Community Building for Developer Tools

Part 1: Community Fundamentals

Why Community Matters

Community is the outer ring of developer experience:

Product → Docs → Content → Community

As you mature, community becomes crucial for:

• Support at scale
• Product feedback
• Advocacy and word-of-mouth
• Retention and stickiness

Types of Developer Communities

1. Support communities (Slack, Discord)
2. Discussion forums (Discourse)
3. Open source contributors (GitHub)
4. Craft communities (around a practice, not product)

Community of Craft vs Product Community

Community of craft:

• Broader than your product
• Practitioners helping practitioners
• Your product is one of many topics
• Harder to build, more valuable

Product community:

• Focused on your users
• Support and feedback
• More directly valuable for product

Part 2: Starting a Community

The Cold Start Problem

Seeding approach (from Demetrios Brinkmann):

Start by inviting selected people through LinkedIn/Twitter.

Sample outreach:

"Hey I've spent the last 40 days locked in my house [COVID], and wanted to do something productive with my life. And I started this community. If you want to join, let me know"

First 100 Members

Get to know people:

• When people join, talk to them
• Do 15-minute chats
• Learn what they want from community
• Understand their expertise
• Find where they can contribute

Seeding Conversations

Tactics:

• Ask people you spoke to, to ask questions in channels
• Share resources (shows community isn't dead)
• Tag and introduce members based on expertise
• Create reasons for engagement

Part 3: Growing Engagement

Don't Let Questions Go Unanswered

This is critical. An unanswered question = dead community signal.

If no one answers:

• Ask specific people in DMs to answer
• Tag relevant experts
• Share resources you've seen on the topic
• Answer yourself if needed

Tag and Connect Members

Based on your 1:1 conversations:

• Figure out who knows about what
• @ tag them in relevant conversations
• Intro/connect people who should know each other in DMs

Share Targeted Resources

When you know members' interests:

• Share courses, blogs, podcasts relevant to them specifically
• This is valuable and builds relationship
• Shows you're paying attention

Build Members Up

Ways to elevate community members:

• See their blog post? Share it in Slack, start discussion
• Invite them to meetups/conferences
• Feature them on podcast
• Give them speaking opportunities

The Be-Shameless Channel

Why it works:

• For practitioners, one of most valuable channels
• Keeps people informed on industry
• Vendor articles can be appreciated (they work with practitioners daily)
• Better than spam in #general

Part 4: Community Quality

Gating the Community

Why gate access:

• Discussions shaped by who's in them
• Vendors/beginners = vendor/beginner conversations
• Quality control matters

Gating approaches:

• Application form with questions
• Invite-only
• Vouch from existing member
• Company email only

Managing Spam and Quality

Separate channels for:

• Jobs/hiring
• Self-promotion (be-shameless)
• General discussion
• Specific topics

Moderation:

• Clear rules visible
• Active moderation
• Community-led enforcement

Part 5: Scaling Community

From Founder-Led to Team-Led

• Early: Founder/marketer does everything
• Growing: Hire community manager
• Scale: Community team + power users

Power Users and Champions

Identify power users:

• Most helpful in discussions
• Create content
• Advocate externally

Nurture them:

• Exclusive access
• Direct line to product
• Recognition
• Opportunities

Automating Engagement

Tools like Dots:

• Automated onboarding flows
• Scalable support
• Trigger-based engagement

But don't over-automate — authenticity matters.

Part 6: Monetizing Community (Carefully)

Sponsorship Tricky Balance

The challenge:

• Need sponsors to fund infrastructure and people
• Don't want to sell members as leads

Approaches:

• Sponsored content with clear labeling
• Sponsored events (not data sharing)
• Sponsored swag

Community as Lead Source

Warning: Don't treat community as lead farm.

Better approach:

• Community builds trust
• Trust leads to product exploration
• Exploration leads to conversion

Value Exchange

What community gives you:

• Product feedback
• Content ideas
• Advocates
• Support reduction
• Word of mouth

What you give community:

• Value from connections
• Learning opportunities
• Access to experts
• Career development

Part 7: Platform Choices

Slack vs Discord

Slack:

• Professional feel
• Enterprise-familiar
• Searchable history (paid)
• Integrations with work tools

Discord:

• Younger audience
• Voice channels
• Free features
• Gaming-adjacent communities

Other Platforms

Discourse:

• Forum format
• Better for long-form discussions
• Searchable, Google-indexable
• Less real-time

GitHub Discussions:

• Native to code
• Good for technical Q&A
• Open source friendly

Part 8: Small Exclusive Events

The Dinner Format

Why small and exclusive:

• 20-30 people max
• Not recorded
• Super focused conversations
• Quality relationships

Structure:

• Invite carefully
• Clear topic/theme
• Facilitated discussion
• Strong follow-up

Building FOMO

Use first attendees to attract more:

"I'm hosting a dinner with [known person] and [another known person]. Want to join?"

The Community Funnel

In-person event → Online community

After the dinner, the CTA is to join Slack. Relationship started IRL strengthens online.

Part 9: Podcasts and Community

Creating a Podcast Opens Doors

High-influence people take calls when it's a podcast. They might not otherwise talk to you.

Community benefits:

• Content for community
• Status for community
• Guests become community aware

Podcast as Community Tool

• Interview community members
• Feature their stories
• Answer community questions
• Strengthen relationships

Part 10: Community Metrics

Engagement Metrics

• Daily/weekly active members
• Messages per member
• Response rate to questions
• Time to first response

Quality Metrics

• Member retention
• Member satisfaction (survey)
• Help given to each other
• Content generated

Business Metrics

• Community members → customers
• Support deflection
• Referrals from community
• Feedback implemented