First Customers
Getting your first users, early traction, and initial sales.
48:46Episode 170
Adam Frankl returns to answer my TAB questions
Adam Frankl has been the first Marketing VP at three dev-facing unicorns. He returns to the podcast, to reveal the things that DevTool startups must get right in the early days, in order to be successful. We also discuss Jack's experience implementing Technical Advisory Boards (TABs) with a new startup, and the hurdles startups face with outreach, sustaining member enthusiasm across calls, and the art of framing the problem correctly. Adam shares ongoing AI experiments to streamline TAB insights and stories that hook developers.
This episode is brought to you by WorkOS. If you're thinking about selling to enterprise customers, WorkOS can help you add enterprise features like Single Sign On and audit logs.
Links:
• Adam's Linkedin
• The Developer Facing Startup
This episode is brought to you by WorkOS. If you're thinking about selling to enterprise customers, WorkOS can help you add enterprise features like Single Sign On and audit logs.
Links:
• Adam's Linkedin
• The Developer Facing Startup
48:42Episode 168
Matt Klein - cofounder of Bitdrift: meeting developers where they are and early days of AWS
In this episode, Matt Klein (Bitdrift, Envoy) reflects on building EC2 in the early days of AWS, the reality behind AWS’s origins, and what Amazon’s customer obsession looks like from the inside. He then dives into creating Envoy at Lyft, the challenges of open source at scale, and spinning Bitdrift out of Lyft to focus on mobile observability. He shares how to meet developers where they are and what it takes to find product market fit.
This episode is brought to you by WorkOS. If you're thinking about selling to enterprise customers, WorkOS can help you add enterprise features like Single Sign On and audit logs.
Links:
• Matt's Linkedin
• Bitdrift
This episode is brought to you by WorkOS. If you're thinking about selling to enterprise customers, WorkOS can help you add enterprise features like Single Sign On and audit logs.
Links:
• Matt's Linkedin
• Bitdrift
39:20Episode 164
How RevenueCat tore up the sales playbook, with Rik Haandrikman
Rik Haandrikman talks about sales incentives and growth at RevenueCat, and their creative approach to conferences. He explains why their sales team focuses on helping customers evaluate the product in their own way, how aligning incentives shapes company culture and how they make the most out of rare, compelling events.
This episode is brought to you by WorkOS. If you're thinking about selling to enterprise customers, WorkOS can help you add enterprise features like Single Sign On and audit logs.
Links:
• RevenueCat jobs
• Rik's article
• Rik's X
• RevenueCat's X
This episode is brought to you by WorkOS. If you're thinking about selling to enterprise customers, WorkOS can help you add enterprise features like Single Sign On and audit logs.
Links:
• RevenueCat jobs
• Rik's article
• Rik's X
• RevenueCat's X
73:10Episode 162
When sales and product led growth meet, with Railway's Angelo Saraceno
In this episode, Angelo Saraceno from Railway shares his experience balancing the technical challenges of building a developer-focused product with the realities of enterprise sales. They discuss how understanding customer needs beyond just features is crucial to growing a startup sustainably. Whether you're a founder or developer, this conversation offers valuable insights into turning good products into successful businesses without losing sight of the bigger picture.
This episode is brought to you by WorkOS. If you're thinking about selling to enterprise customers, WorkOS can help you add enterprise features like Single Sign On and audit logs.
Links:
• Railway
• Railway's blog
• John McMahon's book
• Angelo's Slack automation article
• Angelo's website
• Angelo's Linkedin
This episode is brought to you by WorkOS. If you're thinking about selling to enterprise customers, WorkOS can help you add enterprise features like Single Sign On and audit logs.
Links:
• Railway
• Railway's blog
• John McMahon's book
• Angelo's Slack automation article
• Angelo's website
• Angelo's Linkedin
36:45Episode 161
Sales 101 with my ex-boss Guy Zerega (former Stack Overflow EVP)
Guy Zerega led sales and marketing at Stack Overflow, where he once hired me.
Now he leads sales at Cyborg - they offer end-to-end encrypted inference data.
This is a 101 on what matters in sales; especially to developers.
This episode is brought to you by WorkOS. If you're thinking about selling to enterprise customers, WorkOS can help you add enterprise features like Single Sign On and audit logs.
Links:
• Guy's Linkedin
• Guy's new startup, Cyborg
Now he leads sales at Cyborg - they offer end-to-end encrypted inference data.
This is a 101 on what matters in sales; especially to developers.
This episode is brought to you by WorkOS. If you're thinking about selling to enterprise customers, WorkOS can help you add enterprise features like Single Sign On and audit logs.
Links:
• Guy's Linkedin
• Guy's new startup, Cyborg
38:20Episode 157
Running Events with Matt Carey from AI Demo Days
Matt Carey from AI Demo Days, shares his experience of organizing developer events in London and San Fransisco. He discusses the real costs involved and how creating fun, community-driven events makes all the difference - plus a spicy take on Hackathons!
This episode is brought to you by WorkOS. If you're thinking about selling to enterprise customers, WorkOS can help you add enterprise features like Single Sign On and audit logs.
Links:
• AI Demo Days
• Matt Carey's links
This episode is brought to you by WorkOS. If you're thinking about selling to enterprise customers, WorkOS can help you add enterprise features like Single Sign On and audit logs.
Links:
• AI Demo Days
• Matt Carey's links
39:33Episode 156
AI Tools for Enterprise - Chris and Matt from Ona
Gitpod has rebranded to Ona and shifted its focus to building AI tools for enterprise teams. This episode digs into why they made the leap, how they're standing out in a crowded AI space, and what it’s been like rethinking developer workflows from the ground up. We talk about dev environments, differentiating in the AI space, forward-deployed engineers and more.
This episode is brought to you by WorkOS. If you're thinking about selling to enterprise customers, WorkOS can help you add enterprise features like Single Sign On and audit logs.
Links:
• Ona
• Christian's X
• Matthew's X
This episode is brought to you by WorkOS. If you're thinking about selling to enterprise customers, WorkOS can help you add enterprise features like Single Sign On and audit logs.
Links:
• Ona
• Christian's X
• Matthew's X
58:21Episode 152
Running hackathons, with Carter Rabasa from Langflow
Carter Rabasa, head of DevRel at Langflow, talks about organizing and participating in hackathons, how these events enable developers to break free from routine work, and how they can help accelerate tool development.
This episode is brought to you by WorkOS. If you're thinking about selling to enterprise customers, WorkOS can help you add enterprise features like Single Sign On and audit logs.
Links:
• Carter's X
• Carter's LinkedIn
• Cascadia AI Hackathon (and Luma)
• AI Tinkerers
• Bolt Virtual Hackathon
This episode is brought to you by WorkOS. If you're thinking about selling to enterprise customers, WorkOS can help you add enterprise features like Single Sign On and audit logs.
Links:
• Carter's X
• Carter's LinkedIn
• Cascadia AI Hackathon (and Luma)
• AI Tinkerers
• Bolt Virtual Hackathon
43:02Episode 148
Sam Lambert, CEO of PlanetScale: dropping the free tier was a great decision
Sam Lambert is the CEO of PlanetScale - a cloud database provider.
Sam shares:
- Why dropping the free tier was one of PlanetScale's best decisions. But is not for every startup.
- People solving serious problems appreciate serious content and if you can create meaningful content, that's a big advantage.
- CEOs should be transparent and collaborative but assertive. Don't let your company die while enacting someone else's decision
- Express hard-to-convey-benefits via your customers’ experiences
This episode is brought to you by WorkOS. If you're thinking about selling to enterprise customers, WorkOS can help you add enterprise features like Single Sign On and audit logs.
Links:
- Sam's Twitter
- Sam's LinkedIn
- PlanetScale
- PlanetScale Postgres
- Caching blog post
- Ted Nyman
- Snowflake
- Vitess
Sam shares:
- Why dropping the free tier was one of PlanetScale's best decisions. But is not for every startup.
- People solving serious problems appreciate serious content and if you can create meaningful content, that's a big advantage.
- CEOs should be transparent and collaborative but assertive. Don't let your company die while enacting someone else's decision
- Express hard-to-convey-benefits via your customers’ experiences
This episode is brought to you by WorkOS. If you're thinking about selling to enterprise customers, WorkOS can help you add enterprise features like Single Sign On and audit logs.
Links:
- Sam's Twitter
- Sam's LinkedIn
- PlanetScale
- PlanetScale Postgres
- Caching blog post
- Ted Nyman
- Snowflake
- Vitess
47:16Episode 147
Sam Bhagwat from Mastra: the Gatsby founder building an agents framework
Sam Bhagwat is the CEO of Mastra - a typescript AI agents framework. Sam is also the cofounder of Gatsby, the popular React framework that was acquired by Netlfiy. Sam shares what he learned building Gatsby and how they're applying those lessons to Mastra. Why they're building in TypeScript, not Python. Why 20% of their users are in Japan. And why they're distributing 1,500 physical books per week on AI agents.
This episode is brought to you by WorkOS. If you're thinking about selling to enterprise customers, WorkOS can help you add enterprise features like Single Sign On and audit logs.
Links:
- Mastra
- Sam Bhagwat
- Gatsby
- Principles of Building AI Agents
This episode is brought to you by WorkOS. If you're thinking about selling to enterprise customers, WorkOS can help you add enterprise features like Single Sign On and audit logs.
Links:
- Mastra
- Sam Bhagwat
- Gatsby
- Principles of Building AI Agents
50:20Episode 143
Andrew Filev, founder of Zencoder: AI Software Engineering agents
Andrew Filev is the founder of Zencoder. Zencoder is building AI coding agents.
In this episode, we explore the evolution from simple code completion AI to more sophisticated software engineering agents. While tools like GitHub Copilot revolutionized code suggestions, the next frontier involves AI agents that can handle complex engineering tasks and collaborate with each other through emerging protocols.
The discussion dives into agent-to-agent protocols, which enable AI systems to work together autonomously on software development tasks. This advancement suggests a future where AI agents could manage entire development workflows, from requirements gathering to testing and deployment. We also touch on the importance of using slower summer periods strategically - making it an ideal time for engineering teams to evaluate their tooling, processes, and prepare for upcoming development cycles.
This episode is brought to you by WorkOS. If you're thinking about selling to enterprise customers, WorkOS can help you add enterprise features like Single Sign On and audit logs.
Links
- Zencoder
- Andrew Filev
- Wrike
- Powered by Claude
- Vercel
- Perplexity AI
- Scale AI
In this episode, we explore the evolution from simple code completion AI to more sophisticated software engineering agents. While tools like GitHub Copilot revolutionized code suggestions, the next frontier involves AI agents that can handle complex engineering tasks and collaborate with each other through emerging protocols.
The discussion dives into agent-to-agent protocols, which enable AI systems to work together autonomously on software development tasks. This advancement suggests a future where AI agents could manage entire development workflows, from requirements gathering to testing and deployment. We also touch on the importance of using slower summer periods strategically - making it an ideal time for engineering teams to evaluate their tooling, processes, and prepare for upcoming development cycles.
This episode is brought to you by WorkOS. If you're thinking about selling to enterprise customers, WorkOS can help you add enterprise features like Single Sign On and audit logs.
Links
- Zencoder
- Andrew Filev
- Wrike
- Powered by Claude
- Vercel
- Perplexity AI
- Scale AI
35:54Episode 142
Wordware founders, Filip Kozera and Robert Chandler - non-engineers can build AI workflows
In this episode we talk about Wordware, programming with LLMs, and what it now means to be a developer. Robert and Filip explain how they're building tools that let non-engineers create AI workflows, why the definition of 'developer' is changing in the AI era, and their vision for background agents that automate your work while you focus on creative tasks.
Links:
- Wordware
- Wordware Sauna Waitlist
- Wordware is hiring
- Filip Kozera
- Robert Chandler
This episode is brought to you by WorkOS. If you're thinking about selling to enterprise customers, WorkOS can help you add enterprise features like Single Sign On and audit logs.
P.s. thanks to Oana Olteanu for making it happen
Links:
- Wordware
- Wordware Sauna Waitlist
- Wordware is hiring
- Filip Kozera
- Robert Chandler
This episode is brought to you by WorkOS. If you're thinking about selling to enterprise customers, WorkOS can help you add enterprise features like Single Sign On and audit logs.
P.s. thanks to Oana Olteanu for making it happen
42:40Episode 136
Eric from Trigger.dev - iterating to 50% MoM growth
Eric Allam is the cofounder of Trigger.dev. Trigger gives you open source background jobs. We talk about how Trigger iterated different versions until landing on something developers really want. And now the growth is crazy. And also, I use Trigger and it's genuinely a great product.
This episode is brought to you by WorkOS. If you're thinking about selling to enterprise customers, WorkOS can help you add enterprise features like Single Sign On and audit logs.
Links:
This episode is brought to you by WorkOS. If you're thinking about selling to enterprise customers, WorkOS can help you add enterprise features like Single Sign On and audit logs.
Links:
43:52Episode 135
Kyle Galbraith from Depot: how they hit $1M+ ARR with three people
Kyle is the cofounder of Depot. Depot accelerates your Docker image builds and GitHub Actions workflows.
Kyle shares how Depot were able to grow to $1M ARR and beyond with a very lean team.
This episode is brought to you by WorkOS. If you're thinking about selling to enterprise customers, WorkOS can help you add enterprise features like Single Sign On and audit logs.
Links:
Kyle shares how Depot were able to grow to $1M ARR and beyond with a very lean team.
This episode is brought to you by WorkOS. If you're thinking about selling to enterprise customers, WorkOS can help you add enterprise features like Single Sign On and audit logs.
Links:
19:34Episode 120
Four tips for early stage DevTools
In this episode, I pull out some of the key DevTools lessons I've learned in the last 120 interviews.
Including:
- The importance of deeply understanding the problem you're solving by talking to developers directly, as emphasized by Adam Frankl.
- Ant Wilson's advice on experimenting with different go-to-market strategies and channels rather than relying on conventional wisdom.
- Zeno Rocha's emphasis on the importance of the last mile—packaging and presentation. He shares how spending more time on documentation and onboarding materials helped his open-source project gain massive traction.
- Gonto's perspective that "it's better to be different than better," and how creativity, uniqueness, and understanding developer habits are key to successful marketing.
- My personal reflections on overcoming fear and discomfort in go-to-market efforts.
This episode is brought to you by WorkOS. If you're thinking about selling to enterprise customers, WorkOS can help you add enterprise features like Single Sign On and audit logs. https://workos.com.
44:43Episode 116
Guy Podjarny, Snyk and Tessl founder - The future of programming
Guy Podjarny is the founder of Tessl - a startup that is rethinking how we build software.
Guy previously founded Snyk - a dependency scanning tool worth billions of dollars. Before Snyk, Guy founded Blaze, which he sold to Akamai.
This episode is brought to you by WorkOS. If you're thinking about selling to enterprise customers, WorkOS can help you add enterprise features like Single Sign On and audit logs.
In this conversation, we talk about the future of programming and the future of DevTools.
Guy previously founded Snyk - a dependency scanning tool worth billions of dollars. Before Snyk, Guy founded Blaze, which he sold to Akamai.
This episode is brought to you by WorkOS. If you're thinking about selling to enterprise customers, WorkOS can help you add enterprise features like Single Sign On and audit logs.
In this conversation, we talk about the future of programming and the future of DevTools.
- The future of programming will focus on writing specifications.
- Trust in AI tools
- Snyk is an example of how tools can integrate into existing workflows.
- Code can become disposable, allowing for flexibility in development.
- Specifications will serve as repositories of truth in software development.
- Developers will need to adapt their skills to leverage AI tools effectively.
- Community collaboration is essential for the evolution of AI development tools.
- AI simplifies and democratizes the process of software creation
Thanks to Anna Debenham for making this happen.
47:12Episode 106
The Homebrew maintainers who built a startup - Mike McQuaid and John Britton from Workbrew
Mike McQuaid and John Britton are cofounders of Workbrew - a tool that gives you the missing features for enterprises running homebrew.
John has previously worked at GitHub and Twilio and is a contributor to Homebrew. Mike has also worked at GitHub as well as being the project lead and longest running maintainer at Homebrew.
We dig into:
John has previously worked at GitHub and Twilio and is a contributor to Homebrew. Mike has also worked at GitHub as well as being the project lead and longest running maintainer at Homebrew.
We dig into:
- How Homebrew can trace its origins to a pub in London
- How Apple actually work with Homebrew
- How Homebrew managed to grow and scale up
- How Workbrew are avoiding misaligned incentives so common in open source
Links for Mike, John and Workbrew
- Mike McQuaid https://mikemcquaid.com/
- John Britton https://johndbritton.com/
- Workbrew https://workbrew.com/
This episode is brought to you by WorkOS. If you're thinking about selling to enterprise customers, WorkOS can help you add enterprise features like Single Sign On and audit logs.
30:20Episode 92
Investing in Open Source Startups with Robby (Amanda Robson)
Robby (Amanda Robson) is the co-host of Open Source Startup Podcast (with Tim Chen).
In this episode we discuss:
In this episode we discuss:
- There are many ways to open source success
- When open source is a good strategy and when it isn't
- Why open source projects usually need time to brew
- How to know if your project is venture scale
- Why Robby believes in the Open Source model
- Robby is working on a highly mysterious new thing 👀
Links:
- Robby's Twitter/X https://x.com/amanda_robs?lang=en
- Open Source Startup Podcast https://oss-startup-podcast.launchnotes.io/
- Interview with Paul from Supabase https://oss-startup-podcast.launchnotes.io/announcements/episode-43-building-supabase-the-open-source-firebase-alternative
- Interview with Leyland from Mobile Dev https://oss-startup-podcast.launchnotes.io/announcements/episode-63-mobile-dev-s-new-mobile-testing-framework-maestro
- mobile dev https://www.mobile.dev/
- Tim's Twitter/X https://x.com/tnachen
32:56Episode 88
Vivian Dufour - co-founder of Meterian - enterprise sales for startups
Vivian Dufour is the CEO and co-founder of Meterian.
Meterian is an open source vulnerability scanner.
In this episode we talk about topics like:
Meterian is an open source vulnerability scanner.
In this episode we talk about topics like:
- Selling to enterprises
- Why you need to make your product easy to test
- Hiring and managing salespeople
Links:
- Meterian: https://www.meterian.io/
- Vivian Dufour - https://www.linkedin.com/in/viviandufour/
39:51Episode 85
James Hawkins - co-founder & CEO of PostHog
James Hawkins is the cofounder and CEO of PostHog. PostHog is a platform to analyze, test, observe, and deploy new features.
This is the second time James has been on and the episode is mostly about how they run PostHog.
It's a pretty unconventional approach - probably because James thinks very deeply about how organizations should operate.
What we discuss:
This is the second time James has been on and the episode is mostly about how they run PostHog.
It's a pretty unconventional approach - probably because James thinks very deeply about how organizations should operate.
What we discuss:
- How PostHog hire
- His approach to one-on-one meetings
- The role of engineers in product development
- The impact of open source projects on PostHog's success
- A surprising secret to success (fun)
- Importance of listening to developers
Links:
- James's Twitter https://x.com/james406
- PostHog https://posthog.com/
- The Mental Workload of Hoovering https://jefhawkins.com/blog/mental-workload-of-hoovering
- Ray Dalio's Principles https://www.principles.com/
- James's first interview https://podcast.scalingdevtools.com/episodes/working-with-enterprise-clients-with-james-hawkins
This episode is sponsored by WorkOS. If you're thinking about selling to enterprise customers, WorkOS can help you add enterprise features like Single Sign On and audit logs.
50:28Episode 83
Bootstrapping Flagsmith to $3m ARR
Ben Rometsch is the founder of Flagsmith. Flagsmith is a Feature Flag & Remote Config Service that recently reached $3m ARR.
Ben candidly shares exactly how they started, how they got enterprise customers and how they worked with Polychrome to take Flagsmith to the next level.
Links:
Ben candidly shares exactly how they started, how they got enterprise customers and how they worked with Polychrome to take Flagsmith to the next level.
Links:
- Ben's Twitter https://x.com/dabeeeenster
- Flagsmith https://www.flagsmith.com/
- Polychrome https://polychrome.com/
This episode is sponsored by WorkOS. If you're thinking about selling to enterprise customers, WorkOS can help you add enterprise features like Single Sign On and audit logs.
41:57Episode 79
3 BILLION searches per month without VC funding - Jason Bosco from Typesense
Jason Bosco is the founder of Typesense.
Typesense is the Open Source alternative to Algolia.
Typesense is a batteries-included Search API.
We discuss how Jason built Typesense to be a hugely successful company without VC funding.
We talk about what revenue-funding means and why it should be considered as a viable option for founders.
This episode is sponsored by WorkOS. If you're thinking about selling to enterprise customers, WorkOS can help you add enterprise features like Single Sign On and audit logs.
Links:
- Jason's Twitter: https://twitter.com/jasonbosco
- Typesense https://typesense.org/
Typesense is the Open Source alternative to Algolia.
Typesense is a batteries-included Search API.
We discuss how Jason built Typesense to be a hugely successful company without VC funding.
We talk about what revenue-funding means and why it should be considered as a viable option for founders.
This episode is sponsored by WorkOS. If you're thinking about selling to enterprise customers, WorkOS can help you add enterprise features like Single Sign On and audit logs.
Links:
- Jason's Twitter: https://twitter.com/jasonbosco
- Typesense https://typesense.org/
48:14Episode 77
Dana Oshiro - General Partner at Heavybit
Dana Oshiro is a General Partner at Heavybit. Heavybit is a VC that invests exclusively in developer-first startups.
What we discuss:
What we discuss:
- One sharp thing. Finding an addressable chunk of a bigger opportunity.
- Thinking big & small
- Are 5 people seriously going to support our migration from DataDog? At Facebook you had a lot of support people/systems you're forgetting
- Finding the sidedoor
- Stepping up as a founder
- Fear of hitting up the people you respect.
- Best founders build for themselves
- Do founders get better at putting themselves out there?
- Speaking in front of people to make change - "there's a new approach. We deserve better!"
- Movements
- DevOps & JamStack
- Don't try to control the movement
- Joining into other movements
Links
- Dana Oshiro https://twitter.com/danaoshiro
- Heavybit https://heavybit.com/
Thanks to Adam DuVander from https://everydeveloper.com/ for introducing us.
This episode is sponsored by WorkOS. If you're thinking about selling to enterprise customers, WorkOS can help you add enterprise features like Single Sign On and audit logs.
This episode is sponsored by WorkOS. If you're thinking about selling to enterprise customers, WorkOS can help you add enterprise features like Single Sign On and audit logs.
39:21Episode 71
Getting Your first Enterprise Customers - Michael Grinich from WorkOS
Michael is the founder of WorkOS. WorkOS helps startups cross the enterprise chasm - it's a bit like the Stripe of Enterprise features.
In this episode, we focus on selling to enterprises: the features you need, the team you need (e.g. sales!) and the common pitfalls Michael has seen.
We also talk about things like: what even is an enterprise customer?
This episode is sponsored by WorkOS. Thanks so much for supporting us as our first ever sponsor Michael and WorkOS.
If you're thinking about selling to enterprise customers, WorkOS can help you add enterprise features like Single Sign On and audit logs.
Links:
- https://workos.com/
- https://x.com/grinich
- Crossing the Enterprise Chasm https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IR2QZQrzoiA&t=368s&ab_channel=BriKimmel
In this episode, we focus on selling to enterprises: the features you need, the team you need (e.g. sales!) and the common pitfalls Michael has seen.
We also talk about things like: what even is an enterprise customer?
This episode is sponsored by WorkOS. Thanks so much for supporting us as our first ever sponsor Michael and WorkOS.
If you're thinking about selling to enterprise customers, WorkOS can help you add enterprise features like Single Sign On and audit logs.
Links:
- https://workos.com/
- https://x.com/grinich
- Crossing the Enterprise Chasm https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IR2QZQrzoiA&t=368s&ab_channel=BriKimmel
30:52Episode 62
A bootstrapper's story with Julien Danjou, founder of Mergify
Julien Danjou is the founder of Mergify - a tool that helps merge code safer and faster.
Summary (auto-generated):
- How do you split your time between work and marketing? 0:00
- Julian splits 50% of his time between building the product and the other 50% doing marketing and bringing people to the product.
- Julian talks about mergerfi.
- Where do you start with product development? 1:23
- The goal is to solve a problem for an engineer. They co-founded Mirchi Fi with Mary and wrote their own tool.
- The role of time is a lot of time.
- The importance of doing demos and showing the product around to the team, and how that has changed over time.
- How the product is simple and there are a lot of viable options around it, but it's hard to think about all the tiny details.
- How did they get started? 5:08
- They both started with a full-time job and moved from a platform to get up. They felt naked without any of their tools. They wanted to build their own tools.
- They found a first rate customer, pitch.com, and then found more startups willing to use a merge request tool.
- One of the challenges of being a bootstrapped company is that they only have two hours per week to work on the tool.
- It is easy to not get good at making decisions when you can do everything, but in air quotes, do everything.
- How long did it take to write the first dashboard? 10:07
- Before people started using it internally, they did most of the grunt work of writing the first version. The first version was a mvp.
- The first dashboard they wrote was like HTML and the bootstrap framework, which was pretty bad, but it was good enough.
- The first version of the product is the only thing that is going to be out in front of users or customers.
- The importance of being an entrepreneur-minded person.
- When they found the first customers, they decided not to build a company right away, but to focus on building a few hours a week into bots.
- The real trap.
- Marketing and getting the word out. 16:00
- The root problem is that nobody knows about you because you are not doing marketing. You have to go with the event if you have a competitor or inspire something.
- It is easy to build the things for a year or so, especially when you are a developer.
- Not everything works, but what works well is open source projects. For example, amazon is using lodgify on their open source project.
- One of their biggest customers was using one of the engineer's projects on github.com, and they talk to their manager about it.
- Marketing and marketing budget. 20:30
- Marketing is a lot of different channels that they can use, and they have tried almost everything to see if it works, and if it doesn't work, they try to future-harm.
- They try to provide value for free to open source users and projects and are happy to do that.
- Adding value in open source is about saving time and giving time to most open source projects using a merge tool.
- If a company is new to open source, they need a tool to help them with a workflow tool, marketing, etc.
- How did you find out about rescue? 25:36
- The number of people using rescue is small. There are very small projects with just one or two people mentioning it to project being run by 50 or 100 person behind.
- The main goal is to actually work on the open source projects, not start a new one.
- Redhat was working on an open source project with Eddie when they started. Redhat is a great leverage for building a company.
- One takeaway for a dev tool founder, be strict about splitting 50% of your time between building the product and doing the fun stuff.
41:40Episode 57
From mobile app to mobile developer tool with Gabriel Savit from Runway
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/
- https://twitter.com/gabrielsavit
- https://runway.team/
36:02Episode 54
Killing features with Josh Twist, founder of Zuplo
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
Josh Twist - https://twitter.com/joshtwist
37:19Episode 42
PMF is one pivot away with Ant Wilson from Supabase
Ant is the founder of Supabase. Supabase is the open-source firebase alternative and has gone from zero to 47,000+ GitHub stars in a matter of years.
What we cover:
- Ant's Egyptologist dream
- How the Launchpad book showed Ant that building a company is possible
- Product Market Fit is always just a pivot away
- How to talk about Supabase?
- Differences between pre-PMF and post-PMF
- How Supabase stay on top of and prioritise huge volumes of product feedback
- How Supabase positions itself to hobbyists/startups and bigger enterprise companies - DX and scalability.
- Supabase's Twitter strategy
- Trial & error in marketing
- How does Supabase measure marketing?
- Spaced repetition in marketing
- Databases are very sticky
- The future of Supabase
- The difficulties of hiring non-technical people (supabase is hiring!)
- Why Supabase over other tools?
- Is Ant a Liverpool fan?
Links & Resources:
- Ant's Twitter
- Supabase's Twitter
- Supbase
- Supabase jobs
- The Launchpad book
- Kuba's breakdown of Supabase's marketing strategy
- swyx (I can't find the exact tweet)
- Amjad - we think in years
What we cover:
- Ant's Egyptologist dream
- How the Launchpad book showed Ant that building a company is possible
- Product Market Fit is always just a pivot away
- How to talk about Supabase?
- Differences between pre-PMF and post-PMF
- How Supabase stay on top of and prioritise huge volumes of product feedback
- How Supabase positions itself to hobbyists/startups and bigger enterprise companies - DX and scalability.
- Supabase's Twitter strategy
- Trial & error in marketing
- How does Supabase measure marketing?
- Spaced repetition in marketing
- Databases are very sticky
- The future of Supabase
- The difficulties of hiring non-technical people (supabase is hiring!)
- Why Supabase over other tools?
- Is Ant a Liverpool fan?
Links & Resources:
- Ant's Twitter
- Supabase's Twitter
- Supbase
- Supabase jobs
- The Launchpad book
- Kuba's breakdown of Supabase's marketing strategy
- swyx (I can't find the exact tweet)
- Amjad - we think in years
30:43Episode 39
Developer marketplaces with Robin Warren, founder of Corrello & Blue Cat Reports
What we cover
- The early days of Corrello
- The advantages of marketplaces
Where to hear from Robin
38:31Episode 36
Shomik Ghosh - office hours with a DevTools investor
Shomik is a Partner at boldstart where he focuses on investing in Developer Tools and other enterprise software startups.
What we cover
- An introduction to Shomik
- Where to start?
- Early stage versus late stage
- What should be Open Source?
- How to approach pricing
- What to do when things slow down
Where to hear from Shomik
- Twitter: @shomikghosh21
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shomik-ghosh-a5a71319/
- https://shomik.substack.com/
- https://boldstart.vc/
- Interview with CISO of DataDog https://shomik.substack.com/p/emilio-escobar-ciso-of-datadog-how#details
25:12Episode 25
DevRel from the ground up with Sean Falconer from SkyFlow
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.
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
P.s. thanks so much to Harpreet Sahota for listening and suggesting we invite Sean!
19:44Episode 23
Is Open Source the ultimate bottom-up growth strategy? With James Hawkins from PostHog
James Hawkins is the CEO & Co-founder of PostHog. PostHog is an open-source product analytics suite, built for engineers.
What we cover
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
15:53Episode 21
Building tools for experienced developers with André Eriksson from Encore
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/
15:12Episode 18
Critical path infra for developers with Megan Reynolds from Crane
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.
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)
14:43Episode 17
Developer video for startups with Richard Moot from Square
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.
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
22:02Episode 12
Investing in community with SJ Morris
Sarah Jane Morris is the Senior Manager of Developer community at HubSpot. Hubspot is a CRM platform that brings everything scaling companies need to deliver a best-in-class customer experience into one place.
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
13:08Episode 10
Effective developer events & developer sponsorships with Kimmy Leslie
Kimmy Leslie is a marketer at Stream. Stream power chat messaging and activity feeds for billions of global end-users across thousands of different apps.
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/
6:13Episode 8
Developer tool launches with Nico Botha
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. ****
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)
15:51Episode 5
Experimental Marketing with Natwar Maheshwari
Natwar Maheshwari is a Developer Marketing Lead at Algolia. Algolia is known for empowering builders with the search and recommendation services they need to build world-class experiences.
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
20:16Episode 3
Bootstrapping DevTools with Michael Christofides
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.
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?
(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
17:37Episode 2
Early Stage DevRel with Brandon West
Brandon West joined SendGrid, a customer communication platform for transactional and marketing email in 2011 as their first Developer Evangelist. Since then he’s had a brilliant career, working at AWS and CoScreen, which has just been acquired by Datadog.
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?
(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