🍐#96: LinkedIn playbook case study, founder of Algolia on how to do dev tools, and visuals from Svelte Flow

Hey,

No pear🍐 pun, just a hack this week. I started using a workflow of voice recording → transcript (Voice Type) → chatGPT o1 prompt → result for various things. It's a game changer for me as I can ramble adding more and more context.

This week on the agenda:

• Follow up: dev tool case study of LinkedIn CEO playbook

• Founder of Algolia on how to do dev tool startups

• Interactive visuals on Svelte Flow website

• + a few bonus links at the end

Total pearusing time: 7min

Before we start, here is a word from this week’s sponsor:

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Developer marketing insights

1. Follow up: dev tool case study of LinkedIn CEO playbook

A cool thing happened after my last newsletter where I shared the LinkedIn CEO/founder playbook based on my learnings (mostly) from project33 content.

And looking at the CTRs you were really interested in this stuff so figured I’d share it with you.

So Finn Thormeier, founder of project33 asked if I had any questions/topics he could explore in future episodes of their pod → I said that I’d like to see examples of this in dev tools → he came back with this case study where they talked about their work with the CEO of Grafbase. Great stuff.

I really loved the part about the most impactful post they made together (below).

The impact was not in likes (they had other posts with more reach/likes) but in engagement, reposts by relevant people, and discussions with their target audience (CTOs at Fintech Enterprise companies). It showed actual resonance with their audience.

I like the hook style too, one blob that feels natural but cuts exactly where it should to get you to click.

If you’d like help with this stuff I am quite sure Finn can help, no affiliation or anything, I just trust that they can deliver.

2. Founder of Algolia on how to do dev tool startups

My takeaways:

• Build-Time vs. Run-Time

  • Build-time tools (docs, QA, testing) are “nice-to-haves”, developers can ship without them.

  • Run-time tools (APIs, infrastructure) are must-haves. If these fail, the product goes down. That’s your ticket to “critical” status.

• Iterate or Die

  • Don’t chase perfection early. You’ll ditch 90% of your code anyway.

  • Build something rough and show it to users. Then refine.

• Outreach:

  • Start with your network: friends, ex-colleagues, people you are connected with on socials. Then expand if you need to.

  • Send LinkedIn/emails you’d actually reply to. Developers hate inauthentic messages. You know that. You never answer these. Use the fact that you are your audience to guide your taste. Treat yourself as a barometer.

• Launch Early and Often

  • Post on Show HN. Explain what’s new and exciting—no sales pitch. (wrote an article on HN Launches here)

  • Ollama nailed it: launched, gathered interest, and relaunched with improvements/new features. Rinse, repeat. (See their HN posts)

• Should you go Open Source?

  • If you’re a library/framework and/or touch any sensitive data (Databases, some APIs), you likely need open-source.

  • Plan monetization early (cloud hosting, open-core/enterprise). “Paid support only” is rarely a winning model.

• Pricing Models

  • Usage-based: The more your product is used, the more they pay (Stripe, Twilio style).

  • Tiered Plans: Free for single dev, paid for teams, enterprise for security/compliance.

• Founder-Led Sales

  • Start by selling yourself. Don’t hire sales until ~$1M ARR.

  • Developers hate decks → “show, don’t tell.” Demos and code speak louder.

• Developers Drive Marketing

  • Hang out on HN, Subreddits, and Discord. Be helpful first. Establish trust. Show how you/your product can help. (Good article on how to do that)

  • Docs = Marketing. Great docs win dev love (and time).

  • Make engineers do support. They’ll fix bugs fast, build empathy, and boost loyalty.

3. Interactive visuals on Svelte Flow website

Stop telling users how your dev tool works → let them play with it from the moment they land on your site.

SvelteFlow nails this by embedding an interactive demo directly in their header. Visitors can shape, color, and move boxes in real time. It’s a brilliant “show, don’t tell” tactic that instantly highlights the product’s value (and how it works).

If your tool touches the front end (or can be visualized at all), consider building something people can tinker with immediately.

It’s more persuasive than any static screenshot or long explanation. Because once devs feel how your product works, they’ll be much more likely to keep exploring.

Turn your homepage into an interactive sandbox, and watch curiosity drive your signups. An extreme example of this is Rows.com, where your landing page is their product.

See more dev tool homepage examples ->

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

• 🍊 Most tech content is bullshit (2020) | Hacker News

• 📰 Social Listening Strategies: Use Cases And Examples 

• 🛠️ Self-serve Digital Billboard Advertising | Tool | Blip Billboards

3. Join our Slack community

2000+ dev tool CMOs, heads of growth, product marketers, and other practitioners talking shop.

Check out marketingto.dev ->