Developer Relations Strategy

A general approach to dev rel

Josh Crites

jc@joshcrites.com

Outline

1. Common Values
2. General goals of Developer Relations teams
3. Context / domains
4. Tactics

Values

Relationship + Empathy

Integrity (Transparency, Honesty, Trust[-worthiness])

Creativity

Sovereignty + Freedom

Evolution (individual + collective)

Goal

Get people to use your product (protocol).

Aka monthly active users*

​

*Ideally companies, for long term incentive alignment

Secondary Goals

• To nurture emergence of novelty through software development, education and adoption
• Specifically by empowering fellow devs with the tech your working with
• Self-actualization (for yourself and others)

Engineering

External Developers

Education, Resources, Support

Feedback

Developer Relations

Dev Rel is one interface between the project team and developer community

Familiar Functions

Sales

Sales Techniques:

• Demonstrate value of your product
• Highlight + explain existing applications
• Explain why it is useful
• Show how easy it is to use
• Public outreach and education
• Creative pitch demos
• Make users badass

Sales skills:

• Identifying user needs
• Deep product knowledge
• Communication
• Relationship building
• Adaptability
• Collaboration
• Continuous learning
• Empathy

​

Product Support / Ecosystem Development

Tasks:

• Write docs & FAQs
• Staying up to date on product changes
• Help people learn how to use your tech
• Troubleshooting
• Relay feedback to the engineering team
• Partner enablement
• Webinars
• Integrations engineering
• Developer tooling
• Demos
• Monitor support channels
• Economic support
• Grants, incentive program design
• Community building
• Events/ office hours
• Ecosystem bootnodes - connecting builders

Dev Rel

Education & content

Community Building

Product &

Engineering

Context/

Domains

Dev Rel

Education / content

(top of funnel)

Community Building (mid funnel)

Engineering / product

(bottom of funnel)

Docs

Forum

Discord

Marketing/comms

Community mgrs

Devs

PMs, coordination

Traditional school model

Github

tutorials

Events

hackathons

twitter

Partner eng/ integrations

talks

meetups

Improvement proposals

Context/

Domains

Code examples

Developer experience

Blogs

Videos

Dev/User feedback

Reference apps/repos

Avenues for contribution

grants

Office hours

University partnerships

Recruiting

CRM

Onboarding flow

• Different for every developer, but there is a general outline to reach and support most
• Quality contributors can come from anywhere, balance quality and quantity of engagements
• Focus on first things first (prioritize initiatives)

Sell

• Dev Rels are integral to ‘selling’ the project to developers
• Help developers see how your tools can empower them and make them stand out - Make users badass
• Make it easy for them to get started
• Docs, reference repos, tutorials, guides, tools (SDKs, testnets, local dev environments)
• Support after the ‘sale’
• Office hours, Discord, dedicated support calls, collect feedback → improve tools
• This feedback loop is the primary differentiator from traditional sales roles

​

Developer Journey

• What is the 1 goal to optimize for?
• This is different for different companies and will change for you over time
• Download some software?
• Land on a website?
• Start a company
• How to measure
• Testnet/mainnet daily active users
• Google analytics
• Npm downloads
• Github activity
• https://orbit.love
• Social media engagement
• Grant applications

Documentation

• Foundational information for education, enable
• “source of truth”
• One of the first points of contact
• Simple, clear, intuitive
• I like https://docusaurus.io/,
• clear, well-supported, well-documented
• React based
• Easy to deploy + update w/ GitHub + Netlify (great free OSS license)
• Gitbook
• https://diataxis.fr/

Education

• Create a learning journey
• Be a guide, show don’t tell
• Facilitate a series of a-ha experiences
• Self serve
• Tutorials
• Workshops
• Boilerplate/reference code
• Examples
• Structure a self-serve curriculum (videos, written guides + recorded workshops)
• Ask the community (discord)
• Speaking at other orgs events
• Speak to a new network
• Hackathons
• Increase awareness

Community

• P2P engagement is a dynamic, connective support system
• Leverage community for support
• More responsive to changing software and developer needs than a static curriculum
• Provides an opportunity for devs to share what they’ve learned
• Building Bridges
• Make it easier for the people that follow
• Channels
• Discord
• Dev channels
• Office hours
• Github
• Github discussions
• Events
• Meetups (hacker houses)
• Targeted events for founders / community devs (conference side events)
• Conferences
• Twitter
• Spaces
• Email
• Newsletters
• Telegram
• Dedicated support channels
• Personal calls (1-1, small groups)
• https://orbit.love/

Enablement

Of Community

• Event kits
• Public decks/presentations
• Shared workshop resources
• Funding support
• Speaking opportunities
• Invitations to contribute
• Connect with engineers
• Motivate & inspire
• Grants programs
• Community developer guild (consulting funnel)

Of Org

• Collect feedback
• Identify high impact areas for development, help set priorities
• Work closely with a PM

Self Actualization

Build something meaningful and useful using full range of skills while learning something new

• For yourself and others
• Grants
• Many clear paths to contribution
• Start a project / company
• Job placement

Resources

• List of Awesome Developer Advocacy Resources
• The Developer Advocacy Handbook
• Developer Relations
• Building High Impact Developer Communities - by Nader Dabit
• https://orbit.love/
• https://www.whatisdevrel.com/
• For protocol dev rels: The Unreasonable Sufficiency of Protocols
• https://twitter.com/0xfabs/status/1671149397441380353