A platform is when the economic value of everybody that uses it, exceeds the value of the company that creates it. Then it’s a platform. - The Bill Gates Line, Stratechery
Platforms make your product more useful, and can grow your business as a result. But if you never drive adoption of what developers build, the flywheel (and platform) dies.
Your platform offers:
1) Useful or cool technology 2) User acquisition 3) The opportunity to make lots of $$$
Consider your ecosystem with the same empathy (and rigor) as your customer funnel. Help them succeed: give away marketing resources, help your ecosystem reach customers, build surface area to help integrations get used.
Developers don’t want any of it. Make your language human, straightforward and meaningful. Eliminate excess.
You get dirty when you tend to the garden. Standing up a developer community comes with real challenges. Have at least one person who is worrying about making your community safe and helping it to grow.
Developers can’t be part of 300 communities in a meaningful way, so test and see if your platform is viable. One approach: build your first integrations, and see if they get adopted: if they do, then you might have a big opportunity on your hands.
Built and ran Platform Marketing at Slack.
Invested in developer tools at BVP, and helped build platform at Box as developer relations.
Angel Investor.
Built and led Developer Marketing and Community at Slack
Ran Platform Marketing at Slack
Led marketing at ZenHub
Advisor at Openview Ventures
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