Developer marketing examples

Your dev tool is faster/more scalable/more X -> show it with benchmarks.

For some tools the entire unique selling point is that they are faster.

You build your messaging around that, put a flavor of "fastest Y for X" in the header and call it a day.

But devs who come to your website cannot just take your word for it. They need to see it, test it.

For some tools it is possible to just see it for themselves, get started.

But you cannot expect devs to really take a database or an observability platform for a spin.

As to test the speed or scalability on realistic use case you need to...

... set up a realistic use case. Which takes a lot of time.

But you can set that use case and test it for them. With benchmarks.

I really like how Astro approached it:

• they list out known competition by name
• they hint at technical reasons for why they are faster
• they shows those benchmarks high on their homepage
• they link out to the full report and mention the trusted source

If your usp is that you are faster/more scalable/ more whatever. Back it up. This is the nr 1 thing devs on your website need to trust you with to move forward.

I like that this is both strong and subtle.

It comes right after I've delivered a smell of value with a technical intro.

And I can see that there is more value to come after thanks to the table of contents.

The CTA itself feels like an info box in the docs rather than a typical subscribe CTA.

Good stuff.

I love the design of this crossover section on the Tailwind homepage.

I see the code and the result next to each other.

I see how I can get that result with code.

It is interactive and catches my attention.

It makes me feel inspired.

Great job Tailwind team!

Nice Reddit ad from kftray.

This is a simple ad format but lands the message:

• Clear, transparent "What it is" and "What it does" in the Headline
• Basic screen share video that shows both the code (terminal) and the  UI (product app)
• Unblocked comments make it more confident and spark conversation

An interesting fact is that there is no call to action?!

They say "Kftray is an open-source" which is enough for those interested to google "kftray github" or just go to GitHub and find it. And makes the ad less pushy which is a nice touch on Reddit.

But the most important takeaway is this. If the problem is real to the dev audience you target you don't need to go fancy. Just show how you solve it.

Memes are good top-of-funnel, awareness-type content.

Many companies use them on socials as they can "go viral".

But.

You need to either:

• connect the meme to your company/product value
• make the meme so good that people follow your account

I like how Datree connects it to the product here.

They are a Kubernetes configuration tool and talk about exactly that here.

They do that with jargon too "k8", "config". When used well it can help you belong to the tribe you are marketing to.

Developer-focused Reddit ad. 33 upvotes, 30 comments.

So @Zesty is a company that targets devops folks and helps with cloud cost optimization.

And they decided to run Reddit ads.

So they:

• Chose the format that works with devs on (some) subreddits
• The funny message that connects to their main value prop
• Made it clear that they solve that problem in the copy
• Added clear(ish) branding

And they got 33 upvotes and 30 comments.

Some of the comments were technical.

One comment that got 67 upvotes was actually

"Okay, this ad is pretty funny"

And I agree, this is a pretty funny ad that I am sure brought them some brand awareness and clicks.

Just an awesome billboard/ad format for a dev too company coming from Vercel.

What I like about it is:

• you catch attention with something different
• those who are in your audience get it, maybe they feel more seen
• you reinforce that your brand is very developer-focused
• you don't forget to put the "obvious" branding in there
• and there is a CTA to get people to do something

Simple and beautiful.

Btw, they actually run similar ads on Reddit and it makes a lot of sense IMHO.

Vs pages are a classic SaaS marketing.

But I like how Ably adjusts them to the developer audience:

• For each criterion, they say why it matters
• They link to their resources to extend further why Ably works great there
• They use a lot of developer jargon to make it feel like a dev wrote it for devs
• They go over a lot of different categories to make this comparison deep enough to be valuable for the buyer

I love this simple design.

They show:

• A GIF of code and console
• Have a few tabs with features, explained
• Social proof with Github stars

Simple, and powerful imho.

I like how this starts with a [WHAT IT IS ABOUT] scroll stopper.

That is coupled with a big block of code that has:

• input -> code
• output - > results from console

(presumably) when you click "See more" you get the rest of the text post.

This is one of the more devy blog designs I've seen in a while.

It has this docs-like feel.

But is just a bit more fun and loose than most docs would allow.

Here is what I like:

• smells like there could be value with code all over the place
• shows visuals taken from another devy channel, Twitter/X
• hints at social proof through Twitter/X engagement

And if your posts are code-heavy, then a docs-like experience is where you want to be anyway.

But you can spice it up with things that wouldn't fit the docs.

Like a Twitter/X embed or a meme.

𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗼 𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗴𝗼𝗼𝗱 𝘁𝗲𝗰𝗵𝗻𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗛𝗮𝗰𝗸𝗲𝗿 𝗡𝗲𝘄𝘀 𝗮𝘂𝗱𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲𝘀?

The general tip is simple. Create content that the HN audience finds interesting.

𝗧𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝘆𝗽𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗺𝗲𝗮𝗻𝘀:

• Something that feeds curiosity (how does X work, why did Y happen, what is it like to do Z)
• Something real, transparent, and written in first person (real stories)
• Something technical and focused on the dev or founder crowd

But how do you actually do that?

𝗢𝗻𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝘆𝗯𝗼𝗼𝗸𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘀𝗼𝗺𝗲 𝘁𝗲𝗰𝗵𝗻𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗳𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗱𝗲𝗽𝗹𝗼𝘆𝗲𝗱 𝘄𝗮𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀:

• Get your technical founder or core developers to write articles
• Those articles are focused on the technical challenges of building your product
• Again, don't write what your product does but rather how you build it. Mistakes you made, ideas you tried, technical challenges you had to overcome.
• Share real value with that dev audience. And to give people real value, you need to have folks who actually understand their problems. Those are typically senior devs/founders.
• You will inevitably hint that you are building a product and the folks who are interested in your product and you will go deeper.  

That was exactly what folks from CockroachDB did at the beginning.  Heard about it on one of the episodes of the Unusual Ventures podcast with Peter Mattis from Cockroach Labs.

𝗘𝘅𝗮𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗵𝗶𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘁𝗼𝗽 𝗼𝗳 𝗛𝗡:

• "CockroachDB Stability Post-Mortem: From 1 Node to 100 Nodes"
• "Serializable, lockless, distributed: Isolation in CockroachDB"
• "How CockroachDB Does Distributed, Atomic Transactions"
 
Kudos Cockroach Labs team and thanks for sharing!

This is a simple but great header imho:

• they explain what it is clearly: Stock trading API
• they show the result: trading stocks
• they show the code to drive the "it is for devs" point

Love it.

The main message you want to land on your homepage community section is:

"We have a big community of devs who love using the product"

🚧 That helps you tackle obstacles your dev reader has:

• "is this tool any good"  
• "do real companies use it in production"
• "are there people who can help me when I hit roadblocks"
• "where would I find others using the tool when I have questions"

💚 Modal solves it beautifully by going simple but smart:

• Join our community header and a call to action to join Slack makes it obvious where users are
• Wall of love style testimonials give a feel that there are so many users and they love it enough to share that with others
• They all look like Tweets even though (I presume) some of them aren't. That is a nice trick to boost social proof. People give more value to social post testimonials.
• They show a face, name, role, and company which builds trust and makes it obvious those are other devs (like me)

It lands the message that this section should land for sure. I really like it.

An ad that doesn't feel like an ad.‍

I like that this is almost a meme.

But it still explains what the company does.

Love it.

One of the top-performing conversion flows in dev-focused articles.

"Aside CTA" in the "How to do {jobs to be done}" article.

You know the drill:

• Explain how to X without your tool
• Add an "Aside" CTA showing that it can be done with your tool

And Export SDK executes it (almost) perfectly:

• They subtly move you from article to CTA but show that the article ended
• They explain what the tool does and what the offer is
• They show a visual of how the tool solves it
• And they give you a clear link to click

One thing that could be tested and changed is putting this "Aside CTA" mid-article and not at the end (tip from Martin Gontovnikas).

A good thing to try if you are running the "How to do {jbtd}" article strategy.

Many dev tools have complex pricing and packaging.

Say your dev tool/platform has many product offerings.

And you offer usage-based pricing but also enterprise plans but also per-product options, and additional customizations.

But you want to present it in a way that is manageable for the developer reading your pricing page.

Mux solves it this way:

• they direct people to the proper parts of the page in the header
• they give self-served prospects a link to the calculator and metering
• they give enterprise/high volume people a "talk to us" CTA
• they give people who want just a single tool (not the whole platform) a CTA to a dedicated pricing page
• they squeeze in a "start free" CTA + info about free credits
• they give navigation to FAQ, features table, and the calculator

Extended headers on pricing pages are not common as they add friction.

But sometimes adding friction is exactly what you need to do.

Mux managed to make this page (and their offering) easy to navigate by adding a little bit of friction at the beginning.

Maybe you don't browse plans right away but at least you don't waste energy (and attention) on the parts of the page that doesn't matter to you.

Good stuff.

This is a cool story coming from the GOAT of all docs. They added a signup button to their header and the conversions and revenue followed.

All they did was added a "Create Account" button and saw a huge jump in conversions.

Interestingly, Peggy shared that when they added it to Apollo GraphQL docs, signups went up by 20%.

It sounds like a good thing to try out.

Pre-roll ads are obviously invasive and annoying, especially to devs. But they are also prime real estate in the ad ecosystem.

You can choose not to do them at all (fair option). Or try and make them more fun and less annoying ;)

I like how Sentry handled it in this 16-second video:

• They start with a funny, disarming hook. A pic of a cat pic ;). It catches my attention and stops me from clicking "skip ad" as I want to understand what it is about.
• They show how those pics didn't come off well and introduce the company saying "Sentry can't fix that". That keeps me interested enough to see what it does.
• They show a straightforward, short product video with the actual application screenshots and zoom-ins to show pieces of the product for the rest of the video.

Basically they managed to "buy" 11 seconds of attention with 5 seconds of a pattern-breaking hook.  In the world of pre-roll YouTube dev-focused ads, I'd say this is a win.

Also, I don't know the results of the "Sentry can't fix that " campaign, but I like how this builds curiosity. Even with that slogan alone.

There are many things that I like about it.

• A clear value proposition: Explains what it is: an open-source alternative to a well-known product Shopify.
• Shows code and what the code does visually. Great product explanation.
• Adds a social proof with "#1 JS ecom platform on GitHub:". When you have 16k stars you should use it!

Overall with very little effort, I understand what it is, and what it does.

And I can go and dig deeper for myself or spread the word with my circles.

Thinking about your next conference giveaway idea?

‍How about a coconut? Datafold did just that!

Coconut + logo burned on it + a person who can open them up

=

A memorable, shareable, fresh (literally), and wholesome conference experience.

And I bet it didn't cost an arm and a leg too.

It goes to show how creativity matters when planning those things.

Thinking about doing a similar thing in Poland... with potatoes of course ;)

Beautiful mockery of classic conversion tactics from PostHog website.

So what do we have here:

• "3 people would have..."
• "Not endorsed by Kim K"
• "Eco-Friendly"
• "$0 FREE"
• ">1 left at this price"
• "Act now and get $0 off your first order"

I have to admit I chuckled ;)

And I bet many devs who don't think of marketing very highly chucked too.

That builds rapport. (hopefully) makes you one of the tribe rather than another faceless corpo.

BTW, they used it as a bottom of the homepage call to action.

I like it.

Most of the people who scrolled there are not going to buy anyway.

But they may share the website with someone who will.

An interesting option to push people to read the next article.

You use a slide-in triggered on a 75% scroll with a "read next" CTA in the bottom left.

On the aggressive side for sure but when the article you propose is clearly technical it could work.

And if your articles are not connected to the product explicitly you do need some ways to keep people reading and see more of your brand.

This is a solid swag copy template that resonates with devs.

"I did X and all I got was this lousy Y"

Why this works imho is:

• it is snarky
• it is a little self-deprecating
• it brags a bit about the work/expertise

Very solid start if you run out of ideas.

Why not highlight your free plan?

Most companies highlight their middle paid plan saying it is "most popular".

First thing, yeah, sure it is your most popular plan.

But more importantly, most visitors will not convert to your paid plans right away.

So why not try and capture as many devs as possible on the free plan?

If they like your dev tool there are many things you can do to convert some of them to paid plans.

But if they leave that pricing page and go with some other free tool, you are not converting anyone.

@CircleCI highlights free and they are in the mature, competitive market of CI CD tools.

Idk, it really does make a lot of sense to me.

If people need more advanced features they will choose higher plans anyway.

But if they want to get things started with the basic plans they will choose free or go elsewhere.

I'd rather have them choose free than none.  

Funny dev newsletter CTA. From shiftmag .dev by Infobip.

It starts with a chuckle-worthy:

"Sarcastic headline, but funny enough for engineers to sign up"

Then they follow up by disarming the "is that spam" and building more rapport with:

• "Written by people, not robots - at least not yet."
• "May or may not contain traces of sarcasm, but never spam."

They end with an alternative call to action. RSS feed.

Most newsletters don't do RSS.

But for many devs RSS feed is the preferred content subscription.

Great job!

Great above the fold

The subheader explains the value proposition.

Header handles major objections:

• is it easy to implement?
• can I extend it?

Then we have 3 CTAs but they are super focused on devs: 

• Signup (using action-focused copy)
• See docs which is exactly what many devs want to do before signing up
• See examples, again exactly what most devs want to see before signing up

Then it goes on to explain how it works with a simple, static graphic.

This whole thing makes me feel peaceful.

I love this video ad format from Hygraph.

They are reading and reacting to bad reviews.

I saw this in B2C but not in the dev tool B2B. Love it!

So basically how they did that campaign is:

• The marketing team finds bad product reviews.
• Most of the reviews are technical and speak about some features.
• Their employees (at least some devs in there) read them out loud on their phones.
• They react to the reviews, typically explaining what the product does and why.
• They serve it as YouTube short ads and link to the whole 5-minute video on their channel.

Through all that, you get entertained and learn something about their product. This is such a fun format to test out!

How to run developer-focused Reddit ads that get upvoted?

Reddit is well known for anti-promotional sentiments.

Just post something along the lines "you can solve that with our dev tool" and see.

So running ads on Reddit feels even more like a no-no.

Especially if you add problems with bot clicks and attribution as most devs will have some sort of blocks.

But you know your audience is on Reddit.

And for some of us, it may very well be the only social platform they are on.

So what do you do?

This is how @Featureform approached it to get almost 100 upvotes on an ad:

• They start with a simple conversational copy pointing at their target users pains
• They agitate target users pains in their language (lots of jargony terms, tools and problems)
• They use very devy language, likely rooted in deep user understanding (voice of customer)
• They don't talk about their product in the meme
• They show clear branding so that you can connect the dots.

If you are going for brand awareness rather than a direct conversion those types of ads can work very well.

I liked it for sure.

The problem with presenting API is that it is hidden. It gets the job done in the background.

So it is not "attractive" in the way some other dev tools can be.

But you can:

• show the end result and how it gets the job done.
• show how easy it is to use.
• let people play with something interactive to make it real.

That is how Mux, video API, solves it.

Found this awesome crossover on their homepage.

They give you:

• devvy language that just says what it does without high-level fluff
• code, input/outputs
• end result of your API call, to make it real
• demo to get the feel real-time

Love it!

A classic dev tool blog call to action that is somewhat underused these days.

Was going through Martin Gontovnikas blog and found a post from a couple of years back.

He called this "Aside CTA" and the idea is this:

• You write an article about a problem X
• You don't mention your tool much (or anything) in the article
• But your product helps solve that problem
• So you add an "Aside" at the end where you say that you could also solve it with your tool

Why this can work well with devs is:

• You write a genuinely helpful article
• You don't "pollute" the article with your product
• You add value first with content
• You let people "upgrade" their solution experience with your tool
• You are explicit about what your tool does and what the content does.

Definitely a classic that is worth trying.

Read Gonto's article.

This is a nice little touch in the last step of the signup process.

Linear asks you to do two things:

• Subscribe to the newsletter with updates
• Follow-up on their main social channel

The beauty of it is while this is an ask it is done so gracefully:

• balances promotion with value for the user
• It is explicit in what it asks for and explains each ask with a one-liner
• makes the ask small enough that it makes sense to be an "impulse buy"
• the CTAs are clear -> not only "follow us on Twitter" but also gives you their handle

Nice and simple and I am sure it gets some folks to subscribe/follow.

What to say when you have many products? 

Dev tool companies over time grow from one product to suite of products to platforms with products built on top of the core one.

The result is that it is harder to communicate without going full-on fluff mode (my fav "built better software faster").

But for most companies, there is this core capability/product where people start.  The entry product. Why not use that?

I really liked what Stripe did on their docs page here:

• They have maaaany products: billing, tax, radar, identity etc.  
• But all of them are built on top of their core payments product
• So they focus on getting folks to start with the payments
• And make it clear that there are many other products

Even though this is docs, the same applies to homepages and other dev comms.

If you have many products, figure out what is the most important one, the one where most people enter. Focus on that. "Upsell" to other products later.

A nice example of making navbar more developer-focused.

Ask for GitHub stars with a link to the repository.

It does three things:

• shows where your repository is and that you have something I can see
• lets me see that you have a popular repository
• reminds me that I can star it (if I am a returning user)

This is one of the most interesting content pieces I have seen in dev tools recently 👇

Comes from @SST and believe it or not is a comedy video created to promote integrations.

That's right.

So SST integrated with Astro and instead of creating "just another how-to use X+Y" video they created this:

• A copy of "Between Two Ferns" comedy show
• With one of the founders of Astro framework which they integrated recently
• Where they don't really talk about integration too much ;)
• And reportedly got a ton of signups from this

It was a fun brand play but got way more views than a tutorial ever could.

And it connected with their audience in a human way that will be remembered (and shared).

Nice.

Most devs want to explore products themselves.

They want to read the docs, see examples, play with the product, or watch a video.

They don't want to hop on a demo call, especially early on in the evaluation process.

And they definitely don't want to sit through the demo to learn what your pricing is.

But there will be moments when they will want to talk to you. They will raise their hands and let you know then.

Posthog speaks to this reality with this copy beautifully:

• They basically say "don't talk to us"
• They give you transparent pricing on the website
• They give you a recorded demo on the website
• They let you try the product for free without talking to them
• But if you want to talk to sales/support you can reach out

This is very developer-focused approach and I love it.

When selling dev tools you typically have 3 "buyer" levels:

Individual dev:

• wants to experience your value prop
• ideally wants to play/test/use the free tool
• doesn't buy tools but strongly influences buying decisions
• wants to use it right now, not talk to his boss to get a credit card, not talk to sales

Team lead:

• wants to improve teams productivity
• collaboration, developer experience, and happiness are important
• buys tools at a team-level budget
• doesn't want to go through a lengthy sales process but  swipes the card and gets the team on this week

Org lead:

• wants to improve the security and compliance of the entire eng org
• security, control, governance
• buys tools for the entire organization/enterprise
• expects a longer sales process with a lot of moving parts and needs to discuss and negotiate

How does Postman solve it?:

• packages their plans in a way that aligns with those buyers
• different plans have features needed for Dev/Team lead/Org lead
• CTAs are exactly what each buyer wants: Use > Buy > Talk

They even go the extra mile. Something I didn't see too often.

They understand their customer's reality and identified one more level between Org and Team.

Basically a department-level unit that probably has multiple teams but is not at the organization/enterprise level.

I really like what they did hear. Solid.

This is one of my favorite our dev tool vs competitor blog posts.

With these pages, you want to explain when you are better.

But you don't want to berate your competitor.

And above all, you want to help people make a decision.

Chances are (almost 100% ;)) that you are not better for every use case. And your developer audience knows it.

But there should be use cases, tool stacks, or situations when you are the best option.

Talk about those. Dev to dev.

@Convex did a great job in this post that I think can be a template for how to write these:

• They start by saying what is the same. That sets the context.
• Then they say good things about their competitor. Shows respect and understanding
• They follow by listing 3 key differences/situations when you should consider them
• And they go ahead and explain each of these differences deeply

After reading that post you are fairly convinced that if your situation matches the one described and if it makes sense to use it.

Love it.

Usage-based pricing is loved by devs. But has its own problems.

Ok, so first what are those problems?

Value metric:

• users don't understand your value metric
• even when they do, they cannot map it to their usage patterns.

Predictability and procurement:

• it is easier to predict the headcount than the usage
• per user pricing is obvious, everyone across the org understands it

But devs love usage-based pricing:

• it is "fair", you pay for what you use
• you can scale up/down as you need

It is great for a dev tool company:

• you align user adoption, the value created, and monetization
• as org-wide usage so does the invoice

But pulling it off is not as easy as you may think.

Choosing that value metric, packaging it, and presenting it is a struggle.

@Appsmith solved it in the following way:

• give people an option to go with a usage-based pricing
• but cap a per-user cost at $X a month
• it guarantees a better deal than a flat per-user pricing
• but gives you the predictability of a per-user pricing

Very interesting approach.

Is this brand campaign 💩 or ❤️?

I like it a lot actually.

It gets attention, it is memorable, it gets reactions.  

And It does speak to a product message: that you have better developer experience than other tools.

It definitely beats flavors of "5x developer productivity".

How to do a dev-focused brand video and get 10M+ views?

Making a memorable brand video is hard.

Doing that for a boring tech product is harder.

Doing that to the developer audience is next level.

Postman managed to create not one but three of those brand videos that got from 4M to 10M youtube views.

The videos I am talking about are:

• "I am gonna push some buttons"
• "Together"
• "We did this"

So what did they do right?

• They are all short playful stories touching on values coming from a centralized API platform.
• They hint at the motif of space which is a clear part of Postman's branding
• They do show the actual UI of the product

Honestly, I am not exactly sure what special sauce they added but those are just great videos that you watch.

And I definitely remember them and the company which is exactly what you want to achieve with brand ads.

This is a sandbox experience folks over at Sentry.io created.

I like the navbar CTAs with a big "Documentation" button in there.

Reminds me that I can go and see it when I need it.

But I also get those conversion focused "Request a demo" and "Start a trial" for when I am ready.

On top of that I get tours and help in the sidebar for when I get stuck.

.... and the whole thing is gated behind a work email which I don't love.

But having that work email let's you nurture (and Sentry is known for awesome emails).

Plus it does help sales. If anything it is an additional signal for your account scoring models.

But if you are going to gate a sandbox, make sure to show all that value behind the modal like Sentry did.

With that I can feel compelled to type in that email.

Good format of the tweet copy.

Start with the hook.

Then validate it with more story.

Then open a knowledge gap with a thread.

Which feature/product to show in the header?

How about all?

Many dev tool products are feature-rich. And you want to show those awesome features.

But it is easy to overwhelm the reader when showing so much info.

That is why I really like the header tabs pattern that @PostHog uses:

• You have clickable tabs with product names + descriptive icons
• Copy + Supporting visual (UI, code etc) and a call to action in each tab
• Supporting visuals are in vastly different colors to make it obvious you switch tabs.

This pattern is especially powerful when you want to communicate completeness.

Posthog definitely wants to do that. If you are on that train I'd strongly suggest considering/testing it.

"There are two types of companies": Just a beautiful piece of copy from Fly.io

Doing us vs them doesn't always play out well.

But folks from Fly made it snarky and playful and fun.

And they basically said that they are:

• are developer-centric in the way they sell (self-served)
• are actually easy to use
• are great at the developer experience

And this is just such a nice brand play as well.

You just show personality and confidence in this devy snarky way.

I dig it.

Subtle but effective dev blog CTA -> info box.

Basically a plain article in-text CTA but there is something special about it.

It looks like a docs info box.

It is not a "buy now" style call to action but rather a subtle "you may want to know about X" push.

But for it to really feel like an info box it needs to connect to the section of the section of the article around it.

Otherwise, it will just feel like an intrusive ad anyway.

PlanetScale does a great job here.

They link the part of the article about the sharding library Vitess with their product that was built on top of it.

It feels natural and I am sure it gets clicks and if not then product awareness.

Mux does a few things beautifully in this header.

Value proposition:

• The "what" is explained right away: "Video API", "live and on-demand experiences"
• Super clear on persona "developers" and job to be done "build online video"

Animated visual that is really good for dev tools:

• that have an API/SDK
• that have a UI where the results of that API calls go

"How fast do you ship?"

Not many dev tools answer that on their homepage. PostHog does.

In a typical (enterprise) sales process, people often ask:

• what is on your roadmap?
• how fast do you deliver new features?
• what has your product progress been like last year?

And you show them the roadmap or get someone from the product on the next call.

But I haven't yet seen dev tools talk about it on their homepage.

But why not?

Devs who want to buy self-serve want to know it almost just as much.

After all, they won't be able to twist your arm to build that custom feature cause "we are your biggest client and we need it".

I like it, it builds trust, it shows me you are transparent,

And it shows me that those features I can see on the public roadmap will come true.

Streamlit has an amazing explainer.

They show how to go from:

• Writing your first line of code
• To creating data dashboard
• To deploying it across the web

In 42 seconds.

No audio, just code and a simplified result window.

Amazing stuff.

Super short dev tool case study on a single viewport.

Many case studies follow a Hero -> Problem -> Solution -> Results framework.

Many try and do it on a one-pager.

But what @Resend did is next level and I like it.

Especially with devs, you want to be technical and succinct.

And Resend took all the possible fluff out of it.

• They put a strong quote up top
• They highlight the benefits for easy skimming
• They explain the problems and results succinctly
• They show who said it and make it more believable
• They show the customer: logo/ name + what they do

I'd like to have some before or after probably or a stronger results (or pain) ) focused headline.

But I think this is great actually.

Nice post format.
I like it for dev tools that have both API and UI components.
You show code and what it produces in one view.
You can add additional things to the vis part of it for more context.

When you promote your feature/product launch on Reddit, it can easily end up being "not well received" to put it mildly.

I am talking downvotes, negative comments that get upvoted  and break the discussion. Or good old crickets.

But Reddit can also be a fantastic source of audience feedback, peer validation for your product, and some of the most vocal advocates you'll ever find.

I really liked how Tom Redman from Convex directed the discussion in the Reddit thread under their laucn post:

• Transparent intro: who you are, what you know

• What you like about the tech: why you think it is valuable to the community

• Community-focused call to action: helpful, feedback-first (not conversion-first), disarming with "if I can't answer I'll ask"

The launch post itself was great too:

"Open sourcing 200k lines of Convex, a "reactive" database built from scratch in Rust" that linked to the GitHub repo.

Doesn't get much more to the point and devy than that.

Fantastic all-text Reddit ad from Latitude.

Dev ads are hard. Promotion on Reddit is harder.  Running a dev ad on Reddit that gets 50 comments and 90 likes is expert-level hard.

But folks from Latitude managed 🔥

They used one of my favorite Reddit ad formats: all text.

Here is what I liked:

• They start with who you are and what your product is. I love that they put it right in the title. Having open-source in the title helps too, it just makes you more trustworthy by default.
• They introduce themselves as a technical founder. Makes it more likely to get comments as you are technical, you are a founder, you are a human (not a brand) so you will answer questions.
• They apologize for the ad. Acknowledging that this is an ad makes people less combative.
• They explain technically what it is. Use technical terms. It's very dev to dev.
• They give  devs an easy way to try it. And they chose Github, not their website. That is great. It makes it even more developer-centric. More trustworthy.
• They ask for feedback and contributions.  Not signups. And the more feedback they get (as comments) the more visible and trustworthy the ad will get.

Great execution. Chapeau bas Latitude.

Pushing cold blog readers to try your tool rarely works.

So you need a transitional CTA, something that worms them up.
But it needs to be aligned with the goals of the reader.
And I think pushing folks to a community discord is a solid option.

I like the copy "Discuss this blog on Discord" as it is very reader-focused.
Some folks read the article and have more questions.
They want to discuss it somewhere.

And while you could just do a comments section, a community gives you more options to get people closer to the product.

What if your next swag was a donation? That's what Cockroach Labs did.

Ok, so the typical way of doing swag at a conference is to give out t-shirts for badge scans.

And then folks either wear them or throw them away (or keep wearing them when they should have thrown them away but that is another story).

After the conference you take leftovers with you, ship them home or, you guessed it, throw them away.

A lot of throwing away for a badge scan if you ask me.

Cockroach Labs decided to do something completely different.

They donate a few $ to a great charity @Women Who Code for every badge scan they get.
I love it.

An extra benefit (and where the idea originated) is that with this, you can do virtual badge scans too.

A classic "It doesn't suck" campaign.

Afaik, Barebones ran the first version of this campaign 20 years ago and it was a huge success.

It is so simple, it just speaks to that inner skeptic.

It doesn't say we are the best, we revolutionize software.

It says it doesn't suck.

That is way more believable and makes me think that there is a dev on the other side of that copy.

And there is something cool about this message that makes me want to wear it to the next conference.

Good stuff.

Funny and memorable competitive billboard ad from @Statsig 👇

You have a big incumbent, everyone knows them. Use it to anchor your brand.

And tell the story of how you do things differently.

👀 But first, make people see you. And remember you in the next conversation when the big known brand or a category comes up.

And being funny is one of the best ways of getting attention and being remembered.

💚 I love how folks from Statsig did it here. Such a playful pun on the feature flag category incumbent Launch Darkly. Job well done.

Btw, this was shared by Oleksii Klochai in the Developer Marketing Community (you joined yet?).

In a mature category, it is safe to assume that people know about other tools.

Especially devs.

I love how Axiom owns its unique selling point and how it stands out from the competition.

• They explicitly say how much more scalable they are vs well-known brands like DataDog, Splunk, SumoLogic, and others.
• They don't pretend to be the only company in the observability space.
• They just own their unique selling point and make it easy for people to understand why choose them not others.

Takes guts but I love it.

I really like this Reddit ad from Sentry.

Powerful simplicity.

They don't do:

• long value-based copy
• fancy, in-your-face CTAs
• creative that feels "professional

They go for:

• focus on the pain
• creative that speaks to that pain
• low-key CTA ", get Sentry" rather than "Get Sentry Free!"
• building rapport with the dev with copy "If seeing this in React makes you 🤮"

And through simplicity and focus they deliver a message:

• Stack traces in React are not much fun
• They seem to understand that
• Sentry helps you solve that

Good format.

Make login our problem. Not yours.

This is a beautiful messaging of Auth0 solution.

Login

Simple explanation of what it does/gives you.
Simplified of course

Our problem. Not yours.

You "outsource" this boring but important problem to someone else.
It also has a feel of SaaS in there.
They will take care of it.

‍

I like those sidebar CTAs from Auth0.

They go with a sticky Table of Contents which gives a better reading experience.

They put two CTAs below that TOC:

• "See docs" presented in a very subtle, very developer-friendly way
• They put a more aggressive banner but it is still on the tasteful side.

Solid job.

I like this idea of showing how your dev tool works.

With developers, you almost have to explain how it works on your homepage.

Many products do some version of Step 1 -> Step 2 -> Step 3 -> Success.

I really like how @SST approached it with a timeline.

I find it more engaging than those disconnected steps.

And when I follow this journey the final and logical step is to try it out. Get started.

The idea behind this conversion play is to put an "Aside CTA" that is unrelated to the content early in the article.

And get that clicked.

But obviously, if you do that it will be pushy and intrusive.

So?

Nevo David from Novu shared this idea on one of the podcasts:

• Put a small section right after the introduction
• Add memes to catch attention and disarm the "I hate ads" reader (a little bit)
• Make an explicit ask. Make it human and somewhat vulnerable

Btw, Nevo says that cat memes work best.

Classic remarketing ad. But things are classic because they work 👇

Youtube remarketing is one of the most popular ways to stay top of mind with devs who visit your site.

Lots of devs spend time on Youtube so it is a solid match.

But, "buy now" style ads rarely work because if they wanted to try/buy they would have already.

They need something more.

That "more" is often trust.

They simply don't trust you, your product, and your company.

They don't think you are the real deal and will solve their problems.

But you can build that trust. And to do that you can use testimonial-style ads:

• use case explained in the voice of customer/developer
• real user sharing their story
• clear product branding

That is it.

Show enough of these and % of people will trust you and convert.

Algolia gets over 80% of referral traffic from a single free tool they created called Search Hacker News.

But why does it work so well for them?

Hacker News doesn't really have a native search experience.

Algolia gives devs an amazing search experience out of the box.

So folks from Algolia created their own website where you can search Hackernews... with Algolia search engine.

Of course, when you click on "Search by Algolia" you get directed to the website and can learn how to set up a similar search, which you have just used yourself.

What I love about this:

• solves a real problem for the audience Algolia is after (many software devs read hacker news)
• it shows rather than tells how Algolia's search works. And it works amazingly.
• it feels almost like an extension of HackerNews with the same brand colors and design.

And looking at the results it delivers.

So your differentiator is being self-hosted and you want devs to see it. This is a cool trick I saw that feeds into the way devs navigate your site.  

One navbar tab devs will click on or at least hover over the docs tab.

So putting your self-hosted deployment guide in there will land.

And likely this guide sits in the docs anyway, you just extract that important piece of information and frontload it. This is exactly what @n8n did on their site and I love this.

People see it first and I am sure (many) will remember that n8n is self-hosted which is one of their differentiators. Simple and strong.

In that vein, you can frontload other important pieces like quickstart/getting started or integrations. Especially when your docs is a toggle tab and not just a clickable link.

I'd argue that having that quickstart frontloaded in the docs tab would be a smart move from n8n too. But anyhow, this is job well done.

OK, the best way of getting GitHub stars is by creating a project that solves real developer problems well.

I assume you have done that already and the metric that people love to hate ⭐ is growing organically.

What do you do now?

I mean you got to ask people in one way or another.

Many companies put it in their navbars or hello bars.

Posthog adds a sticky banner at the bottom of the page that follows you as you scroll.

It also shows a start count which at their size (11k + stars) acts as social proof.

You can close it and the next time you visit the page it will be off not to push too much.

I like the concept makes sense to test it out this way imho.

Gonto shared an interesting play that they tried at Auth0 when he was running growth there.

So the story goes like this:

• They wanted to increase brand awareness of Auth0.
• They found influencers who were maintainers of open-source frameworks that had landing pages.
• They went to them and offered to redesign these landing pages for free.
• The trick is they redesigned it in the same branding (colors, patterns, layout) as the product (Auth0).
• That made people think those are related (even though they weren't) which increased the brand perception of Auth0.
• They also asked the influencers/maintainers if they could add retargeting pixel to the redesigned site.
• Which helped them serve relevant ads to visitors of those open-source frameworks.

I think that doing just the sponsorship for the retargeting pixel could work.

But when you add that branding consistency between the sponsored site and the product the CTR is better.

Interesting one for sure.

Sometimes your pricing is just complex. But you can still make it work.

If you want devs to convert, make it possible for them to estimate the cost.

@Mux does it nicely with a calculator:

• They give sliders for dimensions that are obvious to the dev
• They give (pre) select boxes for things that are a bit less obvious
• They show additional costs
• They give you a clear final price estimate

What is crucial is that the calculator dimensions need to be understandable and familiar to the reader.:

• If you use expected industry concepts (view count, upload, users) you should be fine.
• If you use weird obscure concepts the best calculator will not help.

The goal of this is to make it possible for a person to get an estimate right here right now.

Not have to setup a meeting with half the team to figure your pricing out.

Show how product components fit together.
‍
A good diagram is such a good solution to that.
‍
They use the same colors and eyebrow copy that was used for body sections.
It all clicks now, I get the full picture.

‍

‍

There are a few developer experience gems here:

• RSS feed: many devs love rss, let them consume your blog that way
• Search: some devs will immediately know this article is not for them. Let them search and stay.
• Clear branding: Some devs will read the article and leave. Make sure they at least remember your brand.

Also, their design is super clean, non-invasive, and simple which makes for easy content consumption and more developer love.

People want to be valued by their tribe.

One of the ways to do that is by being helpful.

So they want to share things that have a "smell" of insight.

Tool stack/workflow/pipeline chart makes them feel that way.

‍

There are a lot of boring vendor t-shirts at conferences.

And they get boring results.

I like this bold design from GitGuardian:

• they go for anime which is loved by many devs
• it feels and looks like an anime t-shirt, not a vendor t-shirt
• they use their core message "Keep secrets out of your source code"

Nice.

Well done templates gallery from Vercel.

For developer-focused products, having an examples/templates/code samples gallery can be a powerful growth lever.

✅ It helps people:

• understand what you do
• see if anyone did what they want
• get started with something real-life(ish)
• get a feel for a product without committing to it yet

Just a great touchpoint in the developer journey.

💚 And Vercel does this one really well IMHO.

They start with an easy-to-find CTA in the navbar resources section. Bonus points for adding one-liner descriptions that make it clear what is on the other side of the click.

On the templates library page, they give you solid use case navigation with tags. And each template tile has a result thumbnail and a one-liner description. The beauty of this is in the simplicity and what they didn't put in here.

Each template page shows the result, gives you a tutorial on how to use this, and clear CTAs to either see this live or deploy yourself. Bonus points for the "Deploy" action copy (instead of "Sign up").

Kudos to the Vercel team. They are one of my favorite inspirations.

13% signup form conversion bump with a dev-focused trust/motivation builder.

Dev goes through your page, clicks the signup button, and sees a signup form. Now you want them to actually sign up.

The V1 approach is to go clean, a few social signup buttons like GitHub and call it a day.

The V2 is to add trust/motivation builders on the page:

• Logos -> big enterprises and hot startups using your product always feel reassuring
• Testimonial -> fellow dev talking about the product makes your claims real
• Value prop-> reiterating what the product does, key capabilities, makes what you can deliver clear
• How-to -> showing how you get to that value with a 1-2-3 steps removes friction, makes it feel easier

Now, Stytch went for an interesting V3:

Code snippet -> how about just show it? this is a flavour of that 1-2-3 how-to but extra dev-friendly. They also made the code interactive so that you can tinker with it, make it feel yours already.

And they saw a 13% signup conversion bump.

Definitely an interesting thing to test out.

Check out Stytch CEO talking about it here.

Pricing in your docs? That is how @Fly.io does it.

You click a pricing page link on their homepage and you go to the docs!

No 3 boxes with the "most popular" being the middle paid plan ;)

They just give it to you how it is. Exactly what you'd expect from the docs.

There are tables, explanations, and links to other docs pages.

Very bold decision imho. It definitely makes them feel super developer focused.

Plus if you do want a more standard, enterprise stuff you see:

"If you need more support or compliance options, you can choose one of our paid plans. These come with usage included and additional support options."

And that page looks like a classic pricing page.

But they focus on the developer buying experience here. Super interesting.

How to write a "What is {MY CORE KEYWORD}" article that gets to the top of HackerNews? 👇

First of all, almost no one succeeds at that as you write those articles for SEO distribution, not HN distribution.

To get an SEO-first article on HN your content quality bar needs to be super high.

But you can do it.

PlanetScale managed to get their "What is database sharding and how does it work?" on the orange page (kudos to Justin Gage!).

Here is what was interesting about that article:

𝗦𝘂𝗽𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗼𝗶𝗻𝘁 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗼.

• ❌ No "In today's fast-paced data-driven world enterprises work with data" stuff.
• ✅ Just  "Learn what database sharding is, how sharding works, and some common sharding frameworks and tools."

𝗛𝗶𝘁𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗸𝗲𝘆𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗱𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗶𝗹𝗲 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗿𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗱𝗲𝘃 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿.

💚 Speaking peer to peer, not authority-student:

• "You’ve probably seen this table before, about how scaling out helps you take this users table, all stored on a single server:"
• "And turn it into this users table, stored across 2 (or 1,000) servers:"
• "But that’s only one type of sharding (row level, or horizontal). "

𝗨𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗷𝗮𝗿𝗴𝗼𝗻 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗮𝘂𝗱𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲

Things like:

• "Partitioning has existed – especially in OLAP setups"
• "Sifting through HDFS partitions to find the missing snapshot "

𝗔𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗶𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗲𝗰𝗵𝗻𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸

🔥 Look at the section "How database sharding works under the hood" with subsections:

• Sharding schemes and algorithms
• Deciding on what servers to use
• Routing your sharded queries to the right databases
• Planning and executing your migration to a sharded solution

🎁 𝗕𝗼𝗻𝘂𝘀: 𝗽𝗹𝘂𝗴 𝗶𝗻 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁 𝗴𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗹𝘆

Section "Sharding frameworks and tools" shares open-source tools (every dev, but HN devs in particular like OS projects).

And there as an info box, you have the info that Planetscale comes with one of those OS projects deployed.

Just a beautifully executed piece of content marketing.

If your dev tool's USP is that it is faster -> Show it in the header

I like how folks from Bun focus on the fact that they are a faster library.

They show the benchmark as the key visual on the homepage header.

I love it.

If you think about it how else do you really want to show that you are faster?

This is believable, especially with a link to the benchmark so that I can dig deeper.

They show competitors, they don't pretend they don't exist.

And they talk about being faster left right and center.

I mean, they drive this "we are faster" home for me.

If that was important to me, I'd check it out.

Digital Ocean went for an ad for the Hactoberfest in a tricky place.

To keep it in the medium that fits YouTube shorts they:

• made it into an actual short vid
• used a comic book story

I think doing YouTube shorts is an interesting opportunity in a yet unsaturated market (as of 2022).

And doing ads that fit that medium so nicely is an art.

Good job DO!

Marketing through free tools is powerful. And Auth0 implemented it beautifully.

In an old article from Gonto I read about some free tools that Auth0 created years ago.

And those tools are still generating traffic and leads today.

And they are helpful to developers and make the Auht0 brand even more appreciated by the community.

One of those tools is JSON Web Token Debugger.

So how this works for them is this:

• You understand that your target dev audience has a problem
• You realize that helpful blog posts can only do so much
• You create a small tool that helps solve that problem
• You create content that explain the concept to help build SEO
• You link out to that content on the home
• You add links to your core product/events or other offers in the navbar
• You wait for devs to come ;)

Now, Gonto suggested that is important to do it on a separate domain to make it less promotional.

I am not sold on that especially when I know there are companies like @VEED.IO that build "SEO tool clusters" in the /tools/ subfolder of their page and crush it in search.

But either way, if you can solve a real problem your target devs have, no matter how small, you should be able to get some developer love (and $) from the value you created.

I love this copy. It answers:

• what it does -> "authentication and authorization"
• how is it different -> "simple to implement, easy to extend"

It doesn't talk about the value as it is obvious to devs.

Obviously, it will save time and make things safer.

Don't talk about it.

Not sure how to find developers for audience research interviews?

Sometimes all you need is ask.

I really liked what the founders of this startup did:

• Found relevant subreddits where folks working in MLOps/DevOps and ML are (for example r/mlops)
• Clearly explained why they wanted it: building a startup and doing exploratory analysis
• Clearly explained what they wanted: interviews with mlops/devop/data scientists
• Clearly explained what they will give for it: cash, as simple as that

Sometimes you don't need to overthink it and can just ask.

How to present benchmark results masterclass from RavenDB

The biggest problem with the software benchmarks that you run is?

People don't trust you. Especially when the results are good.

𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗿𝘂𝘀𝘁. 𝗢𝗻𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘄𝗮𝘆𝘀 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗽𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗰𝘆.

People from RavenDB do it by:

• Showing where they ran it (AWS, Linux)
• Showing exactly what infra they ran it on. Extra points for making it interactive.
• Explaining how they ran it with code snippets and setup
• Copy is also very to the point, technical, docs-like

This looks solid because it feels like I could re-run what they did myself.And so I trust them and I probably won't ;)

I love this dev tool header copy from Neon.

❌ They could have gone with "We make your data fly" or "10x your database developer efficiency" or other stuff like that.

💚 Instead, they spoke in a clear dev-to-dev language:

• What it is: "fully managed serverless Postgress"
• Benefit in technical terms: "Autoscaling, branching, bottomless storage"
• How they do it: "Separate storage and compute"
• Obstacle handling for current Postgres users: "generous free tier"

Simple, clear, and to the point. No fluffs given. Love that.

"But we are selling to the boss of a boss of that developer user persona"

Then let that dev champion understand what you are doing and bring it to their boss.

"But we are going pure top-down"

Then does that boss of a boss of a boss actually evaluate your infra tool themselves or send their architect?

Maybe 90% of your site traffic is the buyer-persona CTO. But my bet is, it isn't even 1%.  

Classic Auth0 campaign coming back in 2023.

I love how simple and powerful this message is.

You can outsource a dull but important problem of authentications to them.

That is all the say.

But it is enough to get you interested and understand what they do.

I really love this hand-drawn feel.

It makes it super authentic.

Also, starting from scratch (not a ready diagram) makes following it more fun and less overwhelming.

Great stuff.

BTW the tool used for this is called excalidraw.com

The homepage header is about landing your core product message.

For Modal it is basically LLM infrastructure with great developer experience.  

And they do a great job delivering it:

• Input/output visual: I think for infra products this is a great choice.  Show what code you run, show how to run it, show what you get. Ideally, this all looks nice and easy.
• Headline/subheadline: They explain "what is it" and "for whom is it" (or what use case): "what": Serverless infra platform, "whom" ML teams.

• Great calls to action: If you don't know what to put this is the best baseline imho. Get started (Signup) and Docs.

• Social proof: devs want to know if others like them and/or respectable companies use it in production. While dev testimonials do that better, logos is what people expect to see here. Don't have them and you raise flags, especially if you are unknown.

• Branding: if you can make your page/company memorable on top of landing  that message -> great. And with that green gradient and uncommon colours they definitely do.

Top job on that header folks!

Simple yet powerful CTA in the navbar resources section.

The resources section in the navbar is mostly navigational. Well, the entire navbar is ;)

But you always have that one action that is more impactful than others.  

💚 And I think that a Plauground  is a great option. You get people to see how your product works. You let people play with it and see for themselves.

Not many next actions can be as impactful as getting people to experience the product.

Especially if you are a heavier infra tool that people cannot really test out in that first session. I mean, you won't really create a realistic example of your core database in 15 minutes to see how that new tool that you just saw works.

🔥 Making this CTA "big and shiny" and showing a glimpse of what will happen after clicking is great too.

🤔 2 changes I'd test out:

• Making the copy more descriptive performs better.  Like "Launch playground", "Play with Sandbox", or something around "Run an example project/app/environment".

• Showing something more exciting about the product (or playground/tour) on that visual

But the core idea behind making the playground your core navbar resource section CTA is just great.

If you have an API product presenting it in an exciting visual way is hard.

But Deepgram managed to do just that.

They go for an autoplay presentation that has four acts:

1. Context: playing an audio file showing a spectrogram -> sets the context that this is something audio
2. Code: They show the code from one of the SDKs being typed. And they show tabs at the top with other important SDKs to convey that this is not Python-only.
3. Result: Shows the output of running the code, a transcript, and an AI-generated summary and topics.  
4. Layers: Takes the points above and layers them in one viz to communicate that this is all part of one product, just different "views" of it.

And the delivery is just slick and elegant. Kudos team!

btw, Mux, the video API has a similar design of their visual. I think it is just a great visual element for API products.

I love that it is static and it blurs everything I don't need to get the concept.

For the dev audience, static graphics, when done well, are better than

• videos
• screenshots
• or happy faces of happy customers :)

Tell me what you do in 1 sec, not 60

Architecture diagrams are awesome.

They have this smell of value that makes you want to share them with others.

This one is particularly good-looking imho.

How to design the navbar product tab? This is what @PostHog does 👇

Figuring out what to put in the navbar is tricky:

• How should you name tabs
• What should go where
• Should you have "resources" or divide it

The "Product" tab is especially tricky.

It can get overloaded with a ton of content.

• Some teams put docs, and product videos there.
• Some show features, integrations, and code examples.
• Some go with solutions and per person per industry pages.
• Some just put everything in there ;)

I like how Posthog approached it:

• They use the word "features". Most devs like it more than other options.
• They show the data stack with which the tools integrate. That is an important obstacle handler pretty much always.
• They include customers in the product tab. Most devs want to see the product and may not go to the "customers" tab. This is a nice way to add social proof and increase conversion to user stories pages.
• They show customer logos and the results they got from the product. Again more social proof without clicking out.
• They use "customer stories" rather than "case studies" which again feels more devy .

I like it.

With infrastructure tools, it is notoriously difficult to show people the value quickly.

To really see it they would need to set up everything at their company infra, create dashboards for their use case, and so on. 

A lot of work.

That is why creating a sandbox experience is a good way of giving people a taste.

I like the way Axiom calls it a playground and says "Play with Axiom" and "Launch playground".

This copy is good because:

• they acknowledge it isn't a real thing (but a playground)
• it conveys that it will be interactive and you'll be able to click around
• it makes it feel like less work and more, well play :)

A docs header worth a thousand words.

For a dev platform or infrastructure tool it is hard to explain where you fit, what you do quickly, and how you connect to existing components quickly.  

Hopsworks docs team does a great job here.

So instead of using words, they use a diagram:

• You get a solid overview of where your tool/platform fits larger context
• It shows you which part of the workflow/infra the platform solves
• Every part of the diagram is a clickable docs link
• Shows where you can deploy it
• Shows what backend you can use.

All of that in a single diagram.

Now that is a dev-focused header visual.

This is a really clever billboard campaign.

Show don't tell they say.

And Segment did exactly that by putting billboards with the wrong location printed on them (LA in SF etc).

The theme/message was "What good is bad data?" which was exactly what they wanted to convey.

What I like about is the alignment between:

• campaign creative
• campaign theme
• product value

This is hard to do imho so big kudos to them 🎉!

Downside?

Reportedly many folks who saw billboards didn't get that it was intentional and Tweeted at them about the error.

Or maybe they were next-level jokers...

With/without is a classic marketing campaign theme.

AhoyConnect does it nicely in this ad.

Obviously, not everyone loves memes.

But many devs do.

Those who do may smirk -> smirk builds brand affinity.

Share an idea about a new concept.

Explain the concept in simple terms.
Back it up with a visualization.

I like the "hand-written" style of this viz that makes it less formal.

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"32 billion reasons to check out..." - I love this ad from Aikido Security.

What I Iove the most is that it doesn't say much, it just points. I think it comes from Harry Dry or the book Made to Stick.

But the idea is that the best stories are not something you write. It is something you tell. You don't say, just point.

And this is what folks from Aikido did:

• the story is that Wiz got acquired for $32B by Google
• often companies that get acquired the quality drops over time
• some folks in the dev community (on Reddit) are not happy about it

So they pointed:

• They pointed to a Reddit comment (simple screenshot)
• They pointed to them being acquired (which is a huge story in the space)
• They combined it all with a beautiful pun "32 Billion reasons to check out Aikidko"

Love it! Sometimes I think I live for this stuff ;)

Thank you Marie Jaksman for sharing this gem!

How to do a dev-focused brand video and get 10M+ views?

Making a memorable brand video is hard.

Doing that for a boring tech product is harder.

Doing that to the developer audience is next level.

Postman managed to create not one but three of those brand videos that got from 4M to 10M youtube views.

The videos I am talking about are:

• "I am gonna push some buttons"
• "Together"
• "We did this"

So what did they do right?

• They are all short playful stories touching on values coming from a centralized API platform.
• They hint at the motif of space which is a clear part of Postman's branding
• They do show the actual UI of the product

Honestly, I am not exactly sure what special sauce they added but those are just great videos that you watch.

And I definitely remember them and the company which is exactly what you want to achieve with brand ads.

Devs like diagrams.

When you explain a complex concept in one diagram it is just very shareable.

If you are interested in reading more there is an entire "blog post" when you click see more.

Just a very solid content format.