Scaling DevTools

Finding your first 10 customers, with Andy Lee from DeepTrace

Jack Bridger — Sun, 29 Mar 2026 16:59:53 +0100

Andy is the cofounder of DeepTrace, an AI reliability platform that helps engineering teams investigate incidents and fix problems in production. In this conversation, Andy shares how a team of technical founders learned sales, got their first 10 customers, and approached go-to-market with the same mindset they used for engineering. We discuss outbound volume, messaging, targeting, sales tooling, paid ads, sales calls, pricing, trials, and the thinking behind DeepTrace

Links:

DatoCMS: bootstrapping to €6.5M ARR

Jack Bridger — Sun, 22 Mar 2026 09:51:46 +0000

Stefano Verna and Matteo Giaccone from DatoCMS share how their side project in a web agency turned into a €6.5M ARR company with a 13-person remote team. We talk about building sustainable, bootstrapped businesses, instead of the all-or-nothing VC approach, and about their 6-week shipping cycles, prioritizing simplicity, and building trust with customers.

Links:
•. Dato CMS
•. Matteo's Linkedin
•. Stefano's X

Ahmad Sadeddin, founder of Corgea: you don't need to raise (much) to find PMF

Jack Bridger — Fri, 27 Feb 2026 14:00:00 +0000

Ahmad Sadeddin is the founder and CEO of Corgea. Corgea provides the security tools to find, triage, and fix insecure code.

Ahmad shares:

- Why you don't need to raise much to find PMF - stay lean: you should surprise people with how few people you are.
- What is a small amount to raise? And what team size do you need?
- Pivoting during YC and how Corgea found their first customers and the signs of Product Market Fit
- The journey to Product Market Fit never stops
- How Corgea worked towards 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:

Ahmad Sadeddin https://www.linkedin.com/in/asadeddin/
Corgea https://corgea.com/
The Fatal Pinch by Paul Graham https://paulgraham.com/pinch.html

Retool founder David Hsu: AI, future of DevTools & how Retool got their first customers

Jack Bridger — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 14:03:10 +0000

David Hsu is the founder of Retool, the low-code platform for building internal tools used by companies like Amazon, Airbnb, and the US Army. David recounts building Retool's first version in weeks with just three components, early outreach failures, shifting to "tomorrow's developers," and LLM use cases.

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:
• Retool
• David's Linkedin

Louis from Vibe Kanban - 20,000 GitHub stars and walking away from 6-figure deals

Jack Bridger — Sun, 15 Feb 2026 16:57:16 +0000

Louis Knight-Webb is the co-founder of Vibe Kanban, an open-source tool for orchestrating AI coding agents. After years of building for enterprise legacy code, Louis pivoted and saw his new project explode to over 20,000 GitHub stars in just a few months. We talk about the "startup university" of the last five years, why he walked away from 6-figure enterprise deals to find true founder-market fit, and why he thinks most people are wrong about AI-generated pull requests.

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:
• Vibe Kanban
• Louis' Linkedin

The Roadmap to PMF (Jason Cohen's essay)

Jack Bridger — Sun, 08 Feb 2026 16:43:21 +0000

This episode breaks down an article by Jason Cohen, founder of WP Engine and SmartBear, outlining his step-by-step roadmap from idea to product-market fit (PMF) for startups, especially DevTools. His 8 step roadmap provides insights on personal fit, market validation, customer interviews, building an SLC (simple, lovable, complete) MVP, sales focus, retention, prioritization, and founder psychology, drawing from Cohen's unicorn success and pitfalls to avoid.

Links:
• Jason Cohen
• WP Engine
• Smart Bear
• Jason Cohen's article

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.

Product Market Fit - the only thing that matters

Jack Bridger — Sat, 31 Jan 2026 17:05:23 +0000

This episode breaks down Marc Andreessen's 2007 article on why market matters most in startups, plus some great wisdom from Michael Seibel on spotting real PMF through explosive growth and customer pull.

Links:
• Marc Andreessen's article
• Michael Seibel's post
• Product Market Fit collapse

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.

Christopher Burns - creator of c15t: the developer-first cookie banner

Jack Bridger — Fri, 23 Jan 2026 18:42:48 +0000

This episode is with Christopher Burns, the creator of c15t and founder of consent.io, an open-source, developer-first, ethical provider of privacy infrastructure. Chris explains why most cookie banners are not compliant, and if the EU is going to come after you for it. We talk about how he found product market fit and grew the company, and we also debate London vs SF for startups.

Links:
• Chris' Linkedin
• c15t
• Consent

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

The Amazon Web Services origin story (part 1)

Jack Bridger — Tue, 20 Jan 2026 08:40:24 +0000

This is the story of how Amazon Web Services - arguably the most successful developer tool of all time - got started.

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.

Adam Frankl returns to answer my TAB questions

Jack Bridger — Fri, 09 Jan 2026 18:17:10 +0000

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

Kyle Cheung from Greybeam - jumping over bathroom stalls.. as marketing

Jack Bridger — Wed, 31 Dec 2025 11:39:23 +0000

Kyle Cheung, co-founder of Greybeam, shares how his team built a tool that reduces Snowflake costs by 70-95%, without migration, drawing from multiple pivots over two years. The discussion covers their quirky marketing tactics and advice on fundraising as storytelling.

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's Linkedin
• Greybeam

Matt Klein - cofounder of Bitdrift: meeting developers where they are and early days of AWS

Jack Bridger — Fri, 19 Dec 2025 18:25:39 +0000

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

“I met my cofounder while gaming” - CEO of Northflank, Will Stewart

Jack Bridger — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 11:01:26 +0000

Will Stewart is the CEO and co-founder of Northflank, the developer platform. He shares how a teenage gaming side project turned into a self-service developer platform that runs complex workloads on Kubernetes across any cloud. He talks about meeting his co-founder online, fundraising and hiring remotely and why they took years to launch. He offers some interesting insights on dealing with bugs, product vision and changelogs.

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:

• Northflank
• Will's Linkedin

DevRel is unbelievably back - with swyx

Jack Bridger — Fri, 05 Dec 2025 18:29:49 +0000

In Shawn "swyx" Wang's third appearance on the podcast, we talk about his recent interview with Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan about AI in biomedical research, and the goal to understand and eventually eradicate all diseases. We also talk about how DevRel is unbelievable back, the challenges of uphill DevRel, the dynamics of the current AI investment bubble, and the new projects he is working on.

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:

• Uphill DevRel article
• DevRel is unbelievably back article
• Particle/wave duality article
• The Economics of Superstars
• AI Engineer conference videos
• Swyx's Linkedin

Growing Marimo's YouTube channel, with Vincent D. Warmerdam

Jack Bridger — Sun, 30 Nov 2025 13:31:00 +0000

Vincent D. Warmerdam from Marimo shares how they grew their YouTube channel for their Python notebook, using regular Shorts to reach thousands of new viewers each week. He talks about the importance of being genuinely excited about what you’re building and how consistent, authentic content can help both founders and creators connect with their audience. He gives practical advice and real-world insights for anyone interested in DevRel or growing a DevTool channel.

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:
• Vincent's blog
• Vincent's X
• Marimo

How RevenueCat tore up the sales playbook, with Rik Haandrikman

Jack Bridger — Fri, 21 Nov 2025 16:03:59 +0000

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

Baseten CEO and co-founder Tuhin Srivastava on inference and feedback loops

Jack Bridger — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 17:29:17 +0000

The episode features Baseten CEO and cofounder Tuhin, who shares Baseten’s journey from a small team in the pre-GenAI era to scaling rapidly and raising $150M in Series D funding. The discussion delves into building robust inference infrastructure for AI applications, navigating market shifts, and developing tools that prioritize speed, developer experience, and customer feedback loops.

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:
• Baseten
• Tuhin's Linkedin

When sales and product led growth meet, with Railway's Angelo Saraceno

Jack Bridger — Fri, 07 Nov 2025 18:00:42 +0000

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

Sales 101 with my ex-boss Guy Zerega (former Stack Overflow EVP)

Jack Bridger — Fri, 31 Oct 2025 16:00:27 +0000

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

How can you actually use AI in DevTools content? With Victor Coisne from Strapi

Jack Bridger — Fri, 24 Oct 2025 15:59:52 +0100

Victor, VP of Marketing at Strapi, walks us through how AI can be used in content creation—what tools work, what to watch out for, and how you can try some of these techniques yourself.

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:

• Victor's X
• Victor's Linkedin
• Strapi
• GrowthX
• Kapa
• Octolens
• Semrush

How PlanetScale write content, with Ben Dicken

Jack Bridger — Fri, 17 Oct 2025 16:11:46 +0100

Ben Dicken is a developer educator at PlanetScale, he's an incredible writer and teacher, who's made some amazing technical articles that developers actually love reading. We get into his reasons for working so hard on these articles, his process, and how he makes content that genuinely helps engineers understand complex ideas.

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:

• Ben's X
• B-trees and database indexes article
• IO devices and latency article

Technical Advisory Boards - the most important action DevTools founders can take?

Jack Bridger — Fri, 10 Oct 2025 14:08:06 +0100

In this episode, we explore Adam Frankl's concept of a Technical Advisory Board, and how it helps DevTools founders learn directly from potential users. I share personal experience organizing one-on-one interviews to find out real customer problems and gives tips for recruiting members. We explore how to set up the meetings, analyse feedback, and get the most value from the process.

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:
• The first tab call
• How to recruit TAB members
• After the first set of TAB calls
• Adam's Linkedin
• Adam's book

Running Events with Matt Carey from AI Demo Days

Jack Bridger — Fri, 03 Oct 2025 18:03:56 +0100

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

AI Tools for Enterprise - Chris and Matt from Ona

Jack Bridger — Fri, 26 Sep 2025 17:30:30 +0100

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

Better documentation with the Diátaxis Framework

Jack Bridger — Fri, 19 Sep 2025 17:23:36 +0100

Creating docs that actually work means knowing what to write, how to write it, and where it belongs. In this episode, we break down the diataxis documentation framework—a simple but powerful system that splits docs into four clear types: tutorials, how-to guides, explanations, and reference. We look at examples of tools that have implemented diataxis to write their documentation with clarity and purpose.

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:
• Diataxis
• Sequin
• Layercode
• Logdy

Karan Vaidya, founder of Composio: MCP use cases & Elon retweets

Jack Bridger — Fri, 12 Sep 2025 21:54:26 +0100

Karen from Composio shares how developers are using MCP to connect tools like Slack, Notion, and Gmail with AI agents, growing from nearly zero to 100,000 users in 6 months. They capitalized on key moments when new AI tools, such as Grok versions and Claude releases, came out, creating examples and demos that resonated strongly across social media and got them retweeted by Elon Musk. Hear how the team learns to use these tools better over time, helping each new release work smarter than the last.

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:
• Composio
• Composio's X
• Karan's X
• Launch Video

Studying Lee Robinson, Cursor's new VP of Developer experience

Jack Bridger — Fri, 05 Sep 2025 13:15:08 +0100

Lee Robinson helped Vercel grow to $200M+ in ARR and scaled the Next.js community to over 1.3 million active developers. I dive into his blog posts to uncover valuable insights and lessons about how he achieved this success, covering topics like docs, community building, developer education, marketing, and product 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:
• Lee Robinson's blog
• Lee Robinson's X
• Peter Yang's interview
• swyx's interview
• Gonto on Scaling DevTools
• Developer Marketing Community

P.s. this is a new style of episode, let me know what you think.

Running hackathons, with Carter Rabasa from Langflow

Jack Bridger — Fri, 29 Aug 2025 10:07:52 +0100

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

Rita Kozlov from Cloudflare: competing with the hyperscalers

Jack Bridger — Fri, 22 Aug 2025 00:25:45 +0100

Rita Kozlov is the VP of Developers and AI at Cloudflare. We talk about how Cloudflare focuses on building disruptive, efficient technologies like their Workers platform to gain long-term competitive advantages.

They use their own developer platform to ship fast, and hire people who deeply care, with a culture of curiosity and transparency that drives continuous innovation.

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 Palmer on Replit's speedrun to $100M ARR

Jack Bridger — Thu, 14 Aug 2025 16:17:46 +0100

Matt Palmer from Replit shares how the company scaled to $100M in ARR from ~$10M in under a year. We talk about the importance of video for teaching the non-linear process of working with AI, the challenge of rewriting documentation for a broader audience using the Diátaxis framework, and how they support a diverse community of users navigating this new AI-driven development landscape.

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:

Logan Kilpatrick from Google DeepMind: Building for 100m developers

Jack Bridger — Fri, 08 Aug 2025 08:23:55 +0100

Logan Kilpatrick shares how DeepMind's organizational changes helped their resurgance in AI. What needs to happen to reach 100m developers. And why the next six months are more exciting than ever.

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 Lambert, CEO of PlanetScale: dropping the free tier was a great decision

Jack Bridger — Thu, 31 Jul 2025 16:39:20 +0100

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 Bhagwat from Mastra: the Gatsby founder building an agents framework

Jack Bridger — Thu, 24 Jul 2025 14:42:10 +0100

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

I sold my DevTool. ft Paul Anthony Williams from ittybit

Jack Bridger — Sat, 19 Jul 2025 21:28:51 +0100

This is the first time I'm turning the mic around.
This is the story of StreamPot. A DevTool I launched about a year ago.
It was just acquired by ittybit so I thought I'd bring ittybit's founder Paul on to basically interview me about what went right and what went wrong.
Hopefully you enjoy learning a bit more about the guy usually asking the questions.

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:
- Jack Bridger
- StreamPot
- StreamPot GitHub
- Announcement
- Paul Anthony Williams
- ittybit
- FFmpeg
- Hetzner

Paul Copplestone, CEO of Supabase - don't kill your channel

Jack Bridger — Fri, 18 Jul 2025 11:13:29 +0100

Paul Copplestone is the CEO of Supabase, the Postgres development platform. He talks about the discipline needed to cross the enterprise chasm without isolating your original community.

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:
- Paul's LinkedIn
- Paul's X
- Paul's website
- Supabase
- Enterprise Sales vs Product-led Growth
- Friction logs
- Ant Wilson
- Multigres: Vitess for Postgres

Quinn Favret from Tavus: AI video API that saved our episode

Jack Bridger — Mon, 14 Jul 2025 18:38:40 +0100

Quinn Favret is the founder of Tavus. They do AI video research and products. They saved a Scaling DevTools episodes with their lipsync feature.

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/

Links:

- Tavus
- Tavus lipsync API
- Quinn Favret
- Scaling DevTools episode saved by Tavus

Andrew Filev, founder of Zencoder: AI Software Engineering agents

Jack Bridger — Tue, 08 Jul 2025 22:22:13 +0100

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

Wordware founders, Filip Kozera and Robert Chandler - non-engineers can build AI workflows

Jack Bridger — Sat, 28 Jun 2025 00:02:05 +0100

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

Tony Holdstock-Brown, CEO of Inngest: orchestration, traction and not using LinkedIn

Jack Bridger — Thu, 19 Jun 2025 12:35:34 +0100

Tony Holdstock-Brown is the CEO and founder of Inngest, a tool to run AI and backend workflows at scale.

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:
- Inngest
- Tony's (inactive) LinkedIn
- Traction book

Note: the studio lost video footage about 20 minutes in. Sorry about that. Audio is fine though.

Shipping 22 products to find the true product - Utpal from Digger.dev

Jack Bridger — Tue, 17 Jun 2025 08:34:08 +0100

Utpal Nadiger is the cofounder of Digger.dev. Digger built a popular open source IaC orchestration tool. Their new product Infrabase is an AI DevOps agent that scans IaC code in your pull requests.

We talk about SF, resiliency and pivoting.

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.

Why/how we lipsynced:
The (amazing) studio accidentally had Utpal's camera switched off for the first 20 minutes. So I lipsynced the audio onto the latter part of the video. You can probably notice if you look closely. And also his gestures don't always look congruent because of the lipsyncing. But overall, incredible tech from Tavus - much better than a blank screen in my opinion!

Steve Ruiz, founder of tldraw - taste, creativity and obsession

Jack Bridger — Sat, 07 Jun 2025 18:08:26 +0100

Steve Ruiz is the founder of tldraw - a whiteboard SDK / infinite canvas SDK. We talk creativity, taste and obsession. And marketing 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:

Luke Harries from ElevenLabs - Maximize your launches

Jack Bridger — Thu, 29 May 2025 17:06:53 +0100

Luke Harries leads growth at ElevenLabs. ElevenLabs builds incredible AI voice models. Luke dives into why launches matter so much, the origin story of ElevenLabs and why a hackathon can change your life.

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.

P.s. I used Eleven Labs without any edits for the transcript/subtitles.

ChatGPT didn't kill SEO - Elston Baretto, founder of Tiiny.host

Jack Bridger — Fri, 23 May 2025 13:27:40 +0100

Elston Baretto is the founder of Tiiny.host - the simplest place to put your work online. In this episode we talk about how Elston has been able to grow Tiiny to 70,000+ sign ups per month with content marketing.

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:
- Tiiny.host
- Elston Baretto
- Ramen Club
- Charlie Ward
- Sabba
- Veed

Eric from Trigger.dev - iterating to 50% MoM growth

Jack Bridger — Thu, 15 May 2025 13:51:46 +0100

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:

Kyle Galbraith from Depot: how they hit $1M+ ARR with three people

Jack Bridger — Thu, 08 May 2025 12:58:07 +0100

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:

DevTools Marketing with Jason Lengstorf

Jack Bridger — Fri, 02 May 2025 19:16:26 +0100

This episode is a deep dive into DevTools marketing with Jason Lengstorf, founder of CodeTV.

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.

Sunil Pai on AI agents, Cloudflare and React

Jack Bridger — Thu, 24 Apr 2025 16:31:27 +0100

This episode is with Sunil Pai. He works at Cloudflare after his startup PartyKit was acquired. Previously he was on the React core team at Meta.

He's a great guy. And obsessed with 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:
- Sunil Pai on X
- Sunil Pai's site
- Building agents with Cloudflare
- PartyKit
- Durable objects

Raycast founder Thomas Paul Mann - quality, YC and AI

Jack Bridger — Thu, 17 Apr 2025 12:18:09 +0100

Thomas Paul Mann is the cofounder of Raycast. I use Raycast every day as a replacement for Spotlight. For me, shortcuts are the most useful feature. I put curl requests I commonly use as well as random things like email snippets. It's a massive time saver and really well built.

Raycast is a genuinely well built product so Thomas talks quality, getting feedback and how they ship features.

We also talk about their unique YC experience and how they've been building AI into Raycast.

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:

The startup behind ChatGPT voice - Russ d'Sa from LiveKit

Jack Bridger — Thu, 10 Apr 2025 12:19:16 +0100

Russ D’Sa is the founder of LiveKit. They are an open source tool for real time audio and video for LLM applications and they power the voice chat for ChatGPT and Character AI.

We discuss:
- How lightning works (using ChatGPT/LiveKit)
- How LiveKit started working with OpenAI
- Why Russ turned down an early 20m acquisition offer
- What it’s like to work with the fastest growing company (ever?)
- How to prepare for massive scale challenges
- Russ’s 3 letter twitter handle

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:
- LiveKit
- Russ’s Twitter

Chris Evans & Pete Hamilton: Incident.io cofounders

Jack Bridger — Thu, 03 Apr 2025 17:50:31 +0100

Pete Hamilton and Chris Evans are cofounders of Incident.io. Incident is an incident management tool.

We discuss:

How they think about brand and how it comes from their deep understanding of incident culture
Lawrence’s article asking for new macbooks that went viral
Gallows humor in incidents
Why incident.io started on Heroku despite being an incident response platform—and why “shipping fast” mattered more than “scaling perfectly.”
The benefit of building for users who are just like you
How Incident is using GenAI

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:

Note: this was recorded on 13th December 2024.

David Cramer, founder of Sentry - why you should consider M&A

Jack Bridger — Thu, 27 Mar 2025 15:06:57 +0000

David Cramer, co-founder of Sentry talks M&As and why they should be utilized more when you don’t achieve huge success. Plus we talk about the importance of good branding.

We discuss:

The biggest mistake small startup founders make by not exploring potential acquisitions.
The role of ego in startups
Product-market-fit
Hiring entrepreneurial talent and why acqui-hiring is so big.
The significance of branding beyond just marketing – how it builds trust, recognition, and demand.
Sentry’s approach to branding, emphasizing authenticity, community, and accessibility.
What DevTools can learn from Liquid Death and Porsche
Why brand matters

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/

Links:

raylib founder Ramon Santamaria - #2 most popular open-source game-engine in the world

Jack Bridger — Thu, 20 Mar 2025 10:26:15 +0000

Ramon, creator of Raylib, joins us to discuss his journey from building an educational tool to establishing one of the most popular open-source game engines. As of February 2025, Raylib is the second most popular open-source game engine behind Godot, boasting 25,000 GitHub stars, 13,000 Discord community members, and over 8,000 subreddit members. Ramon has transitioned from lecturing and consulting to focusing on his paid tools built around Raylib.

We discuss:

How Raylib started as a teaching project to help art students learn programming through simple and intuitive function naming.
The active community behind Raylib and how Ramon personally engages with new members, contributing to the project's growth.
Why simplicity and not making assumptions about prior knowledge can create a strong foundation for both beginners and experienced developers.
The benefits of using a low-level library like Raylib versus higher-level game engines like Unity, particularly for small indie games.
Ramon's approach to managing his workload as a solo developer, emphasizing organization, automation, and using his own tools to build tools.
His method of testing new tools by quickly launching them, observing market response, and iterating on the most successful ones.
The importance of enjoying the process of building an open-source project rather than focusing solely on commercial success.

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/

Links:

Raylib (https://www.raylib.com/)
Cat and Onion game (https://store.steampowered.com/app/2781210/CAT__ONION/)
Raylib GitHub (https://github.com/raysan5/raylib)
Raylib Discord (https://discord.gg/raylib)
Raylib Subreddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/raylib/)
Ramon's Tools (https://raylibtech.com/tools/)

Temporal founders: Samar Abbas and Maxim Fateev

Jack Bridger — Thu, 13 Mar 2025 16:02:57 +0000

Maxim Fateev and Samar Abbas from Temporal join us to discuss how their durable execution platform ensures processes complete reliably at scale.

We discuss:

How Temporal gained enterprise adoption with companies like Airbnb, HashiCorp, and Snapchat.
Why Temporal compensates salespeople based on customer consumption.
Temporal’s role in Snapchat’s story processing and Taco Bell’s Taco Tuesday scalability.
How Temporal earns enterprise trust through security, reliability, and scalability.
The structure of Temporal’s sales team and their focus on long-term customer success.
Exciting trends in AI and low-code/no-code 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:

Nikita Shamgunov - founder of Neon: storytelling, pricing and hiring execs

Jack Bridger — Thu, 06 Mar 2025 10:40:16 +0000

Nikita Shamgunov is the founder of Neon, an open-source serverless Postgres company. Before Neon, Nikita co-founded MemSQL, now SingleStore, which is valued at over a billion dollars. He has also worked as a VC at Khosla Ventures and held engineering roles at Meta and Microsoft. Nikita is known for his strategic thinking and transparency about his decision-making process.

We discuss:

The importance of storytelling and providing a clear narrative for your company
When to introduce a sales team and how to build a sales and marketing "machine"
Pricing strategies, including pricing for storage and compute in the data and analytics space
The evolution of revenue models in DevTools: from selling seats and storage/compute to selling tokens
Lessons learned from hiring MongoDB’s VP of Engineering, focusing on improving reliability and building strong team management processes
The benefits of using a high-quality recruiting firm and avoiding the pitfalls of bad hires
Balancing competitiveness with respect for competitors to maintain credibility, particularly in the developer tools market
The idea of “developing your taste” in product development, inspired by Guillermo Rauch from Vercel
How modern dev tools can monetize through seats, storage/compute, or tokens, with tokens currently being the most profitable
Why Nikita advises DevTools founders to understand the business model framework and align it with their strategy

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:

How to name your startup: David Placek - named Vercel, Azure & Blackberry

Jack Bridger — Thu, 27 Feb 2025 11:56:30 +0000

David Placek from Lexicon - the man who named Vercel and Azure - explains the importance of selecting a name that goes beyond simply describing what a product does. He shares what you can do to come up with a great name.

We cover:

Common Naming Pitfalls: Discusses why names that merely describe a product or service fail to capture imagination and differentiation.
The Strategic Impact of a Name: Explains how a well-chosen name can deliver significant returns on investment by reinforcing brand behavior and market positioning.
Sound Symbolism and Cognitive Science: Covers research into how letter sounds (for example, the “V” in Vercel) influence perception and contribute to a name’s effectiveness.
The Naming Process: Details the rigorous process behind naming—from trademark searches and legal reviews to global linguistic evaluations and whiteboard sessions with clients.
Advice for Early-Stage Founders: Encourages startups to first define their market behavior and the change they intend to create. The right name will emerge from a clear strategic vision.

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:

Mitchell Hashimoto: Ghostty, libghostty & chasing the human experience

Jack Bridger — Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:16:25 +0000

Mitchell Hashimoto - famously the founder of HashiCorp (creators of Terraform, Vault etc.) joins the show to discuss his latest open-source project, Ghostty, a modern terminal emulator.

We discuss:

Designing dev tools with a focus on human experience.
Taking on large technical projects and breaking them down into achievable steps.
Open source sustainability and the role of financial support.
The impossible goal of building a perfect human experience with software.
Passion and hiring—why obsession with a topic often leads to the best hires.
Using AI as a developer and why Mitchell considers AI tooling essential.
The motivation behind Ghostty and the idea of "technical philanthropy."
The vision for libghostty as a reusable terminal core for other applications.

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/

Links:

Ghostty (https://ghostty.org/)
Mitchell Hashimoto on Twitter (https://twitter.com/mitchellh)
Mitchell’s blog (https://mitchellh.com/)

Guillermo Rauch, founder of Vercel: Developer Experience, AI and v0

Jack Bridger — Fri, 14 Feb 2025 18:41:42 +0000

Guillermo Rauch is the founder of Vercel. Vercel is a cloud infra platform so easy to use that it’s almost become a category: “I’m building the Vercel of X”.

Vercel also recently launched v0 which is potentially the next evolution of web development - type what you want and it builds it and deploys it for you.

He’s also the creator Next.js, socket.io and a ton of other open source tools and startups. Plus he’s a prolific investor in DevTools.

I’ve missed a ton of his achievements here but essentially, he’s the king of DevTools and you probably know him already.

What we talk about
- Why Guillermo bets on people who ship
- What AI has in common with Prettier
- v0 puts design first
- Saying ‘not yet’ is a boss move
- Why Guillermo thinks devs won’t lose their jobs
- How you can learn product building
- Why you should be careful when hiring from rocketships - not everyone was in the control room
- The value of people having a full stack skill set. And why communication is more important than ever
- Why it’s so important to explain what you do in simple terms
- Tools Guillermo is excited about right now

Links:
- Guillermo Rauch
- Vercel
- v0
- NextJS
- Socket.IO
- Browserbase
- LiveKit
- Languine

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/

Jacob Eiting - CEO of RevenueCat: Extreme dogfooding

Jack Bridger — Fri, 07 Feb 2025 10:34:17 +0000

Jacob Eiting, CEO of RevenueCat, joins us to discuss mobile developers and how they're different, RevenueCat's recent acquisition of Dipsea - and how it helps them dogfood.

We also go hard on content - something RevenueCat is great at.

We also talk about charisma in founders (but don't worry neither of us said rizz)

This was especially fun because I actually used RevenueCat way before I started this show.

We discuss:

How RevenueCat simplifies in-app subscriptions and why mobile monetization is more complex than it appears.
Making developers feel like heroes instead of struggling with tedious implementation.
RevenueCat’s acquisition of Dipsea—a customer with over 100,000 subscribers—and how it benefits both companies.
The advantages of operating an app at scale to better test and iterate on new RevenueCat features.
How in-app subscription businesses differ from traditional SaaS in terms of pricing, churn, and optimization.
The importance of content marketing and transparency in building trust with developers.
The role of personality and authenticity in developer-first marketing.
The long-term vision for RevenueCat and how they plan to expand beyond their core subscription infrastructure.

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/

Links:

Jacob Eiting (https://x.com/jeiting)
RevenueCat (https://www.revenuecat.com/)
Dipsea (https://www.dipseastories.com/)

Taylor Otwell - founder of Laravel

Jack Bridger — Thu, 30 Jan 2025 13:01:03 +0000

Taylor Otwell is the creator of the Laravel framework. Taylor has created numerous paid products that have generated millions, such as:

Laravel Forge (server provisioning/management)
Laravel Vapor (serverless Laravel hosting with AWS)
Laravel Envoyer (zero downtime PHP deployments)
Laravel Nova (Laravel admin panel)

In this interview, Taylor shares why he is now building Laravel Cloud - an infrastructure platform for Laravel apps and why Laravel Cloud needed VC funding.

We also cover:

The different challenges of bootstrapped and VC funded startups
How the Laravel ecosystem became so entrepreneurial
Building products for the average joe developer
The role of taste and craft in developer tools
What Taylor and Adam Wathan learned from each other
Fear and Taylor's comparison with Alex Honnold

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:

Chapters:
00:00 The Journey of Laravel's Creator
02:48 Transitioning from Bootstrap to VC Funding
06:10 Building Laravel Cloud: A New Challenge
09:04 The Shift in Company Structure and Culture
11:50 Maintaining Quality and Usability in Development
15:09 Community Impact and Collaboration
17:56 Craftsmanship and Design Philosophy
20:45 Navigating Growth and Market Needs
23:54 Advice for Aspiring DevTool Founders
26:48 Future Directions and Innovations in Laravel

Thank you to Michael Grinich for making this happen. Thank you to Ostap Brehin for introducing me to Laravel. Thank you to Hank Taylor for helping me prep.

Four tips for early stage DevTools

Jack Bridger — Thu, 23 Jan 2025 11:11:12 +0000

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.

Søren Bramer Schmidt - founder & CEO of Prisma

Jack Bridger — Thu, 16 Jan 2025 14:59:48 +0000

Søren Bramer Schmidt, co-founder and CEO of Prisma, joins us to discuss the journey of building one of the largest developer communities in DevTools.

Søren shares how Prisma's deliberate strategies have shaped its growth, feature prioritization, and the launch of new products like Prisma Postgres.

We also explore the challenges of managing a vast user base and how Prisma is adapting to shifts in application development.

We discuss:

How intentional partnerships with educators and influencers fueled Prisma’s early growth.
Strategies to engage the GraphQL community and gain visibility on platforms like Hacker News.
Managing a large developer community while balancing innovation with stability.
The evolution from Graphcool to Prisma ORM, including lessons from early pivots.
Launching Prisma Postgres and how community feedback influenced its development.
Implementing a simple, usage-based pricing model and reducing infrastructure costs through self-hosting.

Links:

Prisma (https://www.prisma.io/)
Prisma Postgres (https://www.prisma.io/postgres)
Feldera (https://feldera.com/)

The future of DevRel, with "Danger" Keith Casey

Jack Bridger — Thu, 09 Jan 2025 13:13:02 +0000

Keith Casey aka Danger Casey is a Senior Product Manager at Pangea - a Security Platform as a Service.

Before Pangea, Keith was Director of Product Marketing at ngrok and worked at Okta and Twilio in a variety of roles - including DevRel. Keith also curates API Developer Weekly.

In this episode we discuss Keith's writings on the future of DevRel.

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:
- original article
- followup article
- How to kill your sdks in one easy step
- Developer productivity and selling to developers
- api developer weekly
- Pangea
- DevRel = zirp phenomenom?

Louis Knight-Webb from Bloop.ai - the YC startup turning COBOL into Java

Jack Bridger — Thu, 02 Jan 2025 11:38:01 +0000

Louis Knight-Webb is the CEO and co-founder of Bloop.

Bloop helps with modernizing legacy software, particularly focusing on COBOL and mainframes.

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.

Takeaways:
- Mainframes and COBOL are still foundational in many industries.
- Bloop started with a focus on code search but evolved to address legacy code modernization.
- The transition from COBOL to Java is a significant challenge for many enterprises.
- Innovative approaches are needed to effectively translate legacy code.
- Ensuring code quality during migration is crucial to avoid operational disruptions.
- AI can enhance the code translation process but has limitations with legacy languages.

Links:
- Louis Knight-Webb
- Bloop

Chapters:
00:00 The Legacy of Mainframes and COBOL
03:05 The Evolution of Bloop and Code Search
05:58 Challenges in Modernizing Legacy Code
08:48 Navigating the Enterprise Code Landscape
12:11 The Transition from COBOL to Java
15:05 Innovative Approaches to Code Translation
18:02 Ensuring Code Quality and Functionality
20:56 The Future of Development and AI Integration
23:52 Building Relationships in the Enterprise Space
26:45 The Long-Term Vision for Legacy Code Modernization

Guy Podjarny, Snyk and Tessl founder - The future of programming

Jack Bridger — Mon, 23 Dec 2024 14:07:54 +0000

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.

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.

Tessa Kriesel - the DevTools sprint

Jack Bridger — Thu, 19 Dec 2024 16:03:00 +0000

Tessa Kriesel is the founder of builtfor.dev, where she helps DevTools founders with GTM.

In this episode we talk about how she helps founders improve their go to market strategy in a short sprint.

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. https://workos.com/

Sid Maestre from APIMatic: APIs build vs buy

Jack Bridger — Mon, 16 Dec 2024 17:49:54 +0000

We dig into the the build vs. buy dilemma for APIs, and the role of OpenAPI in effective documentation.

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.

We explore how AI is transforming the landscape of APIs and developer tools, and discuss the future of coding.

The choice between building and buying SDKs depends on company maturity.
OpenAPI is crucial for generating quality API documentation.
AI is revolutionizing how APIs are created and consumed.
Maintaining SDK libraries can be a significant challenge.
Developer tools must evolve to keep pace with API design changes.
Trust in AI-generated code is growing among developers.
The future of coding will likely involve more AI integration.

Links:

Jake Cooper from Railway | Remote work/team culture, minority report sales and building data centers

Jack Bridger — Thu, 12 Dec 2024 12:52:48 +0000

Jake Cooper is the founder of Railway - an infrastructure platform that let's you build powerful infrastructure in a simple way.

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 episode we discuss:
- Building a remote team with a flat structure
- Railway's sales team doing their best Minority Report impression
- Why leverage matters
- Building their own data centers
- Why it's important to do hard things

P.s. here's news about the tsunami warning

Links:
- Railway
- Jake Cooper
- Angelo from Railway

Daksh Gupta from Greptile - do marketing differently

Jack Bridger — Thu, 05 Dec 2024 13:32:26 +0000

In this conversation, Daksh Gupta, the CEO of Greptile - an AI code understanding API - shares:

Why it’s important to do unique types of marketing, like making an energy drink
Why most people misunderstand sales
How companies are buying AI tools and why it will probably change soon

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:

Ankur Goyal from Braintrust

Jack Bridger — Fri, 29 Nov 2024 13:06:40 +0000

Ankur Goyal is the founder of Braintrust, a year old LLM eval platform that is already used by Figma, Vercel and Stripe and just raised $36m from a16z. It's a rocketship.

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.

Key Success Factors
- Started with a targeted list of ~50 companies already working with AI
- Focused on early adopters and innovators in the space
- Strategy: If they could make the frontrunners happy, others would follow

Links:
- Braintrust
- Ankur Goyal
- Alana Goyal
- Basecase
- Elad Gil
- Martin Casado

Chapters:
* 00:00 Introduction to BrainTrust and Its Success
* 02:52 The Importance of User Research in Product Development
* 06:11 Building Relationships with Key Customers
* 09:05 The Role of Feedback in Product Improvement
* 11:54 The Impact of Mentorship on Entrepreneurial Success
* 15:11 Identifying Market Opportunities in AI Development
* 18:00 Effective User Interviews and Problem Validation
* 20:59 The Evolution of BrainTrust's Product Features
* 23:55 Advice for Aspiring DevTool Founders
* 26:48 Exciting Developments in the DevTool Space

The story of Pydantic and Logfire | Samuel Colvin

Jack Bridger — Thu, 28 Nov 2024 12:12:05 +0000

Samuel Colvin - the creator of Pydantic - the most popular data validation library for Python. Used by literally everyone (Anthropic, OpenAI, Meta, NVIDIA, even the NSA). He shares the story behind his startup Logfire which just raised $12.5m from Sequoia.

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.

Key takeaways:
- You can just build a different product to your open source project and leverage your brand
- Quality of product matters a LOT (if you can build a popular open source project, can probably build a quality paid product)
- Really helps to be part of a movement. Hard to predict but Pydantic benefited from two (types and LLMs)
- GitHub stars are a vanity metric compared to download numbers

Links:
- Pydantic
- Logfire
- Samuel Colvin

Chapters
00:00 The Genesis of Pydantic
02:46 The Evolution of Software Development
06:02 Building a Successful Open Source Library
08:52 The Impact of Community and Adoption
11:51 Metrics of Success in Open Source
15:08 Transitioning from Pydantic to LogFire
17:59 The Vision Behind LogFire
20:50 The Connection Between Pydantic and LogFire
24:05 Navigating the Challenges of Building a Startup
26:56 The Future of Observability and Databases

P.s. thanks to my friend Abeed for making the episode happen!

How not to do Open Source Licensing, with Trigger.dev founders Matt Aitken and Eric Allam

Jack Bridger — Thu, 21 Nov 2024 12:00:00 +0000

There are more and more open source DevTools startups. I’ve interviewed dozens. But I am still confused about open source licenses. So I decided to ask questions to two people who actually understand them: my friends Eric and Matt - founders of open source background jobs tool Trigger.dev.

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.

What we discuss:

Two Key Questions for License Selection
What are the benefits of permissive licenses?
What are the main licenses?
Why shouldn’t you write your own (open source) license?
What is Copyleft?
Post Open Source" Movement

(00:50) - Open Source Licensing
(18:18) - Protective Licensing
(23:12) - Copy Left Concept
(43:30) - Wordpress

Trigger:

Eric Allam - https://x.com/maverickdotdev
Matt Aitken - https://x.com/mattaitken
Trigger.dev https://trigger.dev/
JSON Hero https://jsonhero.io/

Licenses

MIT License https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_License - Matt’s “most permissive license”
Apache-2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_License - “Like MIT but with trademarks”
FSL / Fair Source License https://fair.io/ - created by Sentry
Heather Meeker - Open Source Licencing expert https://www.linkedin.com/in/heathermeeker/
A practical guide to Open Source Licencing https://www.amazon.co.uk/Open-Source-Business-Practical-Licensing/dp/1544737645

References

Sentry https://sentry.io/welcome/
Redis https://redis.io/
Valkey https://valkey.io/
Clickhouse https://clickhouse.com/
Background to Continue.dev and PearAI https://techcrunch.com/2024/09/30/y-combinator-is-being-criticized-after-it-backed-an-ai-startup-that-admits-it-basically-cloned-another-ai-startup/

John O'Nolan, Founder of Ghost - the Open Source blogging tool making $7.2m ARR

Jack Bridger — Thu, 14 Nov 2024 12:28:52 +0000

John O'Nolan is the Founder and CEO of Ghost.org. Ghost is an open source blog & newsletter platform. We use them for the Scaling DevTools' blog.

Note: this episode was recorded on 17th October 2024.

We talk about:

How to communicate the benefits of Open Source to non-developers
How Ghost manages to align open source and money making
John's thoughts on the Automattic/Wordpress drama
Advantages and disadvantages of VC funding and open source
What would John do with VC dollars

Resources:

Ghost https://ghost.org/
John's website https://john.onolan.org/
The WordPress vs. WP Engine drama, explained https://techcrunch.com/2024/11/07/wordpress-vs-wp-engine-drama-explained/
Indie Hackers podcast https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/139-john-onolan-of-ghost
Cursor cursor.com
Ben Thompson's blog https://stratechery.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.

Gonto - Auth0 Employee #6 shares developer marketing secrets

Jack Bridger — Thu, 07 Nov 2024 13:00:00 +0000

Gonto (Martin Gontovnikas) was the 6th employee at Auth0 and helped them grow fast and sell for $6.5billion to Okta.

Now he is the founder of Hypergrowth Partners and helps DevTools grow fast.

We discuss:

What Auth0 did to become so valuable so fast
What the best founders do (Guillermo Rauch)
Different is better than better
People follow people not brands
Why bleeding edge matters

Resources

Why Technical SDRs are the Future of DevTools
https://playbooks.hypergrowthpartners.com/p/product-advocates-technical-sdrs
Gonto's website https://gon.to/
Gonto's Twitter https://twitter.com/mgonto
Hypergrowth Partners https://www.hypergrowthpartners.com/
Code to Market https://codetomarket.fm/
Guillermo Rauch https://x.com/rauchg

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.

The Homebrew maintainers who built a startup - Mike McQuaid and John Britton from Workbrew

Jack Bridger — Thu, 31 Oct 2024 12:59:00 +0000

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:

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.

Paul Klein, CEO & Founder of Browserbase

Jack Bridger — Thu, 24 Oct 2024 19:52:14 +0100

Paul Klein is the founder and CEO of Browserbase - one of the fastest growing DevTools in 2024.

Browserbase is a headless browser API focused on helping AI Agent startups.

We dig into:

Why browser automation?
How Browserbase hit "VC-market-fit"
Visionary is revisionist-history
Tips for hiring your friends
Why buying a jacket is like buying a devtool
Building an in-person DevTool in San Francisco
Making priorities (what Paul doesn’t care about).

Where to find Paul and Browserbase:

Twitter/X https://x.com/pauljasonklein?lang=en
LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulkleiniv
Browserbase https://www.browserbase.com/

References

Mux acquires Stream Club https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/mux-acquires-stream-club-to-enable-developers-to-build-live-streaming-studios-into-their-applications-301449407.html
Levelsio on VPSs https://x.com/levelsio/status/1827308534645572015
Charly Poly https://www.linkedin.com/in/charly-poly/?originalSubdomain=fr
DevTools Pauls: Paul Butler https://x.com/paulgb?lang=en and Paul Copplestone https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulcopplestone
Solaris office space https://www.solarissf.com/

To support Scaling DevTools, please check out the Enterprise Ready Conf from WorkOS https://enterprise-ready.com/

Fundraising, exiting to Elastic and the future of Product Engineering | Rasmus Makwarth (CEO, Bucket)

Jack Bridger — Thu, 17 Oct 2024 12:02:52 +0100

In 2017, Rasmus Makwarth sold his previous APM (Application Performance Managment) startup Opbeat to Elastic for an undisclosed amount. Opbeat became Elastic APM, which became a big part of the Elastic Observability solution and Rasmus became Senior Director of Product Management - with a focus on Developer Experience.

Today, Rasmus is the founder and CEO of Bucket.co - a feature flagging tool built for B2B teams. Bucket has raised $5.7m from investors such as Project A and Creandum.

We dig into:

The realities of fundraising on a deadline
The role of San Francisco in fundraising - do you need to be there?
How exit opportunities can come from unexpected sources and the importance of showing up
The importance of building a great product
What Rasmus learned at Elastic - one of the biggest DevTools in the world
Why Bucket is betting on helping engineers at b2b companies understand how users use their features
The future of product engineering

Where to find Rasmus:

LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/makwarth/?originalSubdomain=dk
Twitter/X https://x.com/makwarth
Bucket https://bucket.co/

References

Elastic https://elastic.co/
Opbeat acquisition announcement https://www.elastic.co/blog/welcome-opbeat-to-the-elastic-family
Shay Banon - founder of Elastic https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimchy/
Gregory Tademoto - VP Global Business & Corporate Development https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregorytademoto/

To support Scaling DevTools, check out the Enterprise Ready Conf from WorkOS https://enterprise-ready.com/

Shawn Wang (swyx) - founder of smol.ai, Latent Space, AI Engineer, DX.tips

Jack Bridger — Thu, 10 Oct 2024 12:32:41 +0100

Shawn Wang (aka swyx) is the founder of smol.ai (AI news curation), and the cohost of Latent Space (popular AI Engineer podcast).

Plus, Shawn started the AI Engineer movement with his essay Rise of the AI Engineer and organized two incredible AI engineer conferences in the past twelve months - AI Engineer World's Fair and AI Engineer Summit

And Shawn has angel invested in DevTools like Airbyte, Railway, Supabase, Replay.io, Stackblitz, Flutterflow, Fireworks.ai while running the DevTools angels community.

Besides this, Shawn curates DX.tips (DevTools magazine) and in a past life wrote the Coding Career handbook, championed learn in public, cofounded Svelte Society and was previously Head of Developer Experience at Temporal, and a Developer Advocate at AWS and Netlify.

Also, before this, Shawn had a very successful career in investment banking, trading, building data pipelines and performing quantitate portfolio management. I think this brings him a very unique perspective - I've always admired his ability to zoom out and see the big picture and the trends.

Even though Shawn is now all-in on AI, he's still one of the go-to authorities on DevTools go-to-market.

As you can tell, Shawn is someone I deeply admire. So I'm glad he came back.

What we discuss:

Organizing the AI Engineer Conferences
Rise of the AI Engineer
Intentionality and principles (yes we even talk about Alcoholics Anonymous)
The AI CEO
Invisible deadlines
Ilya believing in AGI more than most people at OpenAI
Are developers going to be obsolete?
Thor convinced swyx to invest in Supabase
Building DevTools that work well with LLMs
Angel investing in DevTools - why and how
Is DevRel dead?
How to hire DevRel
Why DX.tips exists

Links:

Rise of the AI Engineer https://www.latent.space/p/ai-engineer
Latent Space Podcast https://www.latent.space/
swyx's Twitter https://x.com/swyx
swyx's website https://www.swyx.io/
swyx's LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/shawnswyxwang/
smol.ai https://smol.ai/
DevTools Angels https://github.com/sw-yx/devtools-angels
DX.tips https://dx.tips/
DevRel's Death as Zero Interest Rate Phenomenon https://dx.tips/zirp
AI Engineer Summit https://www.ai.engineer/summit/2023
AI Engineer World's Fair https://www.ai.engineer/worldsfair
Coding Career Handbook https://www.learninpublic.org/
Shawn's previous appearance on Scaling DevTools https://podcast.scalingdevtools.com/episodes/swyx
Eisenhower Matrix https://asana.com/resources/eisenhower-matrix
Thor from Supabase https://x.com/thorwebdev
Solaris AI coworking space in SF https://www.solarissf.com/
Browserbase https://www.browserbase.com/
Indent https://indent.com/ and Fouad https://x.com/fouadmatin
How to do hackathons https://dx.tips/hackathons
How to do conferences https://dx.tips/conf-guide
How to hire DevRel https://dx.tips/mailbox-first-devrel-hiring
Climbing the ladder of abstraction with Amelia Wattenberger https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAy_GHUAICw

Check out the Enterprise Ready Conf from WorkOS https://enterprise-ready.com/

Sagar Batchu - co-founder of Speakeasy

Jack Bridger — Fri, 04 Oct 2024 19:09:16 +0100

Sagar is the CEO and co-founder of Speakeasy - an API tooling platform. We talk about the journey of Speakeasy. The challenges of startup life. How they developed the product and how they work with influencers in a surprising way.

Building relationships with influencers can significantly enhance product development.
Importance of listening to customers
Fine line between product and consulting
The role of documentation in user experience
Being responsive to customer needs builds long-term relationships.
The startup journey requires patience and adaptability.

Links:

Sagar Batchu
Speakeasy https://www.speakeasy.com/

Check out the Enterprise Ready Conf from WorkOS https://enterprise-ready.com/

Anurag Goel - founder of Render

Jack Bridger — Thu, 26 Sep 2024 14:59:00 +0100

In this conversation, Anurag Goel, founder and CEO of Render, discusses the evolution of Render as a cloud infrastructure platform is actually simple to use.

He shares insights from his time at Stripe, emphasizing the importance of customer focus, crafting a seamless user experience, and the philosophy of progressive disclosure of complexity.

Anurag also highlights the significance of customer support as an integral part of the product and offers advice for aspiring founders on finding their passion and maintaining empathy in their work.

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.

What we discuss:

Building in special details enhances customer experience.
The delicate balance between simplicity and capability.
How the power of sensible defaults. and progressive disclosure of complexity improves usability.
Focus on customer needs drives product development.
Customer support should be treated as a product.
Finding founder market fit is crucial for success.
Empathy for users is essential in product development.

Links

Anurag's Twitter https://x.com/anuraggoel
Render https://render.com/
Stripe https://stripe.com/

Keywords
Render, developer experience, cloud infrastructure, customer support, startup culture, Anurag Goel, Stripe, product development, user experience, technology

Ant Wilson - Cofounder of Supabase (100th Episode!)

Jack Bridger — Tue, 24 Sep 2024 16:31:01 +0100

This is our 100th episode!

And we're thrilled to welcome back fan favourite Ant Wilson - the cofounder and CTO of Supabase.

They discuss the evolution of Supabase, the importance of open source, and effective marketing strategies.

Ant shares insights on community engagement, the significance of developer-centric branding, and the challenges of navigating the enterprise landscape.

We also touch on the rise of AI and vector databases, emphasizing the power of open source in development. The conversation concludes with reflections on the journey and future aspirations.

Thank you to everyone who made it our 100th episode!

Takeaways

Open source can significantly enhance hiring opportunities.
Building a strong brand requires understanding your audience.
Open source provides a competitive edge against incumbents.
The importance of stability and security for enterprise clients.
Time in the market builds trust with potential customers.

Links

Supabase https://supabase.com/
Ant Wilson's Twitter https://x.com/antwilson
pgvector https://supabase.com/docs/guides/database/extensions/pgvector
Greg Richardson https://x.com/ggrdson
Previous episode with Ant https://podcast.scalingdevtools.com/episodes/product-market-fit-is-one-pivot-away-with-ant-wilson-founder-of-supabase

Keywords

open source, developer tools, marketing strategies, community engagement, AI, vector databases, enterprise solutions, product development, tech podcast

Customer support for DevTools, with Nick Gomez from InKeep

Jack Bridger — Sun, 22 Sep 2024 17:01:45 +0100

Nick Gomez is the co-founder and CEO of InKeep. InKeep is an AI customer support tool focused on Developer Tools.

They discuss the importance of understanding developer needs, the role of AI in technical support, and how community engagement can enhance support efforts.

What we discuss

AI support for developer tools is different from traditional B2B SaaS support.
Developers often seek help through documentation and community forums.
Scaling technical support requires understanding the developer's tech stack.
Clear communication channels can improve support efficiency.
AI solutions must prioritize quality to build trust with users.
Community engagement can help crowdsource support efforts.
Support teams should continuously improve documentation based on user inquiries.
24/7 support can be achieved through AI tools.
Investing in customer relationships can lead to valuable insights and support.
Innovative tools are changing the landscape of developer support.

Links:

Nick Gomez's Twitter https://x.com/nickgomezc
InKeep https://inkeep.com/

Keywords
AI support, developer tools, technical support, community engagement, customer investment, quality assurance, support team structure, 24/7 support, innovations in development

The Developer Tools playbook, with Adam Frankl - VP of 4 DevTools unicorns

Jack Bridger — Fri, 20 Sep 2024 10:40:26 +0100

Adam Frankl has been VP at four Developer Tools unicorns, including JFrog, Neo4J and Sourcegraph.

Adam is the author of the Developer Facing Startup and recently launched the Developer Facing Startup Founders Academy: a program that helps founders launch and grow their developer tools.

In this conversation, Adam Frankl discusses the critical role of a Technical Advisory Board (TAB) in the success of developer-facing startups.

He emphasizes the importance of understanding developer needs, effective interviewing techniques, and the necessity of building credibility and community. Adam outlines a structured approach to gathering insights from developers.

He also highlights the significance of storytelling in marketing and the need for founders to engage deeply with their user base to discover and address their problems effectively.

Takeaways:

A Technical Advisory Board is essential for startup success.
Founders must prioritize understanding developer needs.
Effective interviews should focus on the problem, not the product.
Social proof is crucial for building credibility.
Developers are influenced by their peers and community.
The 'Dream Sequence' outlines the developer adoption process.
Storytelling is key to engaging potential users.
Founders should continuously engage with their user base.
Identifying key personas is vital for targeted outreach.
Developers are not leads; they require a different approach.

Links:

Developer Facing Startup Founders Academy https://developer-facing-founders-network.mn.co/
Adam Frankl's LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamfrankl/
The Developer Facing Startup https://www.amazon.co.uk/Developer-Facing-Startup-market-developer-facing/dp/B0D4KJNSPP

Keywords:
Technical Advisory Board, Developer Startups, User Research, Developer Needs, Social Proof, Community Building, Founder Responsibilities, Developer Adoption, Interview Techniques, Startup Success

Michael Grinich - founder & CEO of WorkOS

Jack Bridger — Mon, 16 Sep 2024 13:04:04 +0100

In this conversation, with Michael Grinich - founder and CEO of WorkOS. WorkOS helps you start selling to enterprise customers with just a few lines of code.

We discuss the challenges and strategies of navigating tough conversations in a startup environment, the importance of understanding engineering leadership, and the role of empathy in user experience.

The conversation covers the significance of conferences for startups, the necessity of articulating the 'why' behind a business, and the challenges faced by solo founders. The discussion also touches on decision-making processes, handling competition, and the future direction of WorkOS.

If a conversation scares you, it's probably necessary.
Engineering leaders focus on business goals, not just technology.
Conferences can be a great way to connect with potential customers.
Building relationships at events can lead to long-term success.
Frameworks can be constraining; focus on user empathy instead.
Understanding user needs is crucial for product development.
Articulating the 'why' can enhance customer connection.
Maintaining focus on your mission is key to success.
Finding a deeper mission can drive your startup forward.
The journey of building a startup is often unclear at the beginning.

Links:

WorkOS https://workos.com/
Michael's Twitter https://x.com/grinich
ELC https://sfelc.com/
Crossing the Enterprise Chasm Podcast https://workos.com/podcast
Start With Why https://simonsinek.com/books/start-with-why/
AWS reinvent https://reinvent.awsevents.com/

Clerk's Hockey Stick growth, with Colin Sidoti

Jack Bridger — Thu, 12 Sep 2024 11:36:44 +0100

In this episode, we're joined by returning guest Colin Sidoti - the cofounder and CEO of Clerk.

Clerk is a comprehensive user management platform.

What we cover:
- The origin story and South Park Commons
- Clerk's dramatic growth since the first episode - what changed? What did they do right?
- 7% growth per week
- Tiny details that improve the developer experience
- How to you know if a change is better - watching people's faces as they try it
- The difficulties of bringing new joiners up to speed in a very high context environment
- Obsessions of founders
- Zuckerberg's obsession and South Park Commons talk
- Nick Parsons appreciation: why it's hard to hire good developer marketing people
- The uniqueness of marketing developer tools
- Buying a van and parking it outside YC
- Local marketing campaigns in San Francisco

Links:
- Clerk https://clerk.com/
- Colin's Twitter https://x.com/tweetsbycolin
- Nick Parsons' Twitter https://x.com/nickparsons
- Jakob's tweet https://x.com/jakeplusev/status/1827791946380877828
- Malte Ubl's blog https://www.industrialempathy.com/
- Zuck's talk at South Park Commons https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02fBBoZa9l4

David Mytton - Arcjet and console.dev

Jack Bridger — Wed, 04 Sep 2024 21:12:59 +0100

David is the CEO of Arcjet. Arcjet is a tool that helps developers protect their apps once they go into production. It offers Bot detection, rate limiting, email validation, attack protection, data redaction.

David is also the creator of the console.dev newsletter and podcast. It's where thousands of developers discover developer tools.

In this episode we discuss how David thinks about creating content. Why he believes go-to-market is more difficult than product and how he works on creating great developer experience.

Links:
- Arcjet https://arcjet.com/
- David Mytton - https://davidmytton.blog/
- Console https://console.dev/

AI DevTools hackathon this weekend in SF:
- Event page https://lu.ma/devtools-hackathon
- More info https://www.devtoolshackathon.com/

Vlad Matsiiako - cofounder of Infisical

Jack Bridger — Thu, 29 Aug 2024 17:43:20 +0100

Vlad Matsiiako is the CEO and co-founder of Infisical. Infisical is an Open Source Secret Management tool.

What we discuss:
- The story of Infisical
- How the team has made Infisical easy to adopt
- How being open source helps you with trust at the beginning stages
- How do enterprises adopt Infisical
- How do developers at enterprises discover tools like Infisical
- The different mini-games at various stages of a startup (Dalton Caldwell)

Links

Vlad - https://www.linkedin.com/in/vmatsiiako/
Infisical - https://infisical.com/

Always be dogfooding, with Andrew Lisowski of devtools.fm

Jack Bridger — Sat, 24 Aug 2024 21:36:35 +0100

Andrew Lisowski is the cohost of devtools.fm.

In this episode we talk about why Andrew started devtools.fm and what he's learned along the way.

Life as an open source maintainer.
How the JavaScript ecosystem is different to other developer ecosystems.
The importance of dogfooding.
The power of DHH.
Why obsessing over one problem eventually leads to great results
Should DevTools start podcasts and how?

Links:

devtools.fm - https://www.devtools.fm/
Andrew's Twitter - https://x.com/HipsterSmoothie
devtools.fm Twitter - https://x.com/DevtoolsFM
Interview with DHH https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEZNbM4MUdo
Interview with Evan You https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycuYlzuBqcA
Interview with Richard Harris https://www.devtools.fm/episode/15

Investing in Open Source Startups with Robby (Amanda Robson)

Jack Bridger — Thu, 15 Aug 2024 18:33:28 +0100

Robby (Amanda Robson) is the co-host of Open Source Startup Podcast (with Tim Chen).

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

Hamzah Chaudhary from Lightdash: bringing developer tools to Business Intelligence

Jack Bridger — Thu, 08 Aug 2024 20:33:59 +0100

Hamzah Chaudhary is the cofounder of Lightdash, an open source, self-serve BI tool.

In this episode, Hamzah shares:

Their initial plan to build a consultancy and how it morphed into a product to solve their customer's needs
How open source works as a strategy
Bringing software engineering tools to the BI domain
How they reach their users
How they partner with bigger organizations

Links:

Lightdash https://www.lightdash.com/
Lightdash GitHub https://github.com/lightdash/lightdash
Hamzah's Twitter https://x.com/hamzahc1

Great documentation with Han Wang from Mintlify

Jack Bridger — Thu, 01 Aug 2024 12:22:00 +0100

Han Wang is co-founder of Mintlify - modern, out the box documentation.

In this episode, Han shares the story of Mintlify and how to make great docs.

We even talk about the time Paul Graham told them to change their name.

What we cover:
- the origin story of Mintlify
- what is good documentation
- the process of documentation
- how AI is affecting documentation
- why PG told them to change their name

Links:
- Han https://han.dev/
- Mintlify https://mintlify.com/

Frontend Developers: the Newest New Kingmakers with Kate Holterhoff from RedMonk

Jack Bridger — Thu, 25 Jul 2024 17:49:54 +0100

Kate Holterhoff - an analyst from RedMonk - shares why frontend developers are increasingly dictating the adoption of new developer tools.

Kate shares specific examples, including Supabase.

Links:

Frontend Developers: the Newest New Kingmakers https://redmonk.com/kholterhoff/2024/02/15/frontend-developers-the-newest-new-kingmakers/
Kate's website https://www.kateholterhoff.com/
RedMonk https://redmonk.com/
Kate's Twitter/X https://x.com/KateHolterhoff

Vivian Dufour - co-founder of Meterian - enterprise sales for startups

Jack Bridger — Thu, 18 Jul 2024 19:04:44 +0100

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:

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/

Ellen Chisa - Partner at Boldstart Ventures

Jack Bridger — Fri, 05 Jul 2024 20:21:25 +0100

Ellen Chisa is a partner at Boldstart Ventures. Prior to Boldstart, Ellen founded Darklang - a programming language. Before Darklang, Ellen worked in product.

What we discussed:

Startups should focus on building one SDK and doing it well, rather than trying to build multiple SDKs at once.
North Star metrics
Developer tooling companies can learn from consumer-facing companies in terms of marketing and creating an identity for their product.
Being authentic as a founder and actively engaging with the community can help establish a strong brand and attract users. Recognize and leverage your unique strengths and skills.
Busy work can be valuable
The importance of segmenting your message

Links:

Ellen's Twitter/X https://x.com/ellenchisa?lang=en
Boldstart Ventures https://boldstart.vc/
darklang https://darklang.com/

Developer quick-start guides with Amit Jotwani

Jack Bridger — Thu, 27 Jun 2024 17:10:02 +0100

How do you write a developer quick start guide that they will love?

That's what we talk about with Amit Jotwani. Amit is the founder of HelloDX and previously worked in developer experience at Retool and Amazon Alexa.

This came about because I was reading Amit's fantastic guide on EveryDeveloper.

Links:

Amit's website https://ajot.me/
HelloDX https://hellodx.co/
Craft Quick Start Guides That Developers Will Love https://everydeveloper.com/quick-start-guides/
Amit's Twitter/X https://x.com/amit

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.

James Hawkins - co-founder & CEO of PostHog

Jack Bridger — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 12:01:00 +0100

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:

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.

Buying Developer Tools Companies with Greg and Matt from Polychrome

Jack Bridger — Thu, 13 Jun 2024 15:01:30 +0100

Greg Lazarus and Matt Althauser are two of the cofounders of Polychrome - a company that buys small to medium sized B2B software businesses: with a focus on Developer Tools. Their portfolio includes the feature flagging tool Flagsmith (we recorded an episode with them last week) and the browser automation tool Browserless.

In this episode we cover the ins and outs of buying developer tools.

Links:
- Polychrome https://www.polychrome.com/
- Matt Althauser https://x.com/malthauser?lang=en
- Greg Lazarus https://x.com/greglaz5

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.

Bootstrapping Flagsmith to $3m ARR

Jack Bridger — Thu, 06 Jun 2024 12:43:38 +0100

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'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.

Aaron Francis - how to make videos developers want to watch

Jack Bridger — Thu, 30 May 2024 13:15:59 +0100

Aaron Francis is someone who needs little introduction. Especially if you've ever used Laravel or MySQL.

Aaron built up the highly acclaimed PlanetScale YouTube channel and now publishes content on his own channel and founded Try Hard Studios to help developer tools make amazing video content.

Here are some quotes from Aaron's viewers:

hey man your videos kick ass and i cannot thank you enough for your approach with these. your videos can be watched once and understood... every single one of them... i don't know how you do it, but the way you have picked to teach anything you teach is incredible. you freaking rock! thank you!
Great stuff! Love that you mix in a bit of fun with the content, it's what got me to subscribe!
I have been working with MySQL for last 17 years and I never use cursor but your video helped me to understand MySQL cursor. Thank you
iterally laughing out loud several times. absolute gold.
(partner's like "what are you watching?!" "a guy seeding a database!"

In this episode, we take a deep dive into how Aaron makes videos and what you can learn from his approach.

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:

Aaron's channel: https://www.youtube.com/@aarondfrancis
Aaron's Twitter https://x.com/aarondfrancis
Mostly Technical Podcast - https://mostlytechnical.com/
Try Hard Studios: https://tryhardstudios.com/
Aaron's Handwriting robots - https://x.com/aarondfrancis/status/1438888219471491074?lang=en

What does your company brand promise? Dani Grant from Jam.dev

Jack Bridger — Thu, 23 May 2024 11:59:00 +0100

Dani Grant is the founder of Jam.dev - bug reporting that developers love.

In this episode we discuss:

Product development & user retention
Iterating to product market fit
Branding - what it is/why it matters
Prioritising product features based on feedback
AI powered debugging

Links:

Jam.dev https://jam.dev/
Dani’s Twitter https://twitter.com/thedanigrant

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.

Designing APIs with Chris Bell from Knock.app

Jack Bridger — Thu, 16 May 2024 10:56:16 +0100

Chris Bell is the founder of Knock.app - flexible, reliable notifications infrastructure.

In this episode we discuss:

Designing APIs
The importance of champions when selling to enterprise
How do you justify cost of a developer tool?
Selling to platform teams

Links:

Knock https://knock.app/
Twitter https://twitter.com/cjbell_

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.

3 BILLION searches per month without VC funding - Jason Bosco from Typesense

Jack Bridger — Thu, 09 May 2024 13:11:17 +0100

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/

Digger.dev - Pivoting four times, OpenTofu & ThePrimeagen

Jack Bridger — Thu, 02 May 2024 13:26:46 +0100

An interview with Igor Zalutski & Utpal Nadiger from Digger.dev.

Digger is an Open Source Infrastructure as Code management tool that helps orchestrate Terraform and OpenTofu within your CI/CD system.

We talk about:

What changed since Jack worked with Digger
How they pivoted four times to find PMF
How do you know you have something
OpenTofu & ThePrimeagen

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:

https://digger.dev/
Igor - https://twitter.com/igorzij
Utpal - https://twitter.com/NadigerUtpal

Dana Oshiro - General Partner at Heavybit

Jack Bridger — Thu, 25 Apr 2024 11:58:00 +0100

Dana Oshiro is a General Partner at Heavybit. Heavybit is a VC that invests exclusively in developer-first startups.

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.

Alex Bouchard from Hookdeck. Competition is a good sign

Jack Bridger — Fri, 19 Apr 2024 10:23:54 +0100

Alex Bouchard is the cofounder of Hookdeck. Hookdeck is an event gateway for asynchronous applications.

What we discuss:
- What is Hookdeck?
- Category vs pivot
- Gartner categories

Links:
- Alex: https://twitter.com/AlexBouchardd
- Hookdeck https://hookdeck.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.

Glauber Costa from Turso

Jack Bridger — Thu, 11 Apr 2024 13:51:02 +0100

Glauber Costa is the founder of Turso - a fully managed SQLite database platform.

Glauber shares how to make great CLIs, the story of Turso's pivot. Their pricing. And the importance of moving fast.

Links:

Turso - https://turso.tech/
Glauber's Twitter - https://twitter.com/glcst

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.

Making mobile apps for developers, with Anders Borum - creator of the most popular git client, Working Copy

Jack Bridger — Thu, 04 Apr 2024 11:45:10 +0100

Anders Borum shares how he created the number 1 git app in the app store - Working Copy.

What we talk about:

The origins of Working Copy
Word of mouth vs App Store Optimisation
One time vs recurring subscription

Links:

Anders - https://twitter.com/palmin
Working Copy - https://workingcopy.app/
Rauno https://twitter.com/OvalSoftware

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.

Why developers trust Resend, with Zeno Rocha

Jack Bridger — Thu, 28 Mar 2024 15:25:17 +0000

Zeno Rocha is the founder of Resend. Zeno is also the founder of React Email.

Resend is a simple-to-use email API built for developers.

Previously Zeno was the VP of DX at WorkOS and the creator of the popular Dracula VS Code theme as well as the popular open source project Clipboard js.

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.

What we talk about

Building trust and a great developer experience
Creating a successful open-source project (Clipboardjs)
The importance of storytelling and a coherent (launching react email and Resend)
The importance of a great readme
Prioritization, descoping and making something worthy of being shared by Guillermo Rauch

Links:

Zeno's Twitter Rocha - https://twitter.com/zenorocha
Resend - https://resend.com/
React email - https://github.com/resend/react-email
Dracula theme https://draculatheme.com/visual-studio-code
Clipboardjs - https://clipboardjs.com/
WorkOS - https://workos.com/

Startups don't need DevRel. A debate.

Jack Bridger — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 18:59:37 +0000

Stefan Avram recently tweeted that "You shouldn't have devrels. Your customers should be your devrels"

So I invited Stefan on to debate this with one of the industry's most respected DevRels Dan Moore from Fusion Auth.

This is 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:

Stefan's tweet https://twitter.com/StefanTMD/status/1735022106822295920
Dan Moore https://twitter.com/mooreds
Fusion Auth https://fusionauth.io/
Wundergraph https://wundergraph.com/

Getting Your first Enterprise Customers - Michael Grinich from WorkOS

Jack Bridger — Thu, 14 Mar 2024 11:00:00 +0000

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

How to launch on Product Hunt with Flo Merian

Jack Bridger — Thu, 07 Mar 2024 11:00:00 +0000

Flo Merian is a developer marketer who has run successful Product Hunt launches for numerous developer tools.

Flo is also a maintainer of the Developer Marketing community and curates LaunchWeek.dev

Flo is a Product Marketer at Clerk - a user management tool

Links:

https://twitter.com/fmerian
https://marketingto.dev/
https://launchweek.dev/
https://github.com/fmerian/awesome-product-hunt

Make it real: Show the whole process - Lu Wilson from tldraw

Jack Bridger — Thu, 29 Feb 2024 16:36:36 +0000

Lu Wilson AKA todepond is one of the people behind tldraw, the infinite canvas for the internet.
Lu also has a youtube channel, todepond.
Lu also built the [hilarious] programming language dreamberd
Lu is also a researcher with Ink & Switch - an independent research lab

In this episode Lu shares how tldraw went viral again and again and again this year.

My biggest takeaways were to share your whole process and default to visual communication.

Links:
- https://www.todepond.com/
- https://www.youtube.com/@TodePond
- https://github.com/TodePond/DreamBerd
- https://www.tldraw.com/
- https://www.inkandswitch.com/

Exiting to Apple - Dennis Pilarinos from Unblocked

Jack Bridger — Thu, 22 Feb 2024 10:19:52 +0000

Dennis Pilarinos is the founder of Unblocked. Unblocked allows lets you talk to your code base.

Dennis previously founded Buddybuild - a CI/CD tool for mobile developers.

In 2018, Buddybuild was acquired by Apple, and Dennis became a director in Development Technologies at Apple.

Some topics we cover:
- The story of Buddybuild and the Apple acquisition
- Why did Apple buy Buddybuild?
- Segmenting when building a tool for everyone

Links:
- Dennis' Twitter - https://twitter.com/dennispilarinos
- Buddybuild acquisition - http://tcrn.ch/2CG9s4G
- Unblocked - https://getunblocked.com/

OpenAI want to build the best developer product ever - OpenAI's first DevRel, Logan Kilpatrick

Jack Bridger — Mon, 12 Feb 2024 15:36:10 +0000

Guest: Logan Kilpatrick, member of OpenAI’s developer advocacy team, often described as OpenAI’s first DevRel.

Highlights:

Challenges and Growth: Logan discusses the evolution of developer engagement from GPT 3.5 to the explosive growth following ChatGPT's success. Initially faced with the challenge of generating developer interest, the release of ChatGPT marked a significant shift, highlighting the shift from awareness to scaling and improving developer experience amidst high demand and compute-intensive operations.
Developer Experience Focus: Logan emphasizes the focus on developer experience, detailing the balance between improving platform features and releasing new models and APIs. Despite past trade-offs, the goal remains to enhance core platform functionalities and developer-friendly features.
Decision Making and Prioritization: Logan shares insights into the dynamic and fast-paced environment at OpenAI, which requires flexibility in planning and prioritization. Key focus areas include documentation, product improvements, direct developer interactions, internal coordination, and supporting launches, especially the GPT Store.
Impact of Documentation: Underscoring the critical role of documentation, Logan points out that effective documentation is paramount for developer success, guiding the use of OpenAI's API and models. Efforts are underway to improve documentation quality and support various user personas beyond developers.
Developer Community Engagement: Lessons from engaging with the developer community include the need for diverse content formats and accommodating various user personas. Logan acknowledges the challenge of keeping documentation and resources updated in a rapidly evolving API landscape.
Building a Superior Developer Experience: Logan stresses the importance of OpenAI's mission to benefit everyone and the role of the API in achieving widespread impact. The commitment to providing the best tools for developers is seen as a differentiator in the competitive landscape of AI model providers.
Managing Attention and Feedback: Despite the challenges of being a public figure within the developer community, Logan values direct feedback for continuous improvement. Balancing public engagement with deep work, especially on documentation and launch support, is highlighted.
Community Questions and Answers: Logan addresses questions from the community, touching on the desire for innovative applications of OpenAI technology, plans for global events, prioritizing documentation, addressing developer concerns about scaling, and sharing personal preferences for deep dish pizza in Chicago.

Rapid Fire Community Q&A:

Innovative Applications: Logan hopes to see development of multiplayer, multimodal text-first AI assistants.
Global Events: OpenAI is expanding its presence, including hiring in London and considering events in cities like Atlanta.
DevRel Strategy for 2024: Focus on creating excellent documentation.
Developer Concerns: Addressing challenges around freedom to scale and capacity constraints.
Personal Time: Logan plans to take vacation during the end-of-year code freeze in 2024.
Chicago Deep Dish Recommendation: Lou Malnati's and Paradise Park are Logan's picks for the best deep dish pizza.

Links:

Logan's Twitter - https://x.com/OfficialLoganK
Romain's Twitter https://twitter.com/romainhuet
OpenAI https://platform.openai.com/
tlDraw https://www.tldraw.com/
Bloop https://bloop.ai/
Joyfill https://joyfill.io/
https://portkey.ai/
Stripe docs https://stripe.com/docs

This episode provides a behind-the-scenes look at OpenAI's efforts to enhance developer engagement, the challenges of balancing innovation with platform stability, and the importance of community feedback in shaping the future of AI development tools.

Show notes generated with gpt4 (using a blog post I wrote)

Scaling a developer conference to 5,000 attendees with Ivan Burazin of Daytona

Jack Bridger — Fri, 09 Feb 2024 13:28:11 +0000

Ivan Burazin is the cofounder of Daytona

What we cover:

- Scaling a 5,000 attendee conference
- How to drive change in big organizations
- Top down vs bottoms up approaches to growth

Daytona is an enterprise-grade GitHub Codespaces alternative for managing self-hosted, secure and standardized development environments.

Ivan Burazin - https://twitter.com/ivanburazin
Daytona - https://www.daytona.io/

Pivoting a million dollar startup - DevCycle (Jonathan Norris, Brad Van Vugt & Andrew MacLean)

Jack Bridger — Tue, 16 Jan 2024 14:18:57 +0000

DevCycle is a feature flag management tool.
DevCycle was founded in 2014 originally as Taplytics (an A/B testing tool) by Jonathan Norris, Aaron Glazer, Andrew Norris and Cobi Druxeman, raising $7.8m. Despite creating a million dollar business, in 2022, they raised $5m and pivoted to DevCycle.

In this episode, we cover their pivot and how they think about developer experience.

Erik Bernhardsson from Modal Labs

Jack Bridger — Fri, 05 Jan 2024 09:21:17 +0000

Erik Bernhardsson is the founder of Modal Labs. Modal Labs is a tool to run generative AI models, large-scale batch jobs, job queues, and much more.

Links:
- https://twitter.com/bernhardsson
- https://erikbern.com/
- https://modal.com/

The hard things about dev tools with Felix Magedanz from Hanko

Jack Bridger — Wed, 29 Nov 2023 09:00:00 +0000

Felix is the founder of Hanko. Hanko is the Open source auth and passkey infrastructure for developers.

We talk about:
- The challenges of pivoting
- Layoffs
- The intangible goal of developer love

Check out Hanko: https://www.hanko.io/

A bootstrapper's story with Julien Danjou, founder of Mergify

Jack Bridger — Sun, 12 Nov 2023 19:29:49 +0000

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.

From getting hacked to cybersecurity founders with Antoine Carossio and Tristan Kalos from Escape.tech

Jack Bridger — Wed, 20 Sep 2023 14:28:18 +0100

Escape helps you Find and fix GraphQL security flaws at scale within your DevSecOps process

Introduction to Tristan and Antoine. 0:00
How did they get started in cybersecurity? 4:35
How did you get your first few customers? 9:49
Challenges from a product and tech point of view. 13:57
Challenges of integration into the development process. 18:10
How to find the right team? 22:55

Links:

Escape.tech https://escape.tech/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=devtools-podcast
Tristan's Twitter - https://twitter.com/TristanKalos
Antoine's Twitter - https://twitter.com/iCarossio

Developer copywriting mistakes to avoid, with Zach Goldie

Jack Bridger — Sun, 10 Sep 2023 16:19:39 +0100

Zach Goldie is a DevTools messaging consultant

Ship code faster is an empty statement. 0:00
How do you position yourself against the competition? 1:56
The problem with free monitoring tools. 6:43
Explain why fast is a good thing. 11:44
Curse of knowledge and how to overcome it. 16:42
The problem with copy length and word count. 21:37
How do you know if a page is good? 27:05
Pitching self-serve to users. 32:42

Links:
- Zach's Twitter https://twitter.com/DitchingData
- Zach's site https://www.zachgoldie.com/
- Benefit layers https://dx.tips/benefit-layers

Building a developer social network with Steve Krouse from Val Town

Jack Bridger — Tue, 29 Aug 2023 14:37:44 +0100

Steve Krouse is the founder of Val.town - a social website where you can write and run code.

Introduction to Val.Town's vision 0:00
- How long it took Github to make money on Steve
- Val Town is a social website where you can write and run javascript or typescript, run the code on servers, and see the results.
Knocking down friction points 2:12
- Val Town is making it so that programmers can create cool stuff without having to go through the pain of sending an email.
- Zapier for developers is another kind of tagline that has been seen other people that you've interviewed on this podcast.
Categorising use cases on the website. 4:45
- Val Town recently made a list of favourite use cases and categorised them on the website. The challenge is explaining to people what it is and what it can be used for.
- What can be made with Val.town section
How to get people to make cool things with your tool 15:51
- People hear about Val Town because other people are using it. The more people sign up, the more people are signing up for it.
- Val Town has a smaller number of people who are excited about it and use it a lot, but it's not a mythical product market fit.
- Every Thursday, the team is not allowed to work on the product. They all have to try and make Vals to go viral, which is a really fun creative day.
- The last one that went viral was hacker news follow, which was branded as an installable script.
How do you think about notifications? 24:30
- Val Town is perfect for programmatic customization of notification emails, so that installing those into your account will be part of the tutorial.
- Val is passionate about education, and it feels like that's a big challenge because there's lots of new stuff with val.
- Medium-term ambition, build a learn to code interactive course on top of Val Town. Long term ambition is to have hundreds or thousands of Learn to Code courses on Val Town, embedded in the product.
Future of coding meetups. 29:36
- An interview with Brian Dougie, early at Github, and how he helped with bootcamps and how to run code with Netlify.
- Future of coding meetup in london.
- Managing a community is a funny thing. The people who start and manage communities are often weird people.
Date Me Docs 35:33
- Some people are looking for a unique snowflake, while others are sensitive and don't want attention on their date me docs.
- The future of dating is a great exercise to go through to get clear in words about who you are and what you're looking for.

Links:
- Val Town - https://www.val.town/
- Steve's Twitter - https://twitter.com/stevekrouse

Dax from SST - content that has nothing to do with your tool can still convert

Jack Bridger — Sun, 13 Aug 2023 12:01:27 +0100

Dax Raad is building SST - an open-source framework that makes it easy to build serverless apps.

What Is SST? 0:00
- The theory in January was to make content that has nothing to do with SST and still convert people. Dax validated the theory within the first hour.
- Dax tells us a little bit about SST, a framework for building applications on AWS, and how it works.
The importance of marketing and content. 2:42
- The focus now has to be on marketing.
- The top of the funnel is when someone has no idea who you are.
Pitching the idea to his boss. 5:16
- Dax pitched the idea and Fred Schott was immediately down. He spent a day just watching every single episode of Between Two Ferns and wrote down all the patterns of jokes.
- He learned a lot from the first one, and is doing another one today at 230.
How much goes into the show? 8:04
- The original show is fully done and edits, and that is true of the one that video was made. The video was not close to what actually happened, but it was his response to the video.
- The original is very specific and it's funny how specific the jokes are.
The importance of having a unique angle. 10:40
- For most companies, announcing an integration is not the most exciting thing to announce.
- The bar is incredibly low, and the expectations are super low.
Invest more in marketing and content. 12:35
- They are looking to hire a comedian or someone who makes good content on YouTube.
- They are planning a series A, and are looking for people who are talented and can help them.
Educational vs entertaining content. 14:57
- The only way to capture someone like you is through a different angle.
- The theory in January was to make content that has nothing to do with SST and still convert people into trying out SST.
- Finding an angle that is genuine for yourself.
How he got over the hump of clickbait. 17:54
- He went through the same hump that everyone goes through when trying to publish content on youtube.
- He was sent a video by a guy who was very successful on youtube and he was explaining why he does what he does.
The importance of having a good content. 20:51
- Youtube is an amazing place. People will watch it if it's good.
Marketing is a huge lever. 23:20
- They are a very small company. They are able to do a lot given their small size and they are going to continue to be a small company, so they need to find ways to find leverage anywhere they can.
- They are excited about what they can invest in.
- Dax would love to work with someone who is good at filmmaking and editing to keep it engaging and keep it fun. He also thinks about shows that are authentic.
- Key takeaways for anyone listening, remember that if you're building a company you do need to do marketing.

Links:
- SST https://sst.dev/
- Dax's twitter https://twitter.com/thdxr
- Between Two Nerds https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-I2Xep0GTQY&ab_channel=SST

From mobile app to mobile developer tool with Gabriel Savit from Runway

Jack Bridger — Thu, 03 Aug 2023 12:48:02 +0100

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/

Hire engineers who don't mind talking, with Brian Douglas from OpenSauced

Jack Bridger — Fri, 28 Jul 2023 12:02:09 +0100

Brian Douglas - or bdougie - is the founder of OpenSauced - an open source intelligence tool. Brian was previously Developer Experience Lead at Netlify and Director of Developer Advocacy at GitHub

Summary

Every engineer is an advocate. 0:00
Joining GitHub with a 30/60/90 plan. 1:17
What was the goal when you joined Netlify? 3:16
How to get started with bootcamps. 7:53
What are the top projects in open source? 10:52
The bottom up strategy for adoption at GitHub. 15:22
Netlify’s Aha moment. 21:19
How do you get started in reaching out to community and consistently? 25:57

Links:

https://opensauced.pizza/
https://twitter.com/bdougieYO

Building ambitious developer tools with Ruben Fiszel from Windmill

Jack Bridger — Thu, 13 Jul 2023 11:59:00 +0100

Ruben is the founder of Windmill https://www.windmill.dev/ which helps you turn scripts into workflows and UIs in minutes

Some of the things we talk about:

Getting to the threshold of being useful.
Speed is the key to success.
The second mover advantage
Getting early users of the product.
Why infra is an interesting market for him.
The challenges of being a solo founder.
The recipe for a digital startup is to be really passionate about the project.
Advice for founders who are building ambitious projects.
Doing everything that no one wants to do.

You can find Ruben at https://twitter.com/rubenfiszel

Killing features with Josh Twist, founder of Zuplo

Jack Bridger — Thu, 29 Jun 2023 11:59:00 +0100

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

Forums vs Slack with Dan Moore from FusionAuth

Jack Bridger — Thu, 22 Jun 2023 11:59:00 +0100

Dan is head of DevRel at FusionAuth - Auth Built for Devs, by Devs

FusionAuth’s journey from moderation to auth provider.
- Introduction to Dan Moore, head of DevRel at fusion.
- Fusion's journey
- Free to use for many users, but also a cloud offering.
Synchronous communication vs asynchronous communication.
- Synchronous communication vs asynchronous communication.
- 10% of their traffic is coming from forum pages.
No one ever searches on Stack Overflow.
What are some of the experiments that have gone well?
- Efforts to promote community feel.
- Community stories, finding out user pain points and wins.
The importance of getting your community to know each other.
- Getting 20 or 30 blog posts on the blog.
- Dan's experience on Screaming into the cloud.

Dan's Twitter - https://twitter.com/mooreds
FusionAuth - https://fusionauth.io/

Building computer vision tooling with Niko from Rerun

Jack Bridger — Fri, 16 Jun 2023 11:36:19 +0100

Nikolaus West is the founder of Rerun.io - Visualize computer vision.

What we discuss:

Finding a problem to work on
What are some of the features that will be free and open source?
What’s the difference between a commercial and a free service?
The most important thing is that we’re building something that will be useful
How to get into the minds of computer vision developers
Why build in Rust

Rerun - https://www.rerun.io/
Niko's Twitter - https://twitter.com/NikolausWest

Developer onboarding with Kilian from Polypane

Jack Bridger — Thu, 08 Jun 2023 12:00:00 +0100

How do you do onboarding in a way developers actually like?

Kilian is the founder of Polypane - The browser for ambitious web developers https://polypane.app/
Kilian's Twitter - https://twitter.com/kilianvalkhof

From VC to DevTools with Karl Clement, founder of CODEOWNERS

Jack Bridger — Thu, 01 Jun 2023 11:25:00 +0100

Karl Clement is the founder of https://codeowners.com/

CODEOWNERS is the single source of truth for code ownership.

Summary

Introducing Karl
Code ownership
What are the types of people that are implementing code Code Ownership
How to find and reach platform engineers.
What are some of the key metrics that organisations are looking for to measure the value of their tooling?
Dora metrics
Mean time to resolution, MTTR
What is Backstage and how has it been used?
Improving the developer experience with Backstage.
Backstage implementation is essentially a signal that a company is willing to invest in the organisation but the developer experience as a whole, which is great
Backstage implementation is a signal of investment in the organisation.
How venture capital can help with product development.
If you’re building a product in a space that no one else is in, you are reducing your odds

Great Developer Experience with ngrok founder Alan Shreve

Jack Bridger — Thu, 25 May 2023 12:00:00 +0100

Alan Shreve is the founder & CEO of ngrok.

ngrok is a simplified API-first ingress-as-a-service that adds connectivity, security, and observability to your apps in one line

What we cover:

Creating a simple experience for users.
Designing for the 90% use case vs. the 10%.
How did the idea for ngrok emerge?
How the first iterations of the product came about.
The internal struggle to create simple interfaces.
How do you test your library design?
One of the best ways to test library design.
Amazon's one-click checkout.
Chasing simplicity vs complexity in a complex system.
Product processes to help chase simplicity.
How does NGrok measure and track user growth?
Time to value, kpi, time to value.
Empowering developers to do their jobs.
How does a hobbyist use case expand into a commercial use case?
How do you think about the problems that ngrok solves?
How do you get an application online with minimal configuration?
What’s the takeaway for other developers or founders?

Links:
- ngrok: https://ngrok.com/
- Alan's Twitter: https://twitter.com/inconshreveable
- Thanks to Danger Casey https://twitter.com/CaseySoftware for organising this
- swyx article https://www.swyx.io/self-provisioning-runtime
- Joel Spolsky talk https://mixtape.swyx.io/episodes/elegant-software-joel-spolsky

How Fred Schott built two open source projects with 20,000+ GitHub stars

Jack Bridger — Thu, 18 May 2023 11:41:05 +0100

Fred Schott is the founder of Astro.build and the Astro technology company.

Astro is the all-in-one web framework designed for speed. Pull your content from anywhere and deploy everywhere, all powered by your favorite UI components and libraries.

Snowpack is a lightning-fast frontend build tool, designed for the modern web.

Before this, Fred founded Snowpack

What is Astro and what is it doing? 0:00
- Fred introduces himself and talks about astro.
- Fred explains what astro is and what it does.
What’s changed in the web over the last 10 years. 2:20
- The last decade has been defined by full stack javascript.
- Astro is a server-first HTML rendering.
Astro’s unique model of building an open source company. 4:51
- Building a sustainable company around an open source project.
- The astro technology company model.
- How Fred got started in open source.
- What Fred worked on before astro.
- How Fred got started in open source software.
Pika was the first project that I really sunk my teeth into. 11:15
- Pika was the first project Fred really sunk his teeth into.
- Building snowpack and
Why is it so bad to create a slack channel for your open source project? 14:00
- Stop creating slack communities for open source projects.
- The importance of community
What it’s like at the beginning of an open source project. 16:26
- The first users are essential for an early-stage open source project.
- The power of responding quickly to feedback from the community.
- The first version of astro
- The spirit of open source and the importance of licencing code.
The importance of having fun working on something that’s your own. 22:29
- The drive to just build it.
- The importance of having fun working on free software.
- The psychology of over-architecture.
The importance of dog-fooding and how to use it. 26:13
- Dog fooding projects, how to build a tool for someone to use by seeing what they are doing.
How do you get people to use the tool if they’re not already using it? 29:16
- Finding a real use case for snowpack.
- How to approach feedback from users.
- Using a Github repo to test new changes.
- Prioritising what to work on.
- Death by 1000 paper cuts.
- The importance of listening to users for feedback.

Links:

Fred's Twitter https://twitter.com/FredKSchott
Astro https://astro.build/
Snowpack https://www.snowpack.dev/
5 Things I Learned Building Snowpack to 20,000 Stars https://dev.to/fredkschott/5-things-i-learned-while-building-snowpack-to-20-000-stars-b9d
6 More Things I Learned Building Snowpack to 20,000 Stars (Part 2)
https://dev.to/fredkschott/5-more-things-i-learned-building-snowpack-to-20-000-stars-5dc9

Top of Hacker News with Anh-Tho from Lago

Jack Bridger — Thu, 11 May 2023 10:00:00 +0100

Anh-Tho is the founder of Lago https://www.getlago.com/
Lago gives you open-source metering and usage-based billing

Making developer videos with Jamie Barton, DevRel Engineer at Grafbase

Jack Bridger — Thu, 04 May 2023 13:18:39 +0100

Jamie Barton is a DevRel Engineer at Grafbase https://grafbase.com/ and the host of https://graphql.wtf/

How SigNoz grew to 12k GitHub stars with Pranay Prateek

Jack Bridger — Thu, 20 Apr 2023 11:30:00 +0100

Pranay Prateek is the founder of SigNoz - Open Source Observability with Traces, Logs and Metrics in a single pane.

Topics covered:

How SigNoz has grown to 12k stars
How did you get started with the open source model?
- And have there been any teething challenges.
- Apart from growth, have there been any other benefits?
What is the path to monetization (question from Utpal Nadiger)?
Could you talk about your technical writer program?

Links:

SigNoz https://signoz.io/
Pranay's Twitter https://twitter.com/pranay01?s=20

Developer Marketing with Adam DuVander

Jack Bridger — Tue, 11 Apr 2023 15:38:23 +0100

Adam DuVander is an expert in developer marketing and the author of two books: Developer Marketing Does Not Exist and Technical Content Strategy Decoded.

In this episode, we dive deep into the world of developer marketing, specifically focusing on early-stage companies building tools for developers and how to create engaging content for your audience.

What we cover:

Adam's journey from journalism to developer marketing
The importance of developer marketing for early-stage companies and its role in product growth
Identifying your target audience and understanding their pain points
How to create content without directly promoting your product, yet staying relevant to your target audience
The concept of becoming a media company within your niche and providing value through content
The importance of engagement metrics over vanity metrics for early-stage companies
The Jedi Developer Mind Trick: how to showcase the value of your product without directly promoting it, especially for early-stage companies
Examples from successful early-stage companies like LogRocket and Stoplight
How to measure the success of your content and know if it's working for your early-stage company
Tips on choosing the right topics that resonate with your audience and relate to your product
Adam's new book, Technical Content Strategy Decoded

Buy Adam's new book here

Go slow & build good things, with Rob Moore from Churnkey

Jack Bridger — Thu, 06 Apr 2023 08:30:00 +0100

Rob Moore is the CTO and founder of Churnkey - a tool that reduces churn for you automatically.

What we cover:
- Developer documentation
- How Rob buys tools
- How Rob discovers tools
- Go slow & build good things
- How Churnkey works

References:
- Rob's twitter https://twitter.com/robmoo_re
- Churnkey https://churnkey.co/
- Super docs super.so

PMF is one pivot away with Ant Wilson from Supabase

Jack Bridger — Thu, 30 Mar 2023 08:00:00 +0100

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

Growing with open source projects - Josh Thurman from Uffizzi

Jack Bridger — Tue, 28 Mar 2023 08:10:00 +0100

Josh is a Navy Seal turned founder of Uffizzi. Uffizzi provides environments as a Service and works with open source projects like Backstage.

Topics
- Pivoting between ideas
- Working with open source projects to improve products and build credibility

Links:

Building in-person developer communities with Paul Butler from Drifting In Space

Jack Bridger — Thu, 23 Mar 2023 07:55:00 +0000

Paul Butler is the cofounder of Drifting in Space. They believe that browser-based applications can feel like magic if they’re built with the right tools. They make Jamsocket, a platform for building applications with session backends, and Plane, the open-source server that powers it.

What we cover:
- The power of in-person meetups
- How to communicate complex problems
- Deconstructing topics for developer content
- Writing about trends e.g. GPU rendered UIs
- Going after developers doing "something ambitious with browsers"

Developer marketplaces with Robin Warren, founder of Corrello & Blue Cat Reports

Jack Bridger — Thu, 16 Mar 2023 09:39:31 +0000

What we cover

The early days of Corrello
The advantages of marketplaces

Where to hear from Robin

Demand Generation for DevTools - Dino Kukic from Hygraph

Jack Bridger — Thu, 09 Mar 2023 09:54:09 +0000

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

Introduction Hygraph
Finding your focus
Demand Generation
What is a good SEO strategy?
Does performance marketing work with developers?
How to target developers
Working with sales teams
Collaborating on content

Where to hear from Dino

Twitter: @DinoKukic
https://hygraph.com/

Where to hear from us

Twitter: @JackSBridger
https://blog.bitreach.io
Newsletter: https://www.bitreach.io/

Where should Developer Advocacy sit? With Vera Tiago from OutSystems

Jack Bridger — Thu, 02 Mar 2023 13:15:24 +0000

Scaling DevTools is the podcast that investigates how DevTools go from zero to one.

What we cover

Introduction to Vera
Developer advocacy at OutSystems
Progression in OutSystems
Moving around the company
Challenges
Strategies at OutSystems
Education
Developer advocacy skills

Where to hear from Vera

Twitter: @veratiago
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/veratiago/?originalSubdomain=pt
Medium: https://vera-tiago.medium.com/
https://www.outsystems.com/

Shomik Ghosh - office hours with a DevTools investor

Jack Bridger — Thu, 23 Feb 2023 15:28:57 +0000

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

Making DevTools more human with Carla Sofia Teixeira from Miro

Jack Bridger — Thu, 09 Feb 2023 12:06:59 +0000

Scaling DevTools is the podcast that investigates how DevTools go from zero to one.

What we cover

An introduction to Miro
What does ‘humanness’ mean?
How to leverage ‘humanness’
The four pillars of DevRel
Outreach
Product
Education
Community
Always be empathetic
Always be respectful

Where to hear from Carla

Great DevRel Content is a process, not a project with Jason Lengstorf

Jack Bridger — Thu, 19 Jan 2023 13:15:24 +0000

What we cover

Creating content is a process, not a project
Reusing content effectively
Stay on message!!
Consistent gentle pressure
Boring but effective strategies

Where to hear from Jason

Crossing the chasm with Shawn Wang (swyx)

Jack Bridger — Thu, 12 Jan 2023 12:21:14 +0000

Resources

swyx’s links:

Key points:

Everyone in tech should understand the technology adoption cycle and know which stage of the adoption cycle you’re at
First time founders obsess about products and second-time founders obsess about distribution.
At the beginning, focus-in on one offering - have conviction in who your users are
Your tech IS the story at the earliest stage of the adoption cycle. Because you are targeting innovators and they love to know you use Rust for example! At the later stage, tech no longer matters; the cost matters. Your messaging evolves
You should be picking industries and companies with a strong chance of success

The first 2,000 GitHub stars with Matija Šošić from Wasp

Jack Bridger — Thu, 05 Jan 2023 09:55:03 +0000

What we cover

An introduction to Wasp
The Wasp journey so far
The ups and the downs
Having conviction
Reviewing progress
Communication with users
Reaching Junior Developers
What advice would you give?

Where to hear from Matija

Where to hear from us

Twitter: @JackSBridger
https://blog.bitreach.io
Newsletter: https://www.bitreach.io/

Giving developers what they want with Deepak Prabhakara

Jack Bridger — Tue, 20 Dec 2022 11:50:30 +0000

Deepak Prabhakara is the CEO and Co-founder of BoxyHQ. BoxyHQ enables you to add plug-and-play enterprise-ready features to your SaaS product.

What we cover

An introduction to BoxyHQ
Getting BoxyHQ out there in the world
The BoxyHQ Open Source model
What developers want
Progression and growth
Content update
Content distribution
Keeping an eye out on Twitter terms

Where to hear from Deepak

Playing the long game with Ed Freyfogle - founder of the OpenCage Geocoding API

Jack Bridger — Tue, 13 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Ed Freyfogle is the Co-founder of OpenCage. The OpenCage Geocoding API provides worldwide, reverse (latitude/longitude to text) and forward (text to latitude/longitude) geocoding based on open data via a REST API.

What we cover

Introduction to OpenCage
Transparency is key
Competition and learning
Developer mind tricks
Bootstrapping OpenCage
Playing the long game
Measuring conversion
Enthusiasts

Where to hear from Ed

Twitter: @freyfogle
https://opencagedata.com/
http://freyfogle.com/
Geomob podcast: https://thegeomob.com/podcast

Bootstrapping a SaaS boilerplate to $25k MRR with Kyle Gawley from Gravity

Jack Bridger — Tue, 06 Dec 2022 12:00:00 +0000

Kyle Gawley is the Founder of Gravity. Gravity help founders build SaaS products at warp speed.

What we cover

Introduction to Gravity
The journey so far
Why trust is important
Creating and building trust
Marketing approach for Gravity
Specific problem to solve
Tips for SEO
Selling to developers badly (things to stay away from!)
The future of Gravity

Where to hear from Kyle

Twitter: @kylegawley
https://usegravity.app/
Learn how to build a SaaS product from scratch course: https://usegravity.app/how-to-build-a-saas
https://aigraphics.io/

Building a brand with Ramiro Nuñez Dosio from Supabase

Jack Bridger — Tue, 29 Nov 2022 12:00:00 +0000

Ramiro Nuñez Dosio is a Growth Marketer at Supabase. Supabase is a platform designed to help devs streamline the creation of modern apps.

What we cover

The Supabase marketing approach
Launch weeks at Supabase
Keeping focus
Marketing processes
How to measure success
How to distribute content

Where to hear from Ramiro

Twitter: @ramiro__nd
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ramiro-nd/
https://supabase.com/

Product Led Growth with Thomas Peham & Julius Hemingway from Storyblok

Jack Bridger — Tue, 15 Nov 2022 12:00:00 +0000

Thomas Peham is the VP of Marketing and Julius Hemingway is an Analyst Relations Manager at Storyblok. Storyblok harnesses a headless, API-driven CMS architecture empowering developers to build anything, publish everywhere, and integrate with any technology stack.

What we cover

What do you do at Storyblok?
Growing up fast
Product market fit
Advice for startups
Collaborating with partners
What opportunities do you see out there, working with analyst companies?

Where to hear from Thomas & Julius

Thomas: @tompeham
Julius: https://www.linkedin.com/in/julius-hemingway-b720b1136/
https://www.storyblok.com/

Growing in a community - with Colin Sidoti, founder of Clerk.dev

Jack Bridger — Tue, 08 Nov 2022 12:00:00 +0000

Colin Sidoti is the CEO of Clerk.dev. Clerk helps developers build user management. They provide streamlined user experiences for your users to sign up, sign in, and manage their profile.

What we cover

Hasn't auth been solved already?
Growth and new customers
Pitching Clerk
Communities
User journey

Where to hear from Colin

DevRel from the ground up with Sean Falconer from SkyFlow

Jack Bridger — Tue, 01 Nov 2022 12:00:00 +0000

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!

Developer Marketing at a startup with Zivit Katz from Zigi

Jack Bridger — Tue, 25 Oct 2022 12:00:00 +0100

Zivit Katz is the VP of Marketing at Zigi. Zigi is an AI-powered personal assistant for developers. By managing your dev workflow and handling all your mundane, non-programming tasks across multiple apps directly from Slack.

What we cover

Marketing at Zigi
The market and users
Learning the right language
Understanding the developer
The importance of marketing plans

Where to hear from Zivit

Is Open Source the ultimate bottom-up growth strategy? With James Hawkins from PostHog

Jack Bridger — Tue, 18 Oct 2022 12:00:00 +0100

James Hawkins is the CEO & Co-founder of PostHog. PostHog is an open-source product analytics suite, built for engineers.

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

The importance of distribution with Brandon Gubitosa from Plural

Jack Bridger — Tue, 11 Oct 2022 12:00:00 +0100

Brandon Gubitosa is a Senior Content Marketer at Plural. Plural is a software development company that is on a mission to help DevOps teams access and deploy open-source solutions that are recognised as top-tier.

What we cover

An introduction to Plural and it’s growth
Distributing content
Why startups under distribute content
Using metrics to help define if something should be pursued
How to decide on a compelling piece of content
Leveraging open source communities to drive growth
Content agency Vs In-house

Where to hear from Brandon

Where to hear from us

Twitter: @JackSBridger
https://blog.bitreach.io
Newsletter: https://www.bitreach.io/

Building tools for experienced developers with André Eriksson from Encore

Jack Bridger — Tue, 04 Oct 2022 10:42:31 +0100

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.

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/

Developer User Research extends your runway, with Ana Hevesi

Jack Bridger — Tue, 27 Sep 2022 12:00:00 +0100

Ana Hevesi is a Developer Experience Researcher and Ecosystem Consultant. She has experience marshalling technical products and communities at companies including Stack Overflow, Nodejitsu and MongoDB.

What we cover

An introduction to developer user research
Research at DevTools startups
How to use findings and insights
How user research can help extend runway at a startup

Where to hear from Ana

Twitter: @anthrocypher
https://www.anahevesi.com/

Tools Anna loves

Dovetail

What is good developer marketing? With Nimrod Kramer from Daily.dev

Jack Bridger — Tue, 20 Sep 2022 11:57:53 +0100

Nimrod Kramer is the CEO at Daily.dev. Daily.dev is a community of developers getting together and exploring Dev news.

What we cover

(00:39): Why has Daily.dev been such a sensation from your perspective?

(02:13): Could you share your thoughts on good developer marketing and what it is?

(04:52): Could you talk about how you work with Francesco and how that's been working?

(07:28) Could you talk a little bit about examples?

(09:19) What is a developer?

(13:12) Have you got any examples of companies that have created really successful marketing campaigns with Daily.dev?

Where to hear from Nimrod

Twitter: @NimrodKramer
https://daily.dev/

Critical path infra for developers with Megan Reynolds from Crane

Jack Bridger — Tue, 13 Sep 2022 12:25:00 +0100

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)

Developer video for startups with Richard Moot from Square

Jack Bridger — Tue, 06 Sep 2022 12:00:00 +0100

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

Higher versus lower order thinking with Wesley Faulkner

Jack Bridger — Tue, 30 Aug 2022 11:22:06 +0100

Wesley Faulkner is a Senior Community Manager at AWS. Amazon Web Services provides on-demand cloud computing platforms and APIs to individuals, companies, and governments, on a metered pay-as-you-go basis.

(00:40): Would you be able to tell us a little bit more about higher-order thinking?

(05:31): Could you share some examples of higher-order thinking versus a lower-order marketing campaign or communication that didn't work so well?

(11:06): Could you share your thoughts on developers wanting to understand how things work?

(13:38) When it comes to higher-order thinking and understanding your audience, investing long-term sometimes feels like it may have a slower payoff. How do we justify this kind of investment? Especially if we're a startup that needs users or signups really quickly.

Tweet we are discussing

Where to hear from Wesley

Authentic Developer Education with Dylan Fox from AssemblyAI

Jack Bridger — Tue, 23 Aug 2022 10:00:00 +0100

Dylan Fox is the Founder & CEO of AssemblyAI. AssemblyAI is an AI company that researches, trains, and deploys State-of-the-Art AI models. Thousands of developers and product teams build with AssemblyAI's simple API to automatically transcribe and understand audio data at scale.

What we cover

(00:20): Could you tell us a little bit about AssemblyAI?

(01:10): Could you talk about your content strategy?

(03:37): How do you balance the goal of promoting AssemblyAI with creating authentic, useful pieces of content?

(09:59) How are you able to produce such in-depth content?

(11:22) What was it like going through YC and acquiring your first users?

Where to hear from Dylan

Painkillers before vitamins with Juri Strumpflohner

Jack Bridger — Tue, 16 Aug 2022 12:52:52 +0100

Juri Strumpflohner is the Director of Developer Experience at Nrwl Technologies. Nrwl works with global enterprises to provide remote consulting, training, and engineering. Nx is Nrwl’s open source product which provides advanced tools that help scale enterprise development.

What we cover

The story, Nrwl, and Nx?
Solve the problems you see
Open source business model
How Nx got to 2million downloads per week
Hiring for growth
Taking over an existing open source proejct

Where to hear from Juri

B2C vs B2D - marketing to developers with Ronak Ganatra

Jack Bridger — Tue, 09 Aug 2022 09:54:38 +0100

Ronak Ganatra is the Director of Marketing at Lano, a global software solution enabling businesses to hire and pay full-time employees and contractors. Ronak was previously VP of Marketing at Hygraph and has also founded https://marketingto.dev/.

What we cover

(00:37): What was it like on your first day working at Hygraph versus three years later?

(07:03): What do you think being a better developer marketer means?

(08:36): How do you approach things like performance marketing?

(12:17) How should developer marketing teams be working with sales teams?

Where to hear from Ronak

Investing in community with SJ Morris

Jack Bridger — Tue, 02 Aug 2022 11:29:01 +0100

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

Marketing seeds that led to $5k MRR with Tiiny.host

Jack Bridger — Tue, 26 Jul 2022 09:52:32 +0100

Phil is the founder of Tiiny.host. Tiiny.host is a web hosting application that allows you to simply host & share your web project.

What we cover
(00:28): What has growth been like at tiiny.host?

(04:44): Why does the world need a new hosting provider?

(10:50): How did you decide to position tiiny.host?

Where to hear from Phil

Twitter: @_baretto
https://tiiny.host/

Effective developer events & developer sponsorships with Kimmy Leslie

Jack Bridger — Tue, 19 Jul 2022 10:04:11 +0100

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/

The four pillars of developer marketing with Kuba Czakon

Jack Bridger — Tue, 12 Jul 2022 08:59:30 +0100

Kuba Czakon is the CMO of Neptune.ai, a Metadata store for MLOps, built for research and production teams that run a lot of experiments. Kuba is also the author and creator of https://www.developermarkepear.com/.

What we cover

(00:54): How should we be doing developer marketing?

(01:06): How are you applying your four pillars of developer marketing at Neptune?

(11:00): How are you thinking about SEO?

(13:21): How are you allocating your resources now that you are the CMO of Neptune?

Where to hear from Kuba

Twitter: @JCzakon
https://neptune.ai/
https://www.developermarkepear.com/
Developer Marketing community - https://marketingto.dev/

Developer tool launches with Nico Botha

Jack Bridger — Tue, 28 Jun 2022 14:08:17 +0100

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)

Solve problems - developer marketing with Julie Reboul

Jack Bridger — Tue, 14 Jun 2022 09:08:16 +0100

Julie Reboul is a Senior Developer Marketing Manager at Algolia. Algolia is an AI-powered search and discovery platform for dynamic experiences. Julie has also previously worked with companies such as Microsoft, Twitter, and Orange.

What we cover

(00:37): Could you tell us a bit about the kinds of things you're working on at Algolia?

(02:58): How do you cultivate a community of trust at Algolia?

(04:57): What is it that you and your partner focus on?

(06:25): What do you think attracts developers to want to join Algolia's live sessions or developer conferences?

(07:24): Could you tell us a little bit about how you approach co-marketing?

(09:10): Could you share a bit about the culture at Algolia?

(10:47): What changes have you seen in Algolia in the last five years?

(11:55): In the five years that you've been there, what do you think Algolia does well that's led to its success?

Where to hear from Julie

Twitter: @juliereboul
https://www.algolia.com
Podcast: https://developerexperience.buzzsprout.com

Three lessons from selling to developers

Jack Bridger — Tue, 07 Jun 2022 10:00:00 +0100

In today’s episode, Jack discusses what it was like working in a sales team at Stack Overflow, selling to developers, and why you should think about sales in terms of champions.

What we cover

(01:07): Being a Sales Development rep.

(03:34): When a salesperson gets an inbound lead, it's a euphoric moment.

(03:09): Developers rarely check emails.

(05:04): Connect with people that already have a problem.

(05:48): Qualify your leads.

(07:04): Think about sales in terms of champions.

Experimental Marketing with Natwar Maheshwari

Jack Bridger — Tue, 31 May 2022 09:10:42 +0100

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

Content for developers with Karl Hughes

Jack Bridger — Wed, 25 May 2022 14:30:40 +0100

Karl Hughes is the founder of Draft.Dev - a marketing content agency focused on creating great content for software engineers. Since founding the company in 2020, the team has grown to include marketers, editors, engineers and over 130 technical writers. Karl also lectures and writes about his learnings and experiences and was previously CTO at a Venture-backed startup. Karl is the perfect person to talk to if you're serious about scaling your developer content.

What we cover

(01:20): Content is pretty much accepted as one of the most predictable paths to grow for developer tools, but the payback is also sometimes a little slower than other channels. Karl, against this backdrop, how should DevTools startups be thinking about content?

(09:44): How does the reputation of your DevTool come into it?

(12:42): I'd love to hear about how you think about promotion, and especially at the moment if there's anything that startups can be doing to shorten the payback of some of their content?

(16:12): Have you had any experiences with developer content on TikTok?

Where to hear more from Karl

Bootstrapping DevTools with Michael Christofides

Jack Bridger — Tue, 17 May 2022 09:49:28 +0100

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?

(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

Twitter: @michristofides
Site link: https://www.pgmustard.com

Early Stage DevRel with Brandon West

Jack Bridger — Wed, 11 May 2022 10:00:00 +0100

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?

(17:04): Where can people learn more?

Guest links

Twitter: @bwest
Site link: http://bwe.st

DataDog: https://www.datadoghq.com/
CoScreen: https://www.coscreen.co/

Developer Marketing Does Not Exist with Adam DuVander

Jack Bridger — Tue, 03 May 2022 09:08:14 +0100

Adam DuVander is an expert on technical content strategy and the author of Developer Marketing Does Not exist. Adam was previously a Developer Marketer with Zapier & SendGrid and a journalist and developer before that.

Adam DuVander

Adam Duvander is the founder of Every Developer and author of Developer Marketing does not exist. He helps dev-focused marketers build content strategies to reach more developers. Adam was the perfect person to have on for our first episode because he literally wrote the book on developer marketing.

What we cover

(01:47): How should these type of startups be thinking about prioritisation of content versus other things that they could be doing?
(04:13): Where do they start?
(05:44): You've written a lot in one of your talks about opinions and pushing an opinionated view of things.
(07:43): How do you get those developers to also be writing great content?
(13:55): How do they know if it was a good piece of content?
(19:51): Where can people learn more about Adam and about all of the amazing insights that you have on developer marketing?

Links

Twitter: @adamd
Every Developer: https://everydeveloper.com
Book: Developer Marketing Does Not Exist

Scaling DevTools Trailer

Jack Bridger — Thu, 21 Apr 2022 10:30:06 +0100

Created by Jack Bridger, founder of Bitreach. BitReach helps Devtool companies reach more developers. In this series Jack will explore how startups sell to developers, build tools and become successful.