Scaling DevTools

Han Wang is co-founder of Mintlify - modern, out the box documentation.

In this episode, Han shares the story of Mintlify and how to make great docs.

We even talk about the time Paul Graham told them to change their name.

What we cover:
- the origin story of Mintlify
- what is good documentation
- the process of documentation
- how AI is affecting documentation
- why PG told them to change their name

Links:
- Han https://han.dev/
- Mintlify https://mintlify.com/

Kate Holterhoff - an analyst from RedMonk - shares why frontend developers are increasingly dictating the adoption of new developer tools.

Kate shares specific examples, including Supabase.

Links:

• Frontend Developers: the Newest New Kingmakers https://redmonk.com/kholterhoff/2024/02/15/frontend-developers-the-newest-new-kingmakers/
• Kate's website https://www.kateholterhoff.com/
• RedMonk https://redmonk.com/
• Kate's Twitter/X https://x.com/KateHolterhoff

Vivian Dufour is the CEO and co-founder of Meterian.

Meterian is an open source vulnerability scanner.

In this episode we talk about topics like:

• Selling to enterprises
• Why you need to make your product easy to test
• Hiring and managing salespeople

Links:

• Meterian: https://www.meterian.io/
• Vivian Dufour - https://www.linkedin.com/in/viviandufour/ 

Ellen Chisa is a partner at Boldstart Ventures. Prior to Boldstart, Ellen founded Darklang - a programming language. Before Darklang, Ellen worked in product.

What we discussed: 

• Startups should focus on building one SDK and doing it well, rather than trying to build multiple SDKs at once.
• North Star metrics
• Developer tooling companies can learn from consumer-facing companies in terms of marketing and creating an identity for their product.
• Being authentic as a founder and actively engaging with the community can help establish a strong brand and attract users. Recognize and leverage your unique strengths and skills.
• Busy work can be valuable
• The importance of segmenting your message

Links:

• Ellen's Twitter/X https://x.com/ellenchisa?lang=en
• Boldstart Ventures https://boldstart.vc/
• darklang https://darklang.com/

How do you write a developer quick start guide that they will love?

That's what we talk about with Amit Jotwani. Amit is the founder of HelloDX and previously worked in developer experience at Retool and Amazon Alexa.

This came about because I was reading Amit's fantastic guide on EveryDeveloper.

Links:

• Amit's website https://ajot.me/
• HelloDX https://hellodx.co/
• Craft Quick Start Guides That Developers Will Love https://everydeveloper.com/quick-start-guides/
• Amit's Twitter/X https://x.com/amit

This episode is sponsored by WorkOS. If you're thinking about selling to enterprise customers, WorkOS can help you add enterprise features like Single Sign On and audit logs.

James Hawkins is the cofounder and CEO of PostHog. PostHog is a platform to analyze, test, observe, and deploy new features.

This is the second time James has been on and the episode is mostly about how they run PostHog.

It's a pretty unconventional approach - probably because James thinks very deeply about how organizations should operate.

What we discuss:

• How PostHog hire
• His approach to one-on-one meetings
• The role of engineers in product development
• The impact of open source projects on PostHog's success
• A surprising secret to success (fun)
• Importance of listening to developers

Links:

• James's Twitter https://x.com/james406
• PostHog https://posthog.com/
• The Mental Workload of Hoovering https://jefhawkins.com/blog/mental-workload-of-hoovering
• Ray Dalio's Principles https://www.principles.com/  
• James's first interview https://podcast.scalingdevtools.com/episodes/working-with-enterprise-clients-with-james-hawkins 

This episode is sponsored by WorkOS. If you're thinking about selling to enterprise customers, WorkOS can help you add enterprise features like Single Sign On and audit logs.

Greg Lazarus and Matt Althauser are two of the cofounders of Polychrome - a company that buys small to medium sized B2B software businesses: with a focus on Developer Tools. Their portfolio includes the feature flagging tool Flagsmith (we recorded an episode with them last week) and the browser automation tool Browserless.

In this episode we cover the ins and outs of buying developer tools.

Links:
- Polychrome https://www.polychrome.com/
- Matt Althauser https://x.com/malthauser?lang=en
- Greg Lazarus https://x.com/greglaz5

This episode is sponsored by WorkOS. If you're thinking about selling to enterprise customers, WorkOS can help you add enterprise features like Single Sign On and audit logs.

Ben Rometsch is the founder of Flagsmith. Flagsmith is a Feature Flag & Remote Config Service that recently reached $3m ARR.

Ben candidly shares exactly how they started, how they got enterprise customers and how they worked with Polychrome to take Flagsmith to the next level.

Links:

• Ben's Twitter https://x.com/dabeeeenster
• Flagsmith https://www.flagsmith.com/
• Polychrome https://polychrome.com/

This episode is sponsored by WorkOS. If you're thinking about selling to enterprise customers, WorkOS can help you add enterprise features like Single Sign On and audit logs.

Aaron Francis is someone who needs little introduction. Especially if you've ever used Laravel or MySQL.

Aaron built up the highly acclaimed PlanetScale YouTube channel and now publishes content on his own channel and founded Try Hard Studios to help developer tools make amazing video content.

Here are some quotes from Aaron's viewers:

• hey man your videos kick ass and i cannot thank you enough for your approach with these. your videos can be watched once and understood... every single one of them... i don't know how you do it, but the way you have picked to teach anything you teach is incredible. you freaking rock! thank you!
• Great stuff! Love that you mix in a bit of fun with the content, it's what got me to subscribe!
• I have been working with MySQL for last 17 years and I never use cursor but your video helped me to understand MySQL cursor. Thank you
• iterally laughing out loud several times. absolute gold.
  (partner's like "what are you watching?!" "a guy seeding a database!"

In this episode, we take a deep dive into how Aaron makes videos and what you can learn from his approach.

This episode is sponsored by WorkOS. If you're thinking about selling to enterprise customers, WorkOS can help you add enterprise features like Single Sign On and audit logs.

Links:

• Aaron's channel: https://www.youtube.com/@aarondfrancis
• Aaron's Twitter https://x.com/aarondfrancis
• Mostly Technical Podcast - https://mostlytechnical.com/ 
• Try Hard Studios: https://tryhardstudios.com/
• Aaron's Handwriting robots - https://x.com/aarondfrancis/status/1438888219471491074?lang=en 

Dani Grant is the founder of Jam.dev - bug reporting that developers love.

In this episode we discuss:

• Product development & user retention
• Iterating to product market fit
• Branding - what it is/why it matters
• Prioritising product features based on feedback
• AI powered debugging

Links:

• Jam.dev https://jam.dev/ 
• Dani’s Twitter https://twitter.com/thedanigrant 

This episode is sponsored by WorkOS. If you're thinking about selling to enterprise customers, WorkOS can help you add enterprise features like Single Sign On and audit logs.