepted talk as well. 
• Focus on a geo-located community. If you're based in a specific city, start by building a strong presence there. This allows you to establish deeper connections with your early champions and build a solid foundation for growth.

Measuring focus: Track engagement rates and conversion rates within your targeted subcommunities. Compare these to your overall metrics to ensure your focused approach is yielding better results.

• Example: Measure traffic to your website from geo/metros where you’ve focused.

Leveraging open source as an engagement engine

Creating an open-source utility that complements your product can be a powerful way to engage developers. This approach provides value to your audience while indirectly promoting your main offering. 

A prime example of this strategy is Auth0's JSON web token (JWT) decoder and encoder. This tool, while not directly part of Auth0's core authentication service, became an essential resource for developers working with JWTs. It allowed developers to easily decode and encode tokens, aiding in debugging and development. The utility's popularity drove significant traffic to Auth0's site and positioned the company as a helpful resource in the authentication space. 

Tactic:

• Open-source a piece of your product or platform that is useful to others. This has the added bonus of including your engineering team more in your advocacy efforts.
• Identify a utility that's closely related to your product and valuable to your target audience. Open-source it and build it collaboratively with your community. This not only provides value but also gives your community a direct way to stay engaged with your brand.

Measuring open source impact: Track the usage of your open-source tools, the number of contributors, and how it drives traffic and sign-ups for your main product.

Measuring developer relations success

Developer relations is truly a team effort at a startup. It's a collective effort that spans product, leadership, sales, and engineering teams. Everyone needs to contribute to securing buy-in from early implementers.

Tactic: Set up micro-funnels to track each stage of developer engagement. Measure time spent on documentation, conversion from engaged to monetized users, and the overall time to value for new developers.

Measuring developer relations success:

1. Time to first success (e.g., first API call, first deployment)

2. Documentation engagement (time spent, pages viewed)

3. Conversion rate from documentation to sign-up

4. Retention rate after first “aha" moment

5. Number of developers influencing deals

Tip: Track these metrics in a plain ol’ spreadsheet. Don’t invest time in complicated marketing tools or onboarding community tools that promise insights and wisdom around your community-building efforts and reach of blah, blah, blah. Remember: in the early days, community is a happy by-product. Focus on delivering true value to your developers, and the community will follow. 

Setting yourself up for success in developer relations

Developer relations isn't a static playbook—it's a living, breathing process fueled by data and constant iteration. As you fine-tune your approach to guide developers swiftly to their “aha” moments, you're not just winning individual users; you're fostering a community of champions who will propel your product forward.

By embracing the ethos of "co-creating the product in the market," you're not just building a tool; you're cultivating the beginnings of a community. Involve developers in your journey, prioritize their needs, and relentlessly optimize for those quick wins. This approach lays a robust foundation for sustainable growth.

Building solid relationships with a technical audience can seem intimidating. Although DevRel and marketing overlap, the key differentiator is that the latter focuses on delivering deep, technical information. But you don’t need to set up an entire DevRel team today. Instead, you can engrain these values throughout your engineering, product, and leadership teams who are already technical and able to speak the language of developers.

I hope this guide gives you some ideas and tactics to help you and your team position developers as the heroes of your story. Building a startup is hard, and it can be quite uplifting to see developers begin to celebrate your wins alongside you, adding some wind to your sails and reminding you of your purpose. On the flip side, another great thing about developers is that they will always let you know when you're screwing it up. So listen. 

Keep that “aha” moment firmly in your sights—if it starts to slip, you need to know it. By staying focused on these few principles, you'll build more than just a product; you'll build the beginning of a brand that developers could love. ..at which point it’s time to up-level your DevRel strategy, because developer love is something you don’t want to lose. For more content like this, sign up for our newsletter or send me an email and we can discuss all the ways in which I can improve this post 🙂.