
According to Lewko, studies from Evans Data Corporation (EDC) and others have reported that between 60% and 80% of developers either make or influence purchasing decisions. Indeed, the cost question needs to be answered, but the bulk of a company’s efforts should go towards the people who ultimately use the thing. To a large degree, the C-suite is the economic buyer that comes in at the end and just asks why this one costs more than the other. A flooring manufacturer or plumber probably knows that the CEO of a Fortune 500 does not care which materials are used. If you think about it, the “shoot for the top” approach seems a bit more widespread in technology than in other industries. However, this thinking is almost certainly wrong. Why are companies investing in developer relations?Ī lot of companies still spend much of their time targeting the C-suite or director/VP level. If you’re not being measured on the success of developers and you’re being measured on something else, that’s a red flag.” Is the internal definition of success predicated on developers? According to Parton, “that’s obvious for a developer-first company, but not so much for a developer-plus company.Are your strategy and tactics designed to change developer behavior? Meaning the focus is on getting developers to discover, adopt, and use your company’s product to develop and deploy software.Is your target audience exclusively developers? Because if it is not, then already you are doing something that is not pure DevRel.Sometimes it is more marketing, sometimes it is more product, and sometimes more sales and sales support.” According to Lewko, “The pieces of this may sit in different departments. Not every company calls “DevRel” the same thing. These activities support a community of developers that the company hopes to nurture, grow, and engage. Success is measured by developers looking at your product, activation, engagement, and retention. Developer success focuses on ensuring that developers are successful with the tools and then expanding their use to multiple projects or requirements.For a typical API-based interaction, developer experience emphasizes self-service. Onboarding includes everything from the documentation, to the tools, to FAQs. Developer experience defines how developers are “onboarded” to using a product.Developer marketing includes outreach activities from a company’s website to its presence on Stack Overflow and SEO and paid advertising.


We have a term ‘developer plus’ for companies whose primary product is not aimed at developers.”ĭifferent companies divide the developer relations in different ways, but Lewko and Parton note some of the standard components include: Lewko’s co-author James Parton notes that “there’s a clear trend right now that lots of companies are either implementing developer programs or experimenting with developer programs.
