Congratulations! You’ve decided to engage in developer - driven innovation! Whether you are launching a new API, SDK, HDK or perhaps an IoT device, success requires that you treat them like products with all of the resources and attention necessary for success.
We’ve created the WIP Developer Program Framework (see diagram) to help you identify key areas and activities as you set up and run your program. Of course before you start, we will assume you’ve sorted out what your product is and it’s value proposition for developers and their end users.
Step One - Outreach - Identify and Find Your Developers
Outreach is a marketing exercise where you must decide on the correct segmentation (which developers will be key to the success for your product) and create personas for the segmentation. This then drives your messaging and other engagement activities.
Step Two - Onboard - Registration and Getting Started
Your portal is the most important asset for your onboarding process. Developers will check out your site to decide what is it you offer and if it is something that they can work with. If it looks bad or confusing - you’ve lost them before they have even got started. Here having easy registration, Quick start guides and clear documentation is crucial. Check out our 7 Point Onboarding Review to understand the details.
Step Three - Support - Activate your Developers
At this stage your developers have probably downloaded your SDK, and are attempting to get beyond Hello World. Having active forums and some online tutorials can help them with their development and fast track any issues they might come across. Remember, until they can actually create something with your product, you won’t be successful either.
Step Four - Evangelism - Engage Your Developers
This step runs through all the different areas, but is especially crucial because you want to keep your developers happy and retain them to keep using your product. Have some dedicated evangelists who can relate and support your developers and attend activities like conferences and hackathons. Evangelists also play a crucial role in being able to liaise directly with developers and bring back crucial feedback to your internal engineering team.
As you build and run your program, it’s important to measure with your program and activity goals in mind.
The WIP team would be happy to help you build or enhance your program with our Services. We often start with our 2 day workshop to run through the framework and work on the areas most important to you.