Fireside with Voxgig

We’re fortunate on the Fireside podcast to be able to speak to so many people at the top of their game, and today we're revisiting our chat from earlier this year, with someone who's no different.

David Cramer is the Co-Founder and CTO of Sentry, the app monitoring platform designed to quickly help developers get to the root of code problems. David has helped bring Sentry to the top of the pile in this category - to the extent where, in his words, they don’t have competitors, they have “ankle-biters”. But does “heavy is the head that wears the crown” have any bearing for a company at the top? We’re excited to find out.

David has worn many hats at Sentry since its founding, but as a software engineer at heart, he’s currently taking up the position of CTO. He dives into how strategy helped set Sentry apart in the early days, and how they manufactured the way they wanted the business to run, as opposed to simply responding to hurdles as they came up.

The Sentry team, ultimately, is made up of developers, and David explains how this fact has led to the creation of a platform that is highly developer focused, in both user experience and in sales.

He tells us about how yearly price hikes are not something Sentry wants to engage in, and how valuing affordability has allowed them to skyrocket in popularity since their first launch. Community is at the forefront of David’s current plans for Sentry, and he talks us through this, and other aspects of what he hopes to achieve with the company the future.

Reach out to David here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dmcramer/

Check out Sentry here: https://sentry.io/welcome/

Find out more and listen to previous podcasts here: https://www.voxgig.com/podcast

Subscribe to our newsletter for weekly updates and information about upcoming meetups: https://voxgig.substack.com/

Join the Dublin DevRel Meetup group here: www.devrelmeetup.com

Today, we're delighted to be talking to Pierre Burgy, the founder and CEO of Strapi, a headless CMS. We're getting into how they're trying to eliminate having your CMS be your biggest headache as a developer. Pierre has a fresh perspective on open source business models, and open source itself that we’re excited to get into in this episode!

It all came about when Pierre and his friends were building websites for themselves and clients, and dealing with the struggles of trying to efficiently build on websites from mobile devices. The APIs were slow, and overall it was a grinding process. This, of course, set them on a course if developing a content management system based on an API - it was a no-brainer. They knew Strapi needed to be a business.

We also ask him the key question - how do you get from an early stage project to 60,000 stars on GitHub. According to Pierre, blog posts worked well in the early days, and encouraging friends to get on board in the even earlier stages. But at the end of the day it's about keeping your eye on the project, pursuing improvements and nurturing your community.

Make sure to give this a listen!

Reach out to Pierre here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pierre-burgy-strapi-88671673/

Check out Strapi here:

https://strapi.io/

Find out more and listen to previous podcasts here: https://www.voxgig.com/podcast

Subscribe to our newsletter for weekly updates and information about upcoming meetups:

https://voxgig.substack.com/

Join the Dublin DevRel Meetup group here: www.devrelmeetup.com

It’s time for another talk about community! And who better for us to speak to, than friend of the podcast Jono Bacon? Jono is the Founder of Community Leadership Core, and a community expert. He’s sitting down with us to give us a look behind the scenes of how he completely transforms communities. From those that have yet to get off the ground, to those that are experiencing a dip after their heyday, Jono and his team know the practical steps to get these communities thriving - or thriving again!

Community Leadership Core isn’t quite a course and neither is it a consultancy, or a cohort. So Jono describes it as an accelerator, and like most companies, it’s gone through a few stages before ending up where it was always meant to be.

Jono is selective in the best way when it comes to his clients, only working with those really willing to put the effort in. Those truly excited take on and apply solutions, rather than allowing fear to come into their decision making process. We find this hugely admirable, as so much of our focus in DevRel is on getting people in the door - but the reality is that not every client is right for you, and we should all be more comfortable with walking away from something that ultimately won’t work out!

One thing that is clear from this discussion is that for Jono, the devil is in the details. He tells us about his quest to unlock “low friction value” for his clients. When building communities, it’s not always the biggest moves that will add the most. So many people struggle to get people into their community, and when Jono looks at their onboarding process it’s a tiresome, confusing mess. There lies the unlocked low friction value. Streamlining that process may seem like a small, simple task. But it’s those very small tasks that add up into a huge wave of new members.

If you’re currently building, or want to build any kind of community, this one is a must-listen!

Reach out to Jono here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonobacon/

Check out Community Leadership Core here: https://www.communityleadershipcore.com/core

Find out more and listen to previous podcasts here: https://www.voxgig.com/podcast

Subscribe to our newsletter for weekly updates and information about upcoming meetups:

https://voxgig.substack.com/

Join the Dublin DevRel Meetup group here: www.devrelmeetup.com

Today we’re joined by Ethan Lewis and Simon Cheng, CTO and DevRel of Vaunt.dev for a discussion on how their work enables individuals and companies to nurture their open source communities. Vaunt is a SaaS tool that was built on a key ethos: saying thank you. It’s no secret that thanking people for their work creates a rewarding environment where they feel encouraged to continue making that work. Or is it?

The treatment of developers can often communicate the opposite message. Instead of thanks, hard work is often rewarded with requests for measurement and insights into revenue growth in proportion to contributions. In other words - if you want a seat at the table, you have to earn your dinner. Simon and Ethan knew that if they could use Vaunt to foster a different attitude towards developers, then they would be able to make a real difference in the open source world.

Ethan and Simon reveal that a huge part of their desire to build this service, and eventually product, was their own encounters with the problems faced by open source developers. One of those problems is that open source community building, as valuable as it is, is time consuming. And it often involves a great deal of trial and error; throwing things at the wall until they stick. Vaunt’s goal is to streamline these processes into a more efficient set of steps.

They also speak on what they believe is missing from GitHub, and how having developers on your side is an asset that won’t be going out of style anytime soon.

Reach out to Ethan here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elewis787/

And Simon here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/simoncheng-kc/

Check out Vaunt.dev’s services here:‍ https://vaunt.dev/

Find out more and listen to previous podcasts here: https://www.voxgig.com/podcast

Subscribe to our newsletter for weekly updates and information about upcoming meetups: https://voxgig.substack.com/

Join the Dublin DevRel Meetup group here: www.devrelmeetup.com

It's always a treat to have a returning guest on the Fireside with Voxgig podcast, but especially so when that guest has done so much in the time since we last got to chat to them.

We're delighted to welcome back Brian Douglas - the Founder and CEO of Open Sauced, an open source intelligence platform that helps developers and maintainers unlock their open source potential with project insights. It's a service that Richard admits would have served him well at the times when he's had a few more open source projects on the go than he could handle!

A lot has happened with Brian and Open Sauced in the year since we spoke with him last. Notably, the shift in their focus towards working more with bigger enterprises. While the mid-tier projects can help you find your feet, there comes a point where bigger is better, and it's time to take a seat at the big table.

Along with this, they've been working on an exciting new project called 'StarSearch', an AI tool to help developers understand the logic in code, whether it be someone else's code, or (and this is just as likely) their own code from, let's say 6 months ago. If your ears are perking up at the sound of this, you're not the only one, and Brian goes further in depth on the episode, about how this works and what it could mean going forward.

A good way to look at this service is to understand that it helps to reduce the number of ‘wtf's’ per minute - which as everyone knows is the ultimate measure of code quality.

Reach out to Brian here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianldouglas/

Check out Open Sauced: https://opensauced.pizza/

Find out more and listen to previous podcasts here: https://www.voxgig.com/podcast

Subscribe to our newsletter for weekly updates and information about upcoming meetups:

https://voxgig.substack.com/

Join the Dublin DevRel Meetup group here: www.devrelmeetup.com

In this episode from last year, we spoke to Aravind Putrevu. Aravind is a developer advocate turned angel investor, but to leave it at just that would be a disservice. He has his fingers in many pies, including DevRel consulting, where he helps companies with their product marketing and strategy.

And of course, as any good DevRel or engineer should, he also has an itch to build something valuable, so he’s working on a SaaS tool that he’s still keeping in stealth mode. Aravind speaks to us about his transition from DevRel to angel investing and his propensity for startups and working with founders.

When it comes to the world of consulting, Aravind walks us through his role with a company, from strategy, to marketing, to introducing their brand to the public as a DevRel. He speaks about the culture of DevRel, how all too often a singular person gets hired to do the work of an entire DevRel team, both code and community, and how this overload leads to the inevitable cycle of burnout that he sees frequently.

We also chat to him about his work as a senior developer advocate at Elasticsearch, where he had the benefit of a large developer team working with a popular product that had insane traction. He says that Elasticsearch is a classic example of how DevRel can work when the founders are the first developer advocates.

Aravind is also a speaker who has given talks at many large conferences, and he tells us a little about how he coordinates a team where five people have all signed up to speak at the same conference. A happy problem to have!

Reach out to Aravind here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aravindputrevu/

Find out more and listen to previous podcasts here: https://www.voxgig.com/podcast

Subscribe to our newsletter for weekly updates and information about upcoming meetups:

https://voxgig.substack.com/

Join the Dublin DevRel Meetup group here: www.devrelmeetup.com

It’s always fun to talk about the futuristic potential of virtual reality, but it’s even more fun to talk about it with Ciara Sheahan, because she actually knows some real information about this topic. Ciara is a radio presenter, journalist and tech entrepreneur, and she joined us on the podcast last year, to provide us with proof that you don’t have to be a former coder to be a founder who does cool stuff with tech.

Ciara is the founder of Orb Media, where they’re taking the cross pollination of gaming software and integrating it with ecommerce platforms to improve the customer experience. Essentially, they are game-ifying the online shopping experience, allowing platforms to better showcase their products, and giving customers that dopamine hit you would usually only get from levelling up.

Ciara tells us that there are many ways to “gamify” an experience. It doesn’t have to be all zombies and helicopters (although it can be!), there’s also plenty of subtle ways to apply it to the shopping experience. Now, while Orb Media is a Web 3 company at heart, Ciara maintains that her goal was always to keep this technology accessible, so there’s no headset required for this immersive experience, all you need is your phone.

She also lets us in on how she got her start, from journalism to radio to tech and the roadblocks she experienced along the way. Ciara is also a speaker, and she tells us about how she believes speakers are simply vessels carrying a message, and that focusing less on yourself and more on how the information you're delivering relates to your audience, might help you get out of your head when the nerves take over.

Reach out to Ciara here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ciara-sheahan360/

Check out Orb Media: https://orbmedia.ie/

Find out more and listen to previous podcasts here: https://www.voxgig.com/podcast

Subscribe to our newsletter for weekly updates and information about upcoming meetups: https://voxgig.substack.com/

Join the Dublin DevRel Meetup group here: http://www.devrelmeetup.com

Back in January, we had a familiar face on the Voxgig podcast!

We’re speaking to our host Richard’s former colleague, Conor O’Neill. Conor is the Director of Product and Engineering at Axonista, an interactive video CMS, where he’s helping them transform video from a fun accessory to a key feature of their customer’s platforms.

Now, as Conor explains, though video may be their bread and butter, what he actually spends most of his time focusing on, is everything around video, metadata being a prime example of what he’s interested in.

Conor weighs in with us on the recent purge of DevRel jobs, and explains why all may not be as it seems in this regard. While companies dismissing DevRel jobs might help you work out exactly who you don’t want to work for, there’s also a host of people out there, Conor included, who have encountered a great deal of difficulty finding someone with the capabilities to take on a DevRel job he needed to fill.

He discusses that one of the main benefits of having a DevRel on your staff, is that you can have your own “potterer”. Someone who can experiment and play the mad scientist, figuring out creative new ways of doing things, something high level Devs with immense workloads would not necessarily be able to do. This allows for your company to be continuously open to the possibility of newer, better ways of conducting things.

We even take a brief trip down memory lane, with Conor and Richard giving some insight into the time they worked together, and the wonderful opportunities that have grown from that adventure.

Reach out to Conor here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/conoroneill/

Check out Axonista: https://www.axonista.com/about/

Find out more and listen to previous podcasts here: https://www.voxgig.com/podcast

Subscribe to our newsletter for weekly updates and information about upcoming meetups:

https://voxgig.substack.com/

Join the Dublin DevRel Meetup group here: www.devrelmeetup.com

Joe Batten joins us for a deep dive into the world of RevOps! The tasks involved in a Revenue Operations role have pretty much always existed in some form, so it can be defined as essentially a combo deal of sales enablement, marketing operations, data analysis and business intelligence. So there’s a lot to get into!

Day to day, what Joe does is this: aligning people, processes and data sets across go-to-market teams as efficiently as possible. Measurement is key here, which Joe would have been familiar with, coming to RevOps through a sales background. But these days almost everything can be measured, and it’s something that extends to almost every role within an organisation.

Joe takes us through what makes a salesperson great - chief among his top qualities is knowing how to listen. There might be a perception that sales is all about talking “at” the customer, but the reality couldn’t be further from the truth.

Active listening skills, genuine curiosity and a high emotional intelligence will all make someone a better salesperson than simply the ability to do a really good pitch. Joe also lets us know that you don’t always have to be a “yes-man”. There will always be missing features, and customers that aren’t satisfied. While the instinct can be to get defensive, sometimes the smartest choice is to be honest and upfront about what it is you’re willing to offer, and go from there.

Reach out to Joe here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joe-batten/

Find out more and listen to previous podcasts here: https://www.voxgig.com/podcast

Subscribe to our newsletter for weekly updates and information about upcoming meetups:

https://voxgig.substack.com/

Join the Dublin DevRel Meetup group here: www.devrelmeetup.com

We’re delighted to welcome Tejas Kumar back to the Fireside podcast! Tejas is a particularly relevant guest for us, as he takes us behind the scenes of his own wonderful podcast - ConTejas Code. We had Tejas on the podcast last year, and we were excited to hear about all the new developments for him in the last year.

Tejas believes that when it comes to AI, it’s increasingly obvious that some developments are inevitable, and the sooner we lean into that fact, and start to work with the technology, rather than against it, we can unlock a lot of time and energy that is currently tied up in simple, yet time-consuming tasks.

He takes us into his process as a podcaster. The way Tejas describes it sounds like a breeze, he sits down, talks to a guest, then uploads everything. There’s more to be done, of course, but day to day the outlines, scheduling and transcripts are all taken care of by AI. This is a perfect example of what AI can do for us when we embrace it. Add to that - it’s podcasting! The stakes are relatively low when compared to other potential AI integrations in, let’s say, the medical field for example. If your AI misspells a word, no one gets sued - or at least we don’t think anyone’s tried that yet.

These adaptations Tejas has made have allowed him to focus on the very part of his job as a host that makes it interesting, and fun - hosting!

We get into the nature of podcasting, and how efficient it can be as a place to create content. If you have a thirty minute podcast, then you have three or four clips that you can take from that. If your podcast has video, those clips can now become shorts, or reels, and you’ve opened up a whole new element to it that fits within your existing structure.

Tejas has a deep admiration for his guests, and this is clear in the way he discusses them - there’s a reason that ConTejas Code episodes are two hours long each, he has a burning curiosity about people, and a desire to connect that is clear even when he’s on the other side of the table.

For any would-be podcasters out there, this episode - and Tejas in general - might be a good place to start when looking for inspiration both practically, and ideologically.

Reach out to Tejas here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tejasq/

Check out Tejas' website: https://tej.as/

Listen to the ConTejas Code podcast: https://shows.acast.com/contejas-code

Find out more and listen to previous podcasts here: https://www.voxgig.com/podcast

Subscribe to our newsletter for weekly updates and information about upcoming meetups:

https://voxgig.substack.com/

Join the Dublin DevRel Meetup group here: http://www.devrelmeetup.com