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  • 🍐 #35: When devs check out pricing, sidekick products, and how to show you are faster

🍐 #35: When devs check out pricing, sidekick products, and how to show you are faster

Author

Jakub Czakon
September 02, 2023

Hey,

What would you call a workflow automation tool for pears? Zapear 🍐 ;)

This week on the agenda:

  • “Devs check out pricing twice” from Adam Frankl

  • Pulling off a sidekick product: Hacker News search by Algolia

  • What to do when your dev tool is “just” faster (+ how Astro does it)

  • + a few bonus links at the end

Let’s go!

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Developer marketing insights

1. “Devs check out pricing twice”

This LinkedIn post from Adam Frankl really verbalized some things I saw in the data, I felt in my guts but never put them to words.

Devs check out pricing twice:

  • At the beginning, to see if it is the ballpark of what their team could pay

  • At the end, to go into details and actually move on with buying (and/or selling it internally)

But the second never happens if the first check goes bad.

And if your pricing is not transparent, feels unreasonably expensive, seems weird, or just hard to understand the second check may never happen.

2. What to do when your dev tool is “just” faster

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 a 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 on their website :

  • They list out the known competition by name

  • They hint at technical reasons why they are faster

  • They show 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.

3. Pulling off a sidekick product: Hacker News search by Algolia

Algolia gets over 80% of referral traffic from a single free tool they created called Search Hacker News.

But why does it work so well for them?

Hacker News doesn't really have a native search experience.

Algolia gives devs an amazing search experience out of the box.

So folks from Algolia created their own website where you can search Hackernews... with the Algolia search engine.

Of course, when you click on "Search by Algolia" you get directed to the website and can learn how to set up a similar search, which you have just used yourself.

What I love about this:

  • solves a real problem for the audience Algolia is after (many software devs read hacker news)

  • it shows rather than tells how Algolia’s search works. And it works amazingly.

  • it feels almost like an extension of HackerNews with the same brand colors and design.

And looking at the results it delivers.

How can I make this better?

I hope you learned something new. Did you, though?

What would you like to read more about?
Reply to this and let me know.

Talk to you next week,
Pears!

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