Developer marketing examples

The best dev tool marketing campaigns, designs, and copy
that I found on the internet

developer experience
copy
call to action
product tour
product led growth

Header CTAs from Mixpanel

Mixpanel primary CTA is to take an interactive tour.

They take you to a 30min video + a guided UI tour.

Not a signup.

That is because with products that have long time to value (like analytics, observability etc) dev will not see value in the first session.

I mean to really see value you need to see real data, real use cases. And if you were to actually test it would take weeks.

That is why many companies do demos. But demos have their own problems (and most are bad).

Interactive tools make it possible for me to explore the value without talking to anyone.

I love this option.

developer experience
landing page

Feature section design from TailwindCSS

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

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

I see how I can get that result with code.

It is interactive and catches my attention.

It makes me feel inspired.

Great job Tailwind team!

hero section
copy

Neon header copy

I love this dev tool header copy from Neon.

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

๐Ÿ’š Instead, they spoke in a clear dev-to-dev language:

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

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

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

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

"But we are going pure top-down"

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

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

social posts
twitter

"Nostalgic" tweet format

Make it about belonging.โ€

Something some people can deeply connect with.
Nostalgia is a very strong emotion.

It feels good to be a part of something as well.

social posts
twitter

"Divide people" tweet format

Say what we are all thinking. โ€

This tweet is great as it states something that most of us feel.
It is something that you may have had a discussion about with someone recently.
You might have fought about one tool or another.
But at the end of the day tools don't matter.

You can share it with someone as:

  • sorry, we had a stupid fight
  • rub it in your face :)

โ€

copy
call to action
product led growth
landing page

Posthog "do not talk to us" copy

Most devs want to explore products themselves.

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

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

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

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

Posthog speaks to this reality with this copy beautifully:

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

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

reddit
social posts
copy

Great Reddit post format

Nicely done Reddit post that went viral on r/MachineLearning.

Reddit dev communities are notoriously hard to market in.

You need to have something really valuable to say to that dev crowd.

But even if you do, it is so easy to screw it up and get trolled or downvoted for "obvious promo".

I know that from experience. So painful to watch.

This is a really nice example of how to do it right:

  • Start with an interesting, attention-grabbing but not yet a clickbaity title.
  • Say who you are and why you have something (new) and valuable to say here.
  • Go straight to the point, to the (technical) value. I like the obvious numbered list delivery.
  • Drop emojis, bolding, and extensive formatting if you want to "keep it real".
  • Make sentences short. Cut all the fluff. State your opinions and facts "as they are".
  • Do implicit CTA. Drop the explicit one but hint at something that those interested may want.

Try something like that next time you post and see what happens.

Obviously, it is nearly impossible to do when:

  • You have no real experience to share
  • You have nothing really valuable to say
  • You don't have opinions and/or facts on the subject

But then why would you even post something?

social posts
linkedin

Toolstack diagram for Linkedin post

People want to be valued by their tribe.

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

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

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

โ€

copy
developer experience
landing page
hero section

The header copy of Auth0 developers portal

I love this copy. It answers:

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

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

Obviously, it will save time and make things safer.

Don't talk about it.

social posts
twitter

Product release post format for Twitter from Supabase

Using memes in the product release.

If you understand your ICP (in this case open-source backend devs) it may be a great idea.

An additional benefit is that people may share a meme... that actually has a link to your announcement.

ads
reddit
copy
social posts

Basic Reddit Ad from Kubero

How did this super basic ad get so much engagement on Reddit?

First of all, the value prop is succinct, to the point, and says what it is.

No "streamlining", "boosting", or "democratizing" is involved.
No clever tagline or pains, benefits, or values just says what it is.

But what it is, is "free and open-source" which is what many devs, especially on Reddit want to hear.
And Heroku is a known brand so if you know what Heroku does, you know what Kubero does.

I liked that they linked out to the GitHub project too.

Not 100% sure if that would perform better than a landing page or home. ย But I see how it feels more in sync with the channel you are running your ads on.

The screenshot? I don't like it but perhaps it doesn't matter as much here?

What do you think?

Oh, and if you read the comments, you'll see that people actually talked about the project, said that they liked the ad etc.

Good stuff.

navbar
developer experience
blog
copy

Snyk navbar resources tab design

The "Resources" tab is the most loved and hated tab for developer marketers.

Ok so the common problem is that you have lots of different resources:

  • docs
  • product videos
  • meetup videos
  • recorded webinars
  • learning center guides
  • blog articles that don't talk about your product
  • and so much more stuff

You want to showcase them in the navbar but where do you put them?

Under product? Company? Docs?

How to make sure that people don't go to your blog to read about your product just to find out that you talk about the industry problems there?

Enter the "Resources" tab. The "Miscellaneous" of the navbar world.

And typically it is just crammed with all stuff that doesn't fit anywhere. Just like any respectable misc folder would. ย 

How do you deal with that?

Snyk approached it in a clear and logical way:

  • Add sub-navigation
  • Make it clear to devs which parts are about the product and which ones are not
  • They use "Using Snyk" and "Learn & Connect" that could be extended to "Using {Product} and "Learning {Category/Problem}"

I love this (and already stole the idea for our site).

developer experience
navbar

Navbar product tab design from Posthog

How to design the navbar product tab? This is what @PostHog does ๐Ÿ‘‡

Figuring out what to put in the navbar is tricky:

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

The "Product" tab is especially tricky.

It can get overloaded with a ton of content.

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

I like how Posthog approached it:

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

I like it.

social posts
twitter

"Education focused" tweet format

Explain a concept clearly.โ€

Good visual with concrete numbers makes this example easy to understand.

Because it is beautifuly explained people want to share this with their network to be perceived as helpful (and smart).

developer experience
pricing

Cost calculator from Mux

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

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

@Mux does it nicely with a calculator:

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

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

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

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

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

navbar
landing page
call to action
product tour

Playground CTA in the navbar resources section from Prisma

Simple yet powerful CTA in the navbar resources section.

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

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

๐Ÿ’š And I think that a Plauground ย is a great option. You get people to see how your product works. You let people play with it and see for themselves.

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

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

๐Ÿ”ฅ Making this CTA "big and shiny" and showing a glimpse of what will happen after clicking is great too.

๐Ÿค” 2 changes I'd test out:

  • Making the copy more descriptive performs better. ย Like "Launch playground", "Play with Sandbox", or something around "Run an example project/app/environment".
  • Showing something more exciting about the product (or playground/tour) on that visual

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

social posts
linkedin

Toolstack diagram post on Linkedin

Architecture diagrams are awesome.

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

This one is particularly good-looking imho.

campaigns
copy
developer experience
ads
reddit

"We blew our budget on X" format

Funny ad, that makes fun of ads.โ€

But it actually communicates that you don't care about the ads but more about something else, like:

  • docs
  • code examples
  • integration
  • backend
  • UI
call to action
landing page

Open-source project homepage CTA from Astro

What CTAs should you choose for your open-source project homepage?

Was always wondering what is my default.

There are many options: "See docs", "Get started", "Sign up", "Start X"

But in open-source you want people to start playing with it, install it.

So what should you choose?

Recently came across Astro homepage and loved what they chose.

"Get started"

  • Takes you to the quickstart in the docs
  • Is action-focused copy
  • Sets obvious(ish) expectations

Install code

  • Gives you copy-pasteable install command
  • + it shows the code to make it more devy

Whatever I choose I will actually get my hands dirty.

I think this will be my default from now on.

ads
campaigns
video
youtube
brand

"I'm gonna push some buttons" video campaign from Postman

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

Making a memorable brand video is hard.

Doing that for a boring tech product is harder.

Doing that to the developer audience is next level.

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

The videos I am talking about are:

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

So what did they do right?

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

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

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

developer experience
copy
vs competitor
landing page
pricing

Competitor comparison page from New Relic

Sometimes your product just wins on price.

I like how New Relic owns it on this page:

  • They show you price comparison graphs
  • The CTAs are focused on helping you compare the prices
  • They use jargon specific to the category to drive the price argument: "peak usage", "overages and penalties", "SKUs"

After reading this I'd trust them to give me a solid price estimate and that it will likely be cheaper than Datadog.

Obviously price is not the only reason why we choose tools, but if that was a problem I had with Datadog, they have my attention.

ads
reddit
copy

Great all-text reddit ad from Latitude

Fantastic all-text Reddit ad from Latitude.

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

But folks from Latitude managed ๐Ÿ”ฅ

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

Here is what I liked:

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

Great execution. Chapeau bas Latitude.

hero section

Mux header showing code, result, and analytics

This is one of my favorite header patterns for dev tools lately. Layered video visual from MUX.

So that video design pattern in here is this:

  • A looped video on the right that...
  • Starts by showing code (MUX video): right away I know this is for devs
  • Then it shows me a player (MUX player) that shows the result of that code
  • Then it goes to show the analytics (MUX data) of people viewing/interacting with that video
  • Ends with all parts of the video code/player/analytics layered on top of each other to drive that this is part of one

There are a few bonus learnings here as well:

  • "video infrastructure": that framing communicates that there are many tools I can pick and choose from. + it feels like Stripe for video which is a good framing in dev circles.
  • "stream billions of minutes of video every day" hints at their benefit and core use case (streaming at scale)
  • They show all the products Video/Player/Data right in the header making it clear what this video infrastructure means. And the layered visual explains it further.

btw I really like that branding. Custom font makes it so memorable. It is, isn't it?

campaigns
seo
product led growth

Product-led SEO tactic from Cronjob

Great SEO tactic.

What folks from Cronitor did is:

  • For every combination of "cron +" they created a website
  • Those simple websites rank for particular keywords like "cron every 11 minutes"
  • When you land on the page you get a command you need that solves your problem
  • And you get a nice explanation of their paid tool for monitoring cron jobs

This can be used for many dev-focused tools as by definition they use commands which can be templated.

I've heard about it originally from Harry Dry over at https://marketingexamples.com/seo/cronitor

โ€

ads
linkedin
social proof

V7 "testimonial" ad on Linkedin

It's a nice template for ads on socials.

So you have:

  • Value
  • Testimonial about the value/benefit
  • Person
  • CTA

Ideally, I'd make it dark to stand out in the feed and make the CTA about that value as well.

But still, great ad imho.

social posts
twitter

"Disagree with status quo" tweet format

Articulate a deeper thought.โ€

Sometimes you want to tell the world something but you don't know how.
When somebody articulates what you were thinking you just want to share that with them.

This is what this tweet is about.
A deeper thought with some parallel examples to back it up.

developer experience

Updates modal from Discord

Modal with updates.

Adding a modal with "what happened lately" for users who come back to the app.

Good idea for re-activating users by showing new features or examples.

+ a link to a deeper resource.

developer experience
landing page
hero section

Algolia developer portal design

Devs are builders.โ€

Make your home page for builders.
Go directly into the "how" instead of the way.
Many devs when they land on your home page, already know the "why".

I love that it:

  • shows the step-by-step right away in the hero
  • CTAs are links to integrations with particular frameworks and libraries
  • the hero copy is very toned-down
video
linkedin
social posts

GitHub event promo video

7k likes on an event promo post to the dev audience.

I don't think I've ever seen 7k likes on a developer company post on Linkedin.

Ok, this is Github, but still.

This is a 26sec video where they go:

  • "What happens when a CEO..."
  • "... builds an app LIVE in 18 minutes ..."
  • "... in front of 15000 people..."
  • "... with Copilot X for the first time?"
  • "What could go wrong?"
  • "What it Live"

This is a job well done:

  • Super slick but minimal design. Feels a bit like that famous nextjs prisma conference tickets.
  • Offers a live coding session which is one of the event types that devs like cause it is real.
  • Plays powerful music, but no voiceover that would make it feel more corporate.
  • Dev to dev, conversational copy. + this final snarkiness appeals to devs.

And they could have done:

  • Copy: "We are happy to announce our CEO streamlining business value for the enterprise"
  • Design: Show people at previous events and stuff that you saw a million times
  • Offer: Talks from industry leaders (that ย are customers using your product)
  • Voiceover and music: Boring corporate classic.

This is how to promote an event. LOVED IT!

developer experience
product tour
product led growth

Product tour from Vercel

Interactive product tours are all the rage.

But how do you make them work for the dev audience?

How do you deal with:

  • Explain your complex dev tool value proposition quickly
  • Show both code and UI elements
  • Make devs feel great developer experience of your product
  • Push devs to the conversion action without being to pushy
  • And do all that without overwhelming

That is hard.

But Vercel somehow made it.

This is by far the best product tour I have seen so far.

What I love:

  • Great, clean navigation that lets me go back if I want to
  • They use their slogan "Develop, Preview, Ship" to reinforce the product message
  • They show both code and the UI
  • The CTAs are visible but subtle enough not to distract

This product tour is what dev tool startups will aspire to for years (or months ;) ) to come.

Mark my words.

developer experience
vs competitor

RavenDB performance benchmark

How to present benchmark results masterclass from RavenDB

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

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

๐—ฌ๐—ผ๐˜‚ ๐—ท๐˜‚๐˜€๐˜ ๐—ป๐—ฒ๐—ฒ๐—ฑ ๐˜๐—ผ ๐—ฏ๐˜‚๐—ถ๐—น๐—ฑ ๐˜๐—ต๐—ฎ๐˜ ๐˜๐—ฟ๐˜‚๐˜€๐˜. ๐—ข๐—ป๐—ฒ ๐—ผ๐—ณ ๐˜๐—ต๐—ฒ ๐˜„๐—ฎ๐˜†๐˜€ ๐—ถ๐˜€ ๐˜๐—ต๐—ฟ๐—ผ๐˜‚๐—ด๐—ต ๐˜๐—ฟ๐—ฎ๐—ป๐˜€๐—ฝ๐—ฎ๐—ฟ๐—ฒ๐—ป๐—ฐ๐˜†.

People from RavenDB do it by:

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

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

copy
call to action
product tour
product led growth
landing page

Axiom "Playground" CTA

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

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

A lot of work.

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

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

This copy is good because:

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

Pattern-breaking pre-roll ad from Sentry

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

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

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

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

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

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

social posts
linkedin

Concept 101 with a diagram

Devs like diagrams.

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

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

Just a very solid content format.

billboards
ads
copy

Funny competitive campaign billboard

Funny and memorable competitive billboard ad from @Statsig ๐Ÿ‘‡

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

And tell the story of how you do things differently.

๐Ÿ‘€ But first, make people see you. And remember you in the next conversation when the big known brand or a category comes up.

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

๐Ÿ’š I love how folks from Statsig did it here. Such a playful pun on the feature flag category incumbent Launch Darkly. Job well done.

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

ads
developer experience
youtube
video

CircleCI code and UI presentation in video ad

Showing code and UI in an explainer video is always a dance and rarely ends well.

You want to show the code to make it devy.
But you don't want to show everything not to overwhelm.

The same goes for UI which should look like your UI.
But show only what is necessary.

It's a struggle but CircleCI does it really nicely in this explainer:

  • They blur out all code
  • But use colors to make it really look like code
  • And the file sits clearly in a text editor (as it should)

They do the same for the UI later in the video.Just a really clean way of explaining things. Nice!

video
youtube
vs competitor

Save time video format from Stoplight

How do you show "save time" to devs?

It is often hard as it is not objective.

But there are options.

Spotlight does it beautifully by showing two implementations next to each other solving the same task.
It is obvious which is faster and saves time.
Great stuff!

brand
campaigns
billboards
ads

"Ask your developer" billboards from Twillio

Just wanted to share this classic dev tool branding campaign.

There is even a book about this from Jeff Lawson at Twilio.

But I recently saw someone share on HN that it got changed to "How can I reduce acquisition costs by 65%". Made me a bit sad.

But perhaps after years and years of working it stopped delivering any additional brand awareness/affinity.

Could they have come up with another flavor of "Ask your developer."?

Maybe. But maybe at their levels of mind share you are playing a different game.

The good thing is, you are not at that stage ;)

And f you pull off something that is 1% of the success of that famous Twilio campaign you can make your brand noticed and remembered.

I know we are in the year of doing what brings results right now. And branding campaigns may not make the cut.

But maybe we can (and should) afford to do something that helps us deliver that pipeline next year or a year after that?

brand
youtube

What is Segment video

Came across this classic What is Segment brand video while watching an interview with one of the folks behind it, Maya Spivak (she is awesome btw).

What I like about it is that:

โ€ข it is fun, not formal, builds rapport
โ€ข it introduces the core problem the tool solves
โ€ข it shows the tech and explains it in a way that is simple but not simplistic

And it follows a flavor of the classic AIDA format:

  • Introduce problem
  • Agitate it, make the viewer feel it
  • Explain obvious solutions + problems with it
  • Show how your product solves it
  • Tell people how to start

Putting all that in 90 seconds is hard.

And even though this video is 4 years old it could easily still work today IMHO.

Really solid baseline to sฬถtฬถeฬถaฬถlฬถ get inspired by ;)

social posts
linkedin

Linkedin promotional post of a library

I like how this post shows:

  • what the library does
  • shows how to install it
  • gives the option to read more in-feed

All in one visual post.

reddit
ads

Promoted full-article post on Reddit

What if you not only posted entire articles on Reddit but also promoted them?

This is what WarpStream did and I like it.

A few weeks back I shared an example of a company posting not a link with a snippet but an entire article on Reddit.

WarpStream is taking it to the next level by promoting it as an in-feed Reddit ad.

I love this trend 100%:

  • Platform first: don't force you to click out, read the content here
  • Ads as distribution: treating paid options as a distribution channel

By doing that you assume that if your piece of content gets read by the right people it will lead to business outcomes. People don't need to go to your site to be retargeted by ads and attacked by popup banners.

That is a very fair assumption, especially with devs.

But even generally in B2B SaaS and social channels like here on LinkedIn that concept of zero-click content, coined by Amanda Natividad, is gaining traction and I'm glad that it does.

campaigns
developer experience
swag
brand

Promo T-shirt design from GitGuardian

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

And they get boring results.

I like this bold design from GitGuardian:

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

Nice.

blog
call to action
developer experience
brand

"Top of article" CTA on the blog from Eartlhy

Need one more call to action idea for your dev tool blog?

How about starting an article with it?

Sounds weird but if done right it can work. Even with devs (or maybe especially with devs).

Earthly did and they are known for great dev-focused content.

Ok, so how does it work?

You start your article with a contextual call to action where you explain:

  • Who you are and what your product does
  • And how that is relevant to the content of the article
  • Link out to more product-focused pages, ideally relevant to content

And then you let people read.

Those who find the topic important will remember you and/or maybe click out to see more.

I like it. It's explicit, transparent, and actually noninvasive.

call to action
landing page
developer experience
hero section

Header with benchmarks from Bun

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

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

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

I love it.

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

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

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

And they talk about being faster left right and center.

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

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

ads
video
youtube
social proof

Testimonial Video Ad from Teleport

Classic remarketing ad. But things are classic because they work ๐Ÿ‘‡

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

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

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

They need something more.

That "more" is often trust.

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

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

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

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

That is it.

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

brand
campaigns
ads
billboards

"What good is bad data" from Segment

This is a really clever billboard campaign.

Show don't tell they say.

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

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

What I like about is the alignment between:

  • campaign creative
  • campaign theme
  • product value

This is hard to do imho so big kudos to them ๐ŸŽ‰!

Downside?

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

Or maybe they were next-level jokers...

campaigns
video

Cloudflare TV

A freaking developer TV.

They took this "be a media company" to the next level.

They created entire TV around their company, audience, and products.

I respect people really going all in.

developer experience
video
youtube

Hand-drawn tutorial video style from Robusta

I really love this hand-drawn feel.

It makes it super authentic.

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

Great stuff.

BTW the tool used for this is called excalidraw.com

developer experience
product led growth

Demo page from Posthog

Devs have a love/hate relationship with "Book a demo" call to action.

Mostly hate though.

Especially if what they want is:

  • know what they will be paying for your tool
  • just see a golden path of how this thing works

Let's just say that sitting through an hour demo call with a salesperson just to get the pricing is not what most devs love to do with their time.

But there are moments in the buyer journey when devs do want to have that live session:

  • they tried it, went through the golden path, and have deeper questions
  • they know they have specific needs and are unsure/couldn't find it in your docs/website.
  • they want to customize the pricing plan to their needs.

Then, having a live session/demo is the fastest way to move forward.

@PostHog handles this dev journey reality nicely with:

  • recorded, ungated product demo -> if you want a generic demo just watch it
  • transparent pricing and a free plan -> don't need to sit through the demo to ask for price
  • if you want a custom demo or just talk to a human -> just schedule a call

This approach solves both scenarios really nicely. ย 

pricing
developer experience

Very simple pricing from Userfront

How do you make your dev tool pricing simple?

I really like this one.

Saw someone share a pricing page from Userfront some time ago and really liked it. They changed it now but I really like the thinking behind the older version.

It is just remarkably simple while hitting all the boxes:

  • You have tiers aligned with buyer persona: Free, Self-served (team), Custom (enterprise)
  • Your usage metric is obvious (Monthly Active User)
  • For Enterprise you just go with "Contact us" CTA (which is what enterprise buyers expect anyway)

Just a very good baseline.

developer experience
social proof
landing page

Social proof from TailwindCSS homepage

Understand who is reading. Add social proof that speaks to them.

Social proof is about showing people/companies who are similar to the reader that they got success with the tool.

Company logos can be good if your reader knows and likes those companies.
But if those are random companies, I am not sure how much value does it bring.

Devs care what other devs who use your product have to say about it.
That's why I like testimonials.

Not the crafted, clean ones with features and values.
But the real stuff. Real devs sharing real stories.

Bonus points for "Okay, I get the point" button copy.
It changes from "Show more" when you click.

Nice!

copy
ads
linkedin
brand

Joke ad format with a transitional CTA from sdworx

Dorky joke right?

But it does two very important things beautifully.

It gets a smirk (from some people) and when it does you know you just moved someone closer to your brand.

It has a clear CTA which is hard to do with joke-format ads.

This subtle call to conversation/check us out does the job.

Love it!

blog
developer experience
call to action

Blog CTA from v7

Interesting dev blog CTA idea from V7.

CTAs in technical articles is a tricky subject:

  • Go too aggressive and "obviously an ad" and devs ignore it or get angry
  • Go too subtle and you may not get the readers attention at all

I like how V7 approached it here:

  • They add a separate (aside) section but it is subtle, feels like a part of the article
  • They use a GIF image creative that catches my attention and simply shows the product
  • They used various ย anchor link CTAs. Interestingly these often get more clicks than buttons

What I'd change/test is making this CTA not a generic value prop but something closely connected to the rest of the article.

developer experience
docs

Devex in ReactJS documentation

Nice way to show code and results straight from the React docs that people love.

And this pattern can be used outside of the docs for sure.

Anyway, a classic situation:

  • you want to show the code
  • you want to show the result of that code
  • you want to let people play with the code/results
  • you want to make it easy to read and copy/use ย 

And folks behind React docs solved it nicely by:

  • Giving you a spit screen of code and results
  • Not showing the entire code but giving you the option to "show more"
  • You can change the code and see the results change (and errors pop up)
  • You can use buttons to reset the example, copy it, or fork on CodeSandbox

Not groundbreaking maybe but a beautiful implementation that is just a delight to use.

developer experience
github
call to action
social proof

Sticky "star us on GitHub" from Posthog

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

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

What do you do now?

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

Many companies put it in their navbars or hello bars.

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

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

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

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

developer experience
pricing
docs

Pricing in the docs from fly.io

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And that page looks like a classic pricing page.

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

ads
reddit

Kftray Reddit ad

Nice Reddit ad from kftray.

This is a simple ad format but lands the message:

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

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

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

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

campaigns

Open-source project landing page redesigns (almost) for free

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

So the story goes like this:

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

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

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

Interesting one for sure.

ads
twitter
video

"Timer" Twitter video ad from Kinde

This is such a fantastic ad creative because it is just so different.

So basically what Kinde it does is:

  • It shows the timer, dev, and the screen nothing else.
  • The dev adds authorization to the application in under 2 minutes
  • The fact that the dev is sneezing while coding just makes it so real and human
  • You see a how-to-add Kinde for authorization tutorial while rooting for the dev to complete ;)
  • ๐ŸŽ Bonus points for having that filename saying what it is, almost like an ad title: Authspeedrun.mp4

๐Ÿ’š That timer is such a great way of catching attention and keeping it while landing your product message. It seems raw and "whatever" but I think it is very intentional in its dev-friendly delivery.

So if you have a dev tool that has awesome devex and can get people to that aha moment quickly then give it a go (and tell me how it went ;)). ย 

developer experience
landing page
hero section

Auth0 developer portal hero section visual

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

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

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

Tell me what you do in 1 sec, not 60

copy
campaigns
brand

"There are two types of companies" from Fly.io round announcement

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

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

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

And they basically said that they are:

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

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

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

I dig it.

copy
pricing
developer experience

Retool pricing page copy

Most dev tools have two deployment options:

  • SaaS
  • On-prem / private cloud

And then companies present it on their pricing page with some flavor of two tabs.

And you need to name them somehow.ย 

And how you describe those things sometimes adds confusion for your buyers:

  • You put โ€œyour serverโ€ > then does it scale to a more robust infra?
  • You put โ€œon-prem" > then can I deploy on private AWS cloud?

I like how nice and simple solution Retool used on their pricing page:

  • "Cloud (we host)"
  • "Self-hosted (you host)"

Explicit, obvious and to the point.

Love it.

landing page
developer experience

Interactive feature tiles from clerk.dev

How to present many features at once?

Sometimes your dev tool has many features/products that you want to show.

โŒ Showing all of them as separate sections doesn't work with more than 3. It just gets too long very quickly.

โœ… You can go with the tabs pattern where each tab has copy+visual for a feature.

๐Ÿ’ก But there is another option that makes a ton of sense when you have many features to show.

Interactive tiles of different sizes.

๐Ÿ’š I like the implementation of that pattern coming from Clerk:

  • Each tile is a combo of feature name + one-liner description + an interactive visual
  • When you hover over each tile it starts playing the visualization explaining the feature even more
  • Some of the tiles are bigger which makes the entire section more interesting. It could be one (core feature or differentiator) or a few if you present many.

That pattern can work really well on blogs or learning centers too but I think we're going to see more of it on dev tool websites.

video
youtube
campaigns
brand

"Between to Nerds" Video from SST

This is one of the most interesting content pieces I have seen in dev tools recently ๐Ÿ‘‡

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

That's right.

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

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

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

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

Nice.

copy
developer experience
landing page
hero section

Header design from Alpaca

This is a simple but great header imho:

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

Love it.

brand
campaigns
ads
billboards

snowflake billboards

Ideating how to do dev tool billboards?

I like these from Snowflake.

Especially the customer showcase ones as the format can almost be copy-pasted ;)

One more interesting thing about those billboards though:

  • folks from Snowflake placed just a few of them strategically in the cities
  • And changed content of the billboard often

By doing that they seem to have billboards everywhere, fight ad fatigue, and stay top of mind.

Love it.

developer experience
copy
blog
call to action

Developer-focused blog CTA from Snyk

Pushing cold blog readers to try your tool rarely works.

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

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

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

blog
call to action
seo

JTBD blog post from WorkOS

This is how you write dev tool JTBD blog posts.

Masterclass of writing this type of content from @WorkOS imho.

Deep 2000 word guide that explains how to add webhooks the your application.

Goes into examples, best practices, everything.

One thing it doesn't do?

It doesn't push the product left right and center.

In fact, the only CTA is hidden in the very last sentence of the very last section.

Why?

Because most likely, the reader's intent is around understanding the problem at this point.

They want to understand what adding webhooks to their app really means from the practitioner's standpoint.

And they did that beautifully.

Could you have pushed the product a bit more? Sure.

But by answering the actual questions devs came here for they managed to build trust.

And I am sure got their fair share of click-throughs and signups anyway.

blog
call to action

Blog CTA from Novu

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

And get that clicked.

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

So?

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

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

Btw, Nevo says that cat memes work best.

developer experience
navbar
github

"Star us on GitHub" navbar design from Supabase

A nice example of making navbar more developer-focused.

Ask for GitHub stars with a link to the repository.

It does three things:

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

Early CockroachDB articles on Hacker News

๐—›๐—ผ๐˜„ ๐˜๐—ผ ๐—ฐ๐—ฟ๐—ฒ๐—ฎ๐˜๐—ฒ ๐—ด๐—ผ๐—ผ๐—ฑ ๐˜๐—ฒ๐—ฐ๐—ต๐—ป๐—ถ๐—ฐ๐—ฎ๐—น ๐—ฐ๐—ผ๐—ป๐˜๐—ฒ๐—ป๐˜ ๐˜๐—ต๐—ฎ๐˜ ๐˜๐—ต๐—ฒ ๐—›๐—ฎ๐—ฐ๐—ธ๐—ฒ๐—ฟ ๐—ก๐—ฒ๐˜„๐˜€ ๐—ฎ๐˜‚๐—ฑ๐—ถ๐—ฒ๐—ป๐—ฐ๐—ฒ ๐—น๐—ถ๐—ธ๐—ฒ๐˜€?

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

๐—ง๐—ต๐—ฎ๐˜ ๐˜๐˜†๐—ฝ๐—ถ๐—ฐ๐—ฎ๐—น๐—น๐˜† ๐—บ๐—ฒ๐—ฎ๐—ป๐˜€:

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

But how do you actually do that?

๐—ข๐—ป๐—ฒ ๐—ผ๐—ณ ๐˜๐—ต๐—ฒ ๐—ฝ๐—น๐—ฎ๐˜†๐—ฏ๐—ผ๐—ผ๐—ธ๐˜€ ๐˜๐—ต๐—ฎ๐˜ ๐˜€๐—ผ๐—บ๐—ฒ ๐˜๐—ฒ๐—ฐ๐—ต๐—ป๐—ถ๐—ฐ๐—ฎ๐—น ๐—ณ๐—ผ๐˜‚๐—ป๐—ฑ๐—ฒ๐—ฟ๐˜€ ๐—ฑ๐—ฒ๐—ฝ๐—น๐—ผ๐˜†๐—ฒ๐—ฑ ๐˜„๐—ฎ๐˜€ ๐˜๐—ต๐—ถ๐˜€:

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

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

๐—˜๐˜…๐—ฎ๐—บ๐—ฝ๐—น๐—ฒ๐˜€ ๐˜๐—ต๐—ฎ๐˜ ๐—ต๐—ถ๐˜ ๐˜๐—ต๐—ฒ ๐˜๐—ผ๐—ฝ ๐—ผ๐—ณ ๐—›๐—ก:

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

social proof
developer experience

Case study in a single view from Resend

Super short dev tool case study on a single viewport.

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

Many try and do it on a one-pager.

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

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

And Resend took all the possible fluff out of it.

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

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

But I think this is great actually.

call to action

Vercel NEXT.js conf registration CTA

How to promote your important company event? How about right there in the header.

A typical approach to promoting events on your site is to have them in the Hello bar (right above the navbar). This is a solid option of course.

But what if this is a super duper important event that you really want to push?

Put it in the header.

The header is the most viewed part of the most visited page on your site.

Doesn't get much better than that.

But you don't want to distract people from your value propositions and main CTAs too much.

How do you do that?

This is how Vercel did with last year's NEXT.js conf.

  • above the H1 headline so as not to break the flow
  • prominent but not more distracting than it needs to be
  • has conference logo, crystal clear copy, and an event CTA

Nice execution on that pattern.

hero section
landing page

Amazing homepage header from Modal

The homepage header is about landing your core product message.

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

And they do a great job delivering it:

  • Input/output visual: I think for infra products this is a great choice. ย Show what code you run, show how to run it, show what you get. Ideally, this all looks nice and easy.
  • Headline/subheadline: They explain "what is it" and "for whom is it" (or what use case): "what": Serverless infra platform, "whom" ML teams.
  • Great calls to action: If you don't know what to put this is the best baseline imho. Get started (Signup) and Docs.
  • Social proof: devs want to know if others like them and/or respectable companies use it in production. While dev testimonials do that better, logos is what people expect to see here. Don't have them and you raise flags, especially if you are unknown.
  • Branding: if you can make your page/company memorable on top of landing ย that message -> great. And with that green gradient and uncommon colours they definitely do.

Top job on that header folks!

reddit

Dev audience research on Reddit

Not sure how to find developers for audience research interviews?

Sometimes all you need is ask.

I really liked what the founders of this startup did:

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

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

swag
conferences

Big Lego set giveaway from Sigma Computing

Instead of giving away hundreds of small things that people will forget give away one thing that leaves an impression.

And a huge LEGO set is a great candidate for that one big thing. There is a big overlap between devs and folks who love LEGOs. They are both builders after in their hearts.

Now, some important considerations:

  • Create a giveaway so that you can still get all your badge scanned, social mentions, GitHub stars KPIs
  • Make the prize visible to conference participants. Put it out there. Make it obvious.
  • Make participating relatively easy to complete.

You need to commit to it too.

Don't do 3 different things like that at a conference. Focus on one play like this at a time and try other cool ideas at another conference.

Folks from Sigma Computing ticked all these boxes. ย Love it!

campaigns
hacker news

Newsjacking by GitGuardian

Newsjacking is a great marketing tactic.
Especially when you can connect it nicely to your product.
โ€

And GitGuardian, a tool for secrets management does it beautifully here.
They ran a story on how Toyota suffered from a data breach.
Because they didn't manage their GitHub secrets properly.
โ€

Brilliant.

video
brand

General audience explainer video from Auth0

Handing #1 dev obstacle: "We can do it ourselves".

Check it out from second 0:35:

โ€"Iย bet you're like
We can do it ourselves, it's not that hard.
We know what we're doing.

First, Iย hear you.
Second, are you sure?"

This is mastery.
Pointing out ignorance without alienating people.

video
youtube
ads
campaigns
brand

Postman "We did this" campaign video

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

Making a memorable brand video is hard.

Doing that for a boring tech product is harder.

Doing that to the developer audience is next level.

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

The videos I am talking about are:

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

So what did they do right?

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

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

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

reddit
social posts

Great Reddit post and comment from Convex devrel

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

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

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

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

  • Transparent intro: who you are, what you know
  • What you like about the tech: why you think it is valuable to the community
  • Community-focused call to action: helpful, feedback-first (not conversion-first), disarming with "if I can't answer I'll ask"

The launch post itself was great too:

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

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

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video
youtube

YouTube shorts ad from Digital Ocean

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

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

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

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

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

Good job DO!

video

Funny explainer of OpenSaas

Funniest dev tool explainer ever? Coming from Wasp.

Let's face it, introducing a problem in an explainer video is often boring. Especially if the problem is

How do you introduce a SaaS boilerplate? Good luck pitching faster time to value or something.

Wasp did something out of the box:

  • They start by googling "how to buy a Lamborghini"
  • Go to a Rebbit thread where people talk about starting a SaaS on boilerplate. But it is paid.
  • Go to Google again and type their positioning ;) "Free open-source SaaS starter".
  • Go to their product and show it.

Got me hooked and kept me watching for sure.

+ funny is memorable so you will get a better recall too.

blog
copy
campaigns
hacker news
seo

Great "What is {my core keyword}" article from Planetscale

How to write a "What is {MY CORE KEYWORD}" article that gets to the top of HackerNews? ๐Ÿ‘‡

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

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

But you can do it.

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

Here is what was interesting about that article:

๐—ฆ๐˜‚๐—ฝ๐—ฒ๐—ฟ ๐˜๐—ผ ๐˜๐—ต๐—ฒ ๐—ฝ๐—ผ๐—ถ๐—ป๐˜ ๐—ถ๐—ป๐˜๐—ฟ๐—ผ.

โ€ข โŒ No "In today's fast-paced data-driven world enterprises work with data" stuff.
โ€ข โœ… Justย ย "Learn what database sharding is, how sharding works, and some common sharding frameworks and tools."

๐—›๐—ถ๐˜๐˜๐—ถ๐—ป๐—ด ๐—ธ๐—ฒ๐˜†๐˜„๐—ผ๐—ฟ๐—ฑ๐˜€ ๐˜„๐—ต๐—ถ๐—น๐—ฒ ๐—ฏ๐˜‚๐—ถ๐—น๐—ฑ๐—ถ๐—ป๐—ด ๐—ฟ๐—ฎ๐—ฝ๐—ฝ๐—ผ๐—ฟ๐˜ ๐˜„๐—ถ๐˜๐—ต ๐˜๐—ต๐—ฒ ๐—ฑ๐—ฒ๐˜ƒ ๐—ฟ๐—ฒ๐—ฎ๐—ฑ๐—ฒ๐—ฟ.

๐Ÿ’š Speaking peer to peer, not authority-student:

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

๐—จ๐˜€๐—ถ๐—ป๐—ด ๐—ท๐—ฎ๐—ฟ๐—ด๐—ผ๐—ป ๐—ฎ๐—ป๐—ฑ ๐˜‚๐—ป๐—ฑ๐—ฒ๐—ฟ๐˜€๐˜๐—ฎ๐—ป๐—ฑ๐—ถ๐—ป๐—ด ๐˜†๐—ผ๐˜‚๐—ฟ ๐—ฎ๐˜‚๐—ฑ๐—ถ๐—ฒ๐—ป๐—ฐ๐—ฒ

Things like:

โ€ข "Partitioning has existed โ€“ especially in OLAP setups"
โ€ข "Sifting through HDFS partitions to find the missing snapshot "

๐—”๐—ฐ๐˜๐˜‚๐—ฎ๐—น๐—น๐˜† ๐—ฒ๐˜…๐—ฝ๐—น๐—ฎ๐—ถ๐—ป๐—ถ๐—ป๐—ด ๐˜๐—ฒ๐—ฐ๐—ต๐—ป๐—ถ๐—ฐ๐—ฎ๐—น๐—น๐˜† ๐—ต๐—ผ๐˜„ ๐˜๐—ต๐—ถ๐—ป๐—ด๐˜€ ๐˜„๐—ผ๐—ฟ๐—ธ

๐Ÿ”ฅ Look at the section "How database sharding works under the hood" with subsections:

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

๐ŸŽ ๐—•๐—ผ๐—ป๐˜‚๐˜€: ๐—ฝ๐—น๐˜‚๐—ด ๐—ถ๐—ป ๐˜†๐—ผ๐˜‚๐—ฟ ๐—ฝ๐—ฟ๐—ผ๐—ฑ๐˜‚๐—ฐ๐˜ ๐—ด๐—ฒ๐—ป๐˜๐—น๐˜†

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

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

Just a beautifully executed piece of content marketing.

blog

How to tell a debugging story from GitLab

One of the best types of developer content is a debugging story.

"What is X" or "How to solve Y" work in some situations, especially when you focus on SEO distribution. But a good debugging story is something that even senior devs want to read.

This is an old article from the GitLab and is such a good example of thos format:

  • Set the scene: Say what happened, what results you managed to get, and introduce the problem. Skip the fluffy intro and invite devs into the story
  • Go deep into the problem: show what happened and go into technical details. Address the obvious solution that unfortunately didn't solve the problem. Showing profilers, charts, UIs. Make the problem more concrete.
  • The journey: explain what you tried, how it failed, and what you learned, go technical and detailed. Take people on that journey
  • Close the loop: Close with a win, show the improvements/results, summarize what you learned

The downside of using this format is the same as with most good developer content. You need a real situation, explained by an actual dev in a technical language.

developer experience
docs
hero section

Docs header diagram from Hopsworks

A docs header worth a thousand words.

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

Hopsworks docs team does a great job here.

So instead of using words, they use a diagram:

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

All of that in a single diagram.

Now that is a dev-focused header visual.

copy
hero section
landing page

Snyk narrow initial positioning

In dev tools, you really can solve the problem for a narrow market and extend to adjacent markets over time.

โ€Use that -> Snyk did.

Their value proposition stayed pretty much the same for 7 years!

"Find and fix vulnerabilities in open-source software you use."

But the market they served got so much bigger over time:

  • They started super narrow with just one Javascript framework, Node.js
  • They focused on solving that pain very well before moving to the entire Javascript language
  • Then to other popular languages like Ruby, Java, and Python
  • Then to the entire Open Source dependencies
  • Then fast forward to today and they do Open source + containers +IaC

Again, their core value prop is the same in 2023 as it was in 2016.

But their target market (and revenue share) grew by... a lot ;)

Isn't that just beautiful marketing-wise?

So the takeaway is this:

Start narrow, solve the problem, and extend to other frameworks/languages/tech can still work.

landing page
developer experience
call to action

Benchmark section on homepage from Astro

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I really like how Astro approached it:

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

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

developer experience
blog
call to action
social proof

Devy blog design from Bun

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

It has this docs-like feel.

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

Here is what I like:

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

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

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

Like a Twitter/X embed or a meme.

copy
developer experience
landing page

How fast you ship your roadmap?

"How fast do you ship?"

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

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

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

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

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

But why not?

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

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

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

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

developer experience
call to action
blog

Great article in-text CTA from DigitalOcean

Adding CTA in dev-focused articles is hard.

You don't want to be too pushy, but you do want to get conversions.

DigitalOcean strikes a great balance with its in-text article CTA design.

They make this CTA look like an info box that you'd typically see in the documentation.

It is clear that it is a Digital Ocean CTA but it doesn't feel pushy.

It feels like a piece of potentially useful information.

Love it.

campaigns

GitHub Skyline campaign

Very cool project.

You type in your GitHub name and see your history in 3d.

  • engaging 3d viz
  • cool music
  • button to share it on Twitter

And Voila!

You have an intrinsically viral brand awareness campaign.

Just brilliant.

developer experience
landing page

How it works as a timeline from SST

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

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

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

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

I find it more engaging than those disconnected steps.

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

developer experience
copy
docs
landing page
hero section

Header search docs CTA from TailwindCSS

"See docs" is one of my favorite secondary CTA on dev-focused pages.

TailwindCSS takes it to the next level by inserting docs search right into the header CTA.

This takes devs directly to the page they are interested in rather than have them try and find things for themselves.

They could have searched the docs in the docs, of course.

But this is just this slightly more delightful developer experience that TailwindCSS is known for.

developer experience
blog
call to action

Article header from Teleport

There are a few developer experience gems here:

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

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

developer experience
github
navbar

Subtle GitHub CTA in navbar from Aporia

Linked GitHub logo in the navbar

Adding CTA to your GitHub repo makes your company look more dev-friendly.

If you have a ton of stars I'd show those as well to play that social proof card.

But even without it, I think it's a good way to get more traffic to your repo and get those stars :)

campaigns

Vercel templates gallery

Well done templates gallery from Vercel.

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

โœ… It helps people:

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

Just a great touchpoint in the developer journey.

๐Ÿ’š And Vercel does this one really well IMHO.

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

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

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

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

conferences
swag

"Perfect socks" from Sanity

Socks as swag always work, but this twist makes it 10x better. From @Sanity ๐Ÿ‘‡

So Sanity, a CMS that lives in the Next ecosystem, gave away socks at Next js conf. Nothing out of the ordinary, but it is a good idea if you have no other ideas. "People will always need socks" kind of a deal.

But.

They did a few things differently:

  • The socks they gave away had different vendors/tools from the Next js ecosystem on them
  • You couldn't take two of the same tool, you had to get two different ones
  • One of the socks you got was always Sanity

This is brilliant. Fun, playful.

And it helps you convey that you play nicely with the Next js stack.

What I like about it is how reusable this is for other ecosystems and tools that are just a component of a bigger stack. Kudos Sanity!

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copy

Trieve newsletter sponsorship ad

Awesome sponsorship ad from Trieve in the Cassidy Williams newsletter.

Not sure who wrote it but it must have been a dev ;) It is just so refreshingly to the point.

๐Ÿ’š What I like:

  • "What is it": A product description gives you no fluff "what it is". Feels like something from "Hacker News launch" ย almost.
  • "What it compares to" | "Why should I care" : They compare vs a well-known dev tool in the space. And this is great, helps the dev anchor with something they know. Helps them understand why this could be valuable. They even give you a life app where you can see for yourself.
  • "How can I test it for myself": They offer free credits to play with in a cloud version.

This ad does it so gracefully and quickly it is just hard not to love. ย 

developer experience
copy
call to action
landing page
hero section

Auth0 developers portal header

Great above the fold

The subheader explains the value proposition.

Header handles major objections:

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

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

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

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

This whole thing makes me feel peaceful.

copy
developer experience
landing page
hero section

Header design from Mux

Mux does a few things beautifully in this header.

Value proposition:

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

Animated visual that is really good for dev tools:

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