A founder asked me for devtools GTM book recs. I didn’t have any. Instead, I sent a rant.

He liked my rant well enough so here it is, reformatted for a blog and omitting some advice specific to the founder/company.

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Most people trying to market to developers overthink it. 

And those people need to stop acting like developers are some rare species who hate marketing and must be spoken to in sacred tones through encrypted messages and memes. It’s nonsense. Everybody actually loves marketing when done right.

Instead of a book or even my own playbook, here are some principles I stand by that will help you:

1. Developers aren’t rational. They’re ego-driven. Just like every other human, meaning that if you speak to their identity or aspirations, they'll pay more attention. The best devtools succeed because they reinforce identity: "I'm smart/fast/good and this tool makes smarter/faster/better." Cursor is winning because it feels productive.

2. Ego drives word-of-mouth. Reinforce someone’s identity or help them reach their aspiration and they’ll share your stuff. Yes, that applies to products, but also content, events, swag, and even skincare routines. If your headline, event, or hoodie isn’t something a dev wants other people to see them using, it’s probably not reinforcing what they want to become or be known for.

3. Developers aren't a monolith. I've heard "developers hate cold email" right before sending cold emails that converted to sales. I've head "Devs don’t use LinkedIn" right before a LinkedIn campaign crushed it. I've had wins with Discord, cold calls, ads, tweets, and even the dreaded SMS in the GDPR, cookie-banner-laden land of EU. Some devs will whine. Most whiners are just signaling, because some devs have an identity as being "uninfluencable" so when they see marketing they don't love they get value from complaining about it. Be willing to experiment with anything and let the data decide if it worked.

4. Developers have higher standards online. They built the internet. They know what good looks like. If your content is mid, they bounce. On average they actually do act more aggressive on the internet than other demographics in this way, even when not anonymous.

Quick aside: To hit a higher bar for content, just think like MrBeast, who gets hundreds of millions of people to click, lean in, and finish his content (pages 5-8 are relevant here):

• Get the click. Title and thumbnail or OG card matter more than anything.

• Get them leaning in. Strong intro matters more than the rest of the content. If you have a call-to-action (CTA) then tease it or place it there (doesn't have to wait to the end… cause most people don't reach the end of content and that's ok).

• Strong middle, end, and call to action. Don't be lazy. People who share will double check the middle and end before they share.

Ok back to my rant/listicle…

5. Now that I've hit the main points of my typical rant on developer marketing, let me zoom out on how to build your GTM motion... by being lazy and pointing you to this fine post by the rare marketer I actually respect. tl;dr - marketing needs Fuel (CONTENT!), Foundation (LAUNCHES & POSITIONING), and Engine (AUTOMATION & DATA).

Also, HGP writes interesting tactical stuff, but use it more for brainstorming; don't ever just see someone doing something and go tell the team "we gotta do this exact thing!". In fact...

6. Build your own playbook. I’ve done weird stuff: hiring engineers as SDRs, custom ticket drops, skipping forms, and much more. But the point isn’t to copy. The point is to think from first principles and solve distribution problems creatively.

tl;dr - 

• make a product people feel good using. 

• make content people want to be seen consuming.

• try lots of things cause even engineers answer cold calls.

• don't copy playbooks; make your own from first principles.

CTA - if you liked this, DM me on Twitter and tell me why.