Back to Ask Me Anything Sessions
Vishal Naik

AMA: Google Assistant Developer Marketing Lead, Vishal Naik on Developer Product Marketing

July 14 @ 9:00AM PST
View AMA Answers
Google Assistant Developer Marketing Lead, Vishal Naik on Developer Product Marketing
Top Questions
Vishal Naik
Vishal Naik
Google Product Marketing LeadJuly 14
Build great relationships with DevRel, re-evaluate your perception of what channels work or don't work from your previous experience (because developers do act differently than other personas), and pay a lot of attention to the end user. Yes you're focused on developers, and yes developers have u......Read More
738 Views
2 requests
Our company targets both business customers and developers building apps on top of our platform. I’m a non-technical PMM and the first marketing hire in the company. As our marketing team grows, when should we bring a DevRel into the team?
Our business model is product-led-growth. How should we prioritize bringing in a DevRel vs. other critical functions like content and demand generation as we grow our team and want to do it efficiently?
Vishal Naik
Vishal Naik
Google Product Marketing LeadJuly 14
First off, I don't think there is a template on building out the marketing function, it depends on what makes the most sense for your organization. If I were in your shoes, I’d take the Moneyball/Strengthsfinder approach. You’re already on board as a self described non-technical PMM. If you bring......Read More
311 Views
1 request
Vishal Naik
Vishal Naik
Google Product Marketing LeadJuly 14
I like to think the developers create the long-tail of use cases for end users. With that, I measure in three dimensions: first, momentum in the platform; second, quantifying end user value; third, measuring impact to the business. In a B2B setting, a customer who has gone through the work of bui......Read More
968 Views
2 requests
Vishal Naik
Vishal Naik
Google Product Marketing LeadJuly 14
Newsletters are great--to a developer or not, email marketing has a ton of value. At my last company, email was the #1 driver of actions–that was consistent with web and mobile customers as well. But there are a handful of other mediums you can lean on as well. YouTube, Stack Overflow, Twitch, Re......Read More
839 Views
2 requests
Vishal Naik
Vishal Naik
Google Product Marketing LeadJuly 14
The best sales people that I’ve worked with “know enough to be dangerous” meaning they dont try to know everything, but they know enough to have a basic conversation and then know the right resources to bring in to continue the conversation. So I try to arm Sales with 101 level content so that if......Read More
835 Views
2 requests
Vishal Naik
Vishal Naik
Google Product Marketing LeadJuly 14
How I described developer marketing in new hire onboarding at a previous company is that a developer platform gives someone the ability to customize their needs in a particular software product. And there’s both a business and consumer opportunity to this. For example, at a previous company we......Read More
807 Views
2 requests
Vishal Naik
Vishal Naik
Google Product Marketing LeadJuly 14
In this area, developer marketing isn't that unlike core product marketing, in that the customer journey for Enterprise is more complex. For smaller companies, all phases of the funnel may be targeted at developers. For medium companies, your awareness and marketing may go to decision makers vs y......Read More
923 Views
4 requests
Vishal Naik
Vishal Naik
Google Product Marketing LeadJuly 14
To line list some metrics I’ve used in the past: number of live integrations in production, number of developer trial sign ups, conversion rate of developer trial sign up to live integration, speed to first integration, go-live success rate, number of integrations per customer, volume of endpoint......Read More
831 Views
4 requests
Vishal Naik
Vishal Naik
Google Product Marketing LeadJuly 14
I don't think that marketing to developers takes you away from the classic marketing funnel. You still need to drive awareness, adoption and advocacy. The difference is that the personas change across the funnel and the steps taken before progressing change. In my opinion, developers have a goal ......Read More
853 Views
4 requests
Vishal Naik
Vishal Naik
Google Product Marketing LeadJuly 14
I tend to look at DevRel as a pretty unique role that's part CSM, part Marketing and part Pre-Sales. Developer Marketing is full-stack marketing around a technical product. To sum it up quickly, DevRel tends to have a great pulse on the developer community and how your current developer audience ......Read More
1023 Views
2 requests
Vishal Naik
Vishal Naik
Google Product Marketing LeadJuly 14
Developers want to know what something does and how it works. They want to jump in and try it out themselves. They want to see something new and get their hands on it. I’ve seen some persona work that says developers like to be the smartest person in the room and value content that stumps them. S......Read More
671 Views
2 requests
Vishal Naik
Vishal Naik
Google Product Marketing LeadJuly 14
I think there are two areas to start with: where the user is working from and what use cases you can create. From a user experience POV, if you need to embed your tool into another system of record, that’s a good starting point. If your software is where your users are going to be working in, the......Read More
766 Views
2 requests
Vishal Naik
Vishal Naik
Google Product Marketing LeadJuly 14
My biggest piece of advice is to not forget about decision makers and end-users. Developers are a hugely important persona that has a unique set of needs, but they are ultimately not the sole decision maker in most organizations and they build for users. So if you can know about who the developer......Read More
792 Views
2 requests
Vishal Naik
Vishal Naik
Google Product Marketing LeadJuly 14
I’d sum it up with the ability to tell a complicated story quickly and concisely as well as the ability to nuance your work between developer personas and decision maker personas, and understand how partners and end users fit into the equation. I find that sometimes as a developer marketer, I’m d......Read More
679 Views
2 requests
Vishal Naik
Vishal Naik
Google Product Marketing LeadJuly 14
Generally speaking, developer platforms bring about more customer usage and higher customer retention, so from a pricing standpoint, I tend to not get too deep on how to price dev tools–because the long term approach of healthy revenue generating customers is more valuable than a short term lift ......Read More
568 Views
2 requests
How do you manage launches when the product team has a difficult time sticking to timelines?
This makes launches pretty difficult to manage without creating large lapses in communication.
Vishal Naik
Vishal Naik
Google Product Marketing LeadJuly 14
While I don't want to discount the personal thrash this puts on you, I’d suggest you quantify the impact in a manner that is around the health of the business. Showcase that there is an opportunity cost to the inability to stick to timelines. Example: When you have a regular cadence in communicat......Read More
674 Views
2 requests
Vishal Naik
Vishal Naik
Google Product Marketing LeadJuly 14
These are some of the main stakeholders a core PMM would work with.  With Sales, I tend to like to see what is resonating with prospects. Is there a specific line or way of telling our story that clicks? I tend to like to use this insight to guide early funnel materials to proactively talk to ......Read More
1129 Views
2 requests