🍐#123: My most common tip for founders and an epic execution of the "flawsome" startegy

Hey,

No 🍐 pun, just a happy Sunday for all of you out there. Keep up the good work marketing to devs.

This week on the agenda:

• Epic “flawsome” strategy execution from Astronomer

• My most common tip for founders

• + a few bonus links at the end

Total pearusing time: 5min

Developer marketing insights

1. Epic “flawsome” strategy execution from Astronomer

I learned about this concept of “flawsome” when prepping for this Managerial Accounting competition CIMA Global Business Challenge back in 2013.

Yes, this was one of the many funky tangents I went into “back in my day”. And no, we didn’t win, won the Polish leg, got to the top 6 shortlist, got 4th there (still think we shouldn’t have been in the top 3 but hey).

Anyhow, the idea is simple. Flaw + awesome = flawsome:

• you/your company f*ed up

• you can try and cover it, apologize…

• or you can try and use this as an anchor to do something awesome…

• hopefully make your users happy or at least respect you more

• and ideally grow your company thanks to that

Which brings me to the coolest implementation of flawsome I’ve seen since then:

Seeing Gwyneth Paltrow, “Temporary Spokesperson” 😉 of Astronomer answering the question:

with:

and then:

This is just such a thing of beauty. Doesn’t get much better than this.

You managed to catch my attention, find this whole thing funny (including her being ex Chris Martin wife). And most importantly you somehow connected that to the product in a most non-product focused video of all time 😉 (which btw is what Itamar Ben Yair suggested every ad should do in our chat here).

I don’t know just found it so cool that they managed to get something good from this very hard and almost explicitly bad situation.

And that hook and switch context is just world class full stop.

See more awesome dev tool campaigns ->

2. My most common tip for founders

I know, I shared it before, but I keep giving this advice to founders and they keep appreciating it a ton so figured I’d do it again.

As a tech founder at a dev tool startup you are often the best proxy for your ideal user. Especially early on when you are still close to being that persona. Use this.

So whatever you, your team, your advisors, agencies you hired, influencers who pitch you create or propose do this. Read through it and ask yourself this:

Yes, there are cases where you are not a good proxy, you should ask your ideal target audience etc etc. But, for the most part, if what you see feels like a “marketing fluff” it is more likely than not a “marketing fluff”.

Your gut is the closest proxy for your audience empathy measurement device. Listen to it.

If you feel bad about some piece of copy/ad/content, it is because it is most likely just not that great.

The inverse of that is often also true. Feels like something you are proud to share with your people → you are onto something.

Slightly more context in here if you want: How to test if what you created will resonate with developers?

Need more developer marketing insights?

1. Work with me 🍐

If you want my help I do Workshops (60-minute session on whatever you want), Teardowns (audit+suggestions for your homepage, messaging, ads etc), and longer-term Advising.

See how to work with me ->

2. Bonus links to check out

• 📰 Growing Developer Tools: A Handbook | Jonathar Reimer blog

• 🎧️ Pricing your AI product: Lessons from 400+ companies and 50 unicorns | Lenny’s Podcast

• 🍎 Benefits of Going Open Source | Reddit Thread

3. Join our Slack community

2300+ dev tool CMOs, heads of growth, product marketers, and other practitioners talking shop.

Check out marketingto.dev ->