Show and Tell

How to message and communicate Developer Tools to developers

I was reading through comments on an old HN post and loved this set of comments on Fly.io’s launch post:

I love these comments because this problem of “wtf do you do” in B2B software is so pervasive that it’s shocking when you can get a clear answer in 1-3 lines. 

It’s so challenging to come up with these pithy and clever lines that we (marketing) ends up delivering confusion when we should be moving towards simplicity. In this post, I share why positioning for Developers is often perceived as so challenging and show you two examples of how to make the process a bit simpler. 

But…Developers hate marketing!

People will often say “developers hate marketing,” which is a statement I find so funny. Generally speaking, developers actually love marketing. Some examples: 

• Events: Developers often attend conferences and meetups to learn from other practitioners. 

• Swag: You know that developers LOVE getting cool t-shirts, mugs, backpacks and more to flaunt their favorite tools and frameworks. 

• Streaming and content creation: Developers have become incredibly talented content creators and boast massive followings on platforms like YouTube and Twitch, where they share expertise, curate content, interview other professionals or do live demos or hacks for their audience. 

• Community: This isn’t exactly marketing in my mind, but often community is lumped into a Marketing organization or a strategy. Developers have built countless platforms and tools for connecting with like-minded folks to exchange ideas and support one another. Examples include, IRC channels, Discord, Hacker News. 

As you can see in the Fly.io Hacker News thread I referenced above, when a brand is clear, concise, and straightforward about its product’s utility and value, you make a statement and turn some heads! 

Why are developers skeptical of marketing? 

When doing any type of marketing or product development, you need to understand the day-to-day life, needs, and convictions of your end customer. In the case of developers, most marketers do not have a clear sense of what software development is like. Here are two things that stand out to me about the software development process that could be helpful to marketers trying to understand the challenges of Software Developers: 

• The cognitive challenge: Software development is cognitively challenging and takes focus to execute correctly. For those who have never done any computer programming, it is similar to solving abstract math and logic problems which can be mentally exhausting. “Context switching” is a term often used by programmers to describe the challenges of managing their day-to-day workload, because many require hours of uninterrupted time to focus on accomplishing their tasks. As a result, any new software that they add to their workflow needs to accelerate their ability to execute and lower the cognitive load. 

• The level of responsibility and ownership: Developers build tools used at a very large scale. Their decisions in product design and technology choice can lead to at best an all-nighter and at worst threats to people’s lives. We’ve seen these examples in the news countless times. I know I am dramatic, but if you’ve read This is how they tell me the world ends, you know why. There are repercussions of choosing the wrong software and making those incorrect decisions can have large-scale impact. As a result, developers are very discerning about the products that they use because they want to avoid making those mistakes. 

This is why statements like, “This is better than anything you’ve ever tried” don’t work because they don’t believe that could be true; they’ve been lied to before. This is also why the use of Buzzwords on your homepage, like “Edge Computing,” often frustrates developers because it shows you just know the word and probably doesn’t understand the concept. 

My guidance: speak to them in their language. Help them understand how what you’re doing can help them. Help them understand the problems that you solve and how you do it. 

How to do “Show don’t tell” 

Back to the top: What did Fly.io do so well to get this praise? 

Here’s a reprint of the “elevator pitch” 

“fly.io is really a way to run Docker images on servers in different cities and a global router to connect users to the nearest available instance. We convert your Docker image into a root filesystem, boot tiny VMs using an Amazon project called Firecracker, and then proxy connections to it. As your app gets more traffic, we add VMs in the most popular locations.”

The reason the Hacker News community loved this so much is that Kurt and the Fly.io team wrote a clear and straightforward description of what they do, how they do it and why they’re different from other cloud services. They didn’t use fancy language, anyone who works in Tech can understand these concepts. For example, they describe the term “Edge Computing” without using that terminology – avoiding the Buzzword which could alienate their audience, which I love. 

Breaking it down: 

What they do? fly.io is really a way to run Docker images on servers in different cities and a global router to connect users to the nearest available instance.

How they do it? We convert your Docker image into a root filesystem, boot tiny VMs using an Amazon project called Firecracker, and then proxy connections to it. 

Why are they different? As your app gets more traffic, we add VMs in the most popular locations.

This is a really simple approach to getting down your pitch to developers. Another approach that I love is because it is similarly so simple First Round’s Arielle Jackson's positioning framework.

For (target customer) Who (statement of need or opportunity), (Product name) is a (product category) That (statement of key benefit). Unlike (competing alternative) (Product name)(statement of primary differentiation).

These frameworks are the first step to getting you to a better place when messaging and positioning your project. But, keep in mind, this is not a solo project! As a marketer, you are often not the end user, and you need their input to get the messaging right. 

• Familiarize yourself with the product by talking to your engineers, often! Join their demo days, read their team newsletters, and find a buddy who you can go to for questions. Fortunately at MongoDB, I had MANY buddies – some of whom are invited to my wedding! At Snyk I was embedded in the product organization, but folks like Ian Livingstone, Alex Ley, Ben Williams and Robbie Clutton were always super insightful when I went to them with questions about the user experience and different challenges facing our customers. Approach these conversations with curiosity and with the intention of making your company better and you will be welcomed by these engineers and product folks with open arms. The reason this is so helpful is you will get a bit more familiar with the problems of your users and how your engineers are solving them. 

• Talk to your customers! Get a better understanding of your customers needs by talking to them. I’ve found that happy customers are more than willing to take a call with anyone at your company, especially if you indicate it’s in the interest of making the product better for the community and if you offer a coffee gift card. Make a list of 5 questions to go in with so you feel confident and prepared, but know that the best feedback will come out of you asking “Tell me more about that…”. If you’re not feeling confident, see if one of your solutions architects or your engineering buddy will join you. Some questions to help you get started 

  • How did you find out about us? 

  • What problem are you trying to solve? 

  • How does this help you achieve better/faster/cheaper? 

  • How would you describe this tool to your mom? To your boss? To someone on your team? 

• Conduct user testing! This is one of my favorite approaches for iterations in design and messaging. If you’d like to iterate on your positioning, come up with a way to get users involved in the process. Ask users for feedback on your current homepage, or your current messaging guide

  • What do they love about the homepage/guide?

  • What do they dislike? 

  • How would they describe your product to someone in their role? 

  • What’s an example of a product they love that does this well? 

In closing, there are many ways to approach messaging. These are some tools I’ve found to be helpful to me or I’ve found can be useful to others — but this is not the only way! One thing is certain, though: if you approach things as a learner and not as a knower you will be vastly more successful.

I hope this gives you guidance, and more importantly, confidence in building your company’s messaging! Go forth and do great things and if there’s anyways that I can be helpful just leave a comment here!