01:39): The speaker, Jean Scharba, outlines the evolution of Developer Relations (DevRel) from the early 2000s to the 2020s, highlighting shifts from open-source engagement to API-driven development, data-driven DevRel, and the current era focused on high-tier, strategic partnerships.
Shift to High-Tier Partner Focus (05:18
10:05): Scharba emphasizes the importance of strategic, high-value partnerships within DevRel. She highlights that while broad community support remains vital, working closely with select, high-impact partners can increase ROI, improve integrations, and foster innovation.
Challenges and Benefits of Tiered DevRel (10:05
16:44): Developing tiered access programs allows companies to offer exclusive tools and support to select partners, improving engagement and outcomes. However, maintaining a balance between exclusivity and ecosystem health is critical to prevent overreliance on a few partners.
Case Studies
Roku and Riot Games (21:43
24:52): Scharba shares insights from her experience at Roku and Riot Games, explaining how tiered DevRel strategies, such as co-development and early access, helped these companies strengthen relationships with high-impact partners while supporting a broader developer base.
Scalability and Ecosystem Health (26:43
33:31): The need for scalability is highlighted as tiered DevRel programs grow. Companies should focus on automation, self-service tools, and maintaining support across all tiers to ensure a healthy and sustainable developer ecosystem.
(00:03) hi everybody thank you for joining us for like a talk about partners and this is about navigating Some Devil work that we do which involves Partners or deals with private ecosystems partner ecosystems more limited ecosystems that are out there in the world but before I get started I kind of want to talk a little bit my bonafides um hi I'm Jean scharba I'm the head of develop relations at Roku um I started my career as a software engineer but then about 12 years ago I moved into develop r elations um in develop relations I've done a a (00:36) few different jobs my main career has been um at the at ionic I was a devx manager then at Riot games I let our developer relations all work there um for five years and then for the last three years I've been at the head of development relations at Roku through all this I've also done a lot of develop relations Consulting with um Enterprise companies and people who are doing big uh infrastructure work so we've got stuff like Delta Home Depot Goldman Sachs the defense industry using DARPA um Secretary of Defense I've worked with (01:09) them Warner Brothers Etc um through my throughout my career but this talk is really going to focus on kind of where you can do more in smaller places where it's like how do I do more with these high tier partners and high tier developers and how the work you do there will then trickle down and help a broader ecosystem of people you're working with but before we get into that specifically I want to ta lk about what I feel like as the eras of devil and how we've kind of expanded and different things that have (01:39) changed um for devil as it's grown those really are like the early 2000s late 2000s to early 2010 mid-2010s late 2010s and now the early 2020s and I'm very excited to see what happens after that in the early 20 early 2000s we saw like the open source ERA this was a big shift from the closed proprietary Tech that had existed in the 1990s and even sometimes into the early 2000s wher e we had these big infrastructure or monolithic systems that didn't want to share didn't want to integrate didn't (02:13) want to do whatever you hired IBM because you didn't want to screw up you didn't want to get fired was a whole tagline you don't get fired if you hire IBM um but we moved into these more open community-driven um Innovation systems where Source 4 launched as the really the first web based repository for sharing code you had the Apachi software Foundation which has pioneered th e concept of Open Source software development you have the Linux Foundation obviously just like everywhere um Milla did a lot of their (02:45) early work in that time and this really was a time of like oh wait openness is available for all of us then late 2000s to early 2010s we moved into the API Revolution this was from a move from General Community where it was like like hey everybody join join join let's build um to moving towards apic Centric developer engagement um people were building com panies just off of apis this was the launch of the Twitter API um that happened as the most as the first major social API that was launched then a year later they had the Facebook (03:19) platform social graph API which led to a boom in Social gaming apps um led to um like games apps all sorts of stuff happening over the platform led to some later down the road political destabilization we don't want to talk about that um twilio comes out during this period of time stripe revolutionizes payments nce how you're going to really make it the most effective way to use your product and for people to learn and be able to do things so we went from quantity of developers to the quality of the developer experience and things like the (04:20) slack API has set new standards around like developer friendly documentation and how to integrate it with different things you have stripe really taking a lead here for like raising the bar for in the gold standard even today sometimes for like clear concise ion place where there was like they learning labs they had systems in place for you to start learning then in the late 2010s we went into datadriven devil this was all about the move from intuition like we think that's working to really datadriven devil strategies we really needed to be (05:18) able to understand exactly the Tactical reasons we were doing certain things and we saw certain things go away and certain things grew in the industry as part of that but it became part of when devil beca 're seeing this partner focused era in my mind it is a shift towards there's still these open ecosystems but there and Broad ecosystem support but there's also this very important and even more focused strategic high value developer and partner work that's being done because that is really what's paying the bills for everything else and these (06:19) co-creation Innovation and different systems allow um Dev teams to continue to expand and continue to be very important for the growth of a busines ge how you're going to like deal with partners and developers of all tear and keep everybody happy because if you let one stagnate they'll all die let's talk a little bit about traditional devil versus more partner um and tier uh focused devil when it comes to like your primary audiences for Devo with like traditionally how this has worked it's like broad developer (07:20) Community broad communication to everybody we're all talking we everybody gets information but when it comes to more of thes velopers impossible that's not the focus here the focus is here how do I solve a problem for specific set of Partners and then that can lad everybody else and we can fix that as well so example Roku um we have like a maybe a Disney or an NBA or somebody comes to us and it's like hey we really don't understand how this payment system system works okay well we should probably put content around payment the (08:15) payment system refresh we maybe do a webinar we can do some content we do whatever a e it's like you're meeting as many people as possible you're trying to build these relationships with everybody and but they're not that deep like you're like oh I know your name I know you work I know like little bits about you maybe there's a few that are like I know more and stuff like that but when it comes to more like partner and high tier you need this like uh it's all steal from engineering t-shaped like relationships (09:06) where it's like you have these broad relationships with everyb you can't give the special attention to someone so it's about giving special attention to one group that is potentially providing more value but still not ignoring the rest of the community to be able to do more so why why why why partner Focus Devo why deal with these high tier devs and these partners and everything we we do well it's increased Roi um if we're able to turn someone who's already big big on our platform or big users or like are building awesome stuff into even (10:05) bigger it' because of this we're able to also do deeper Integrations and we Early Access and VAR things like that with strategic Partners so this means that when we're launching a new feature we can do like an alpha and we can be like okay well who are we going to choose to test with this Alpha well because of privacy security release like issues we can't give it to everybody we can't just be like give us our feedback so we can pick one of these bigger High tier developers and be like hey give us all your actually how we need it (11:19) and things are more tailored and targeted for you and so you get these deeper Integrations um as well as the control and security because sometimes you can't give certain people things like we've released s over the years and all of the companies I've worked with where I didn't realize I just unlocked fraud or I just unlocked various things that people are going to do that were going to be malicious uh not to call out any specific company but I got a letter a ceas ke Banks a lot of places where uh they really really care a lot about (12:14) not having their competitor have their information so talk about some of the advantages of those program this type of thing um and where it sits for everybody so for like your company and where you work and where you're doing devil it's really about accelerated Innovation um through these strategic collaborations and being able to work with them as much as possible as they grow and you grow together because it's a mutu hen this goes to Market oh my God there's only going to be three devs on the planet that have (13:05) access to it so I'm going to get the users and I'm going to be able to keep doing stuff and it drives that like interest to continue developing to continue being involved with everybody and deeper integration like we talk I talked a little bit a while ago about how we can do these Early Access programs how we can do codevelopment how we can do more about what's going to help other devs as much a nd there are people who bring absolutely no Revenue to the platform at all are you an open source Dev that is doing really cool things that are really like ing our (13:59) platform to the next level well how do we get you in the room and talk to you and get access to you more as well and this makes makes a more sustainable developer ecosystem because the money that is being generated and being attributed to Devil by doing these high tier engineering work product work and really onboarding busine ree with them you're going to have conflict you're going to not agree or they're going to be mad at you because you go with a different partner for a certain like Early Access thing or they're going to be very mad that like (14:58) oh wait why is that person team a get that and I don't get that but I get this but they don't get that and it creates these like animosities you really need to be complimentary on like what services are being offered and what tech things for different tools and stuff to get more funding and we're going to get this benefit beneficial like knockback effect on the other hand it's like oh that's a no-brainer let's go do that type of stuff and really just like being more strategically aligned with our goals is really important at the same (15:49) time but to do all this you have to have the programs in place to limit and like do tiered access and most developer programs don't have these right now um we're seeing more and more of them like there's the very basic o re it's like you get access to something that we can't that the general public can't get access to and then like the the premium the partner the high tier people who are like you're getting like exclusive apis exclusive sdks dedicated support co- like development Innovation Early Access (16:44) all those types of opportunities which will allow someone to really do a lot more and then like when it comes to like implementing these it's really important to like Define the clear criteria uh and bene s you possibly can but you need to have the technical infrastructure as well to be able to do some of this automated like Auto for Automation and tracking and metrics so you know who's actually being valuable and providing value and then you have budget to be able to do things because of that and then lastly you've got to balance the exclusivity and the (17:37) ecosystem Health like you have to main some level of public access to Foster Community to developers around the world who are doing thin understand where you are and be flexible about it because it's really important because if you do not balance exclusivity in ecosystem Health you're going to kill your program it and then you'll have to restart you'll hopefully have time hopefully aren't fired um but you're going to be have to do it and you have to maintain this level at all times um because we are not in the business of just completely locking (18:33) everything down at all times there may be specific features that you can loc platform specific so it's like oh am I trying to be uh like on a TV like are like Roku would be example of a platform specific type thing or am I trying to do something that's more industry specific like I want to work in medical or I'm working in finance or I'm doing these types of things where I'm finding developers who are building things for those specific things or innovation Partners like we're seeing this a lot (19:23) with AI where it's like how do we partner with someone who's of aweso and it's meetings it's Partners uh like account managers it's all sorts of people like helping out for you to be a to do a lot of stuff and it's incredibly valuable and it can really push your company to the next level but all of this requires measurement it requires you to know what you're doing and needs to know the performance of what's happening because it's so important so when it comes to partner satisfaction I'm a big fan of like a net promoter score um to (20:19) understand how those Hig things um business impact uh I sorry technical integration that's another one that's really important where it's like how what's the API call volume what's the SDK usage are we seeing adoption rate of like new features we release for people to be able to use um is there like a number of integrated special solutions that you've worked on that have been successful um business impact like what is the revenue generated through these different like partner and high tier developers that (21:13) have c 21:43) a Val valuable thing there then Innovation metrics so this is a big one about like how quickly are we going to Market how quickly are we like doing contributions how much are you helping us improve our product um so that we can help you do more and the general developer ecosystem can do more let me go into like a few two case studies real quick so one here is Roku um if you don't know us we're we're basically the dominant TV brand NOS here in the United States and we we're basically a lar kind of not useful for them so this is where a lot of the (22:50) strategy of like okay we'll focus on the people who have content and find them Engineers to work with and do various things around that has been very helpful because we have our Roku developer program prog we have our advertising framework we have our rokupay our open source program and very other much other things to be able to do a lot for these developers but we do have this tiered engagement system where there's this public S developers and trying to make it as available to everybody else as well whatever learnings we get out of it whatever we find from it it's super (23:47) valuable next I'll talk about Riot games a little bit um Riot games if you don't know they're one of the largest video game companies in the world um they're funny enough based in Santa Monica but uh most of their players are outside the United States they're one of the rare where it happens where an American game compan is more popular abroad th ce and as they do this they find the good like experiences that teach people how to play better they coach them their apps their tools to like bet on performance or like impr improve improve what you're doing and as (24:52) those things develop they they recognize them they co-brand them they give them like resources to be able to do more and so they're elev them so more players are able to use them but they give them increased access because they're like okay you're not cheating you're not abus g money and developers who are making money building interesting gaming tools but the company doesn't want any money of from it so as as we start to wrap up here I want to talk a little bit about some of the common challenges with this type of (25:44) strategy um so number one top of mind is resource allocation balancing the support between tiers of users and tiers of developers as you're you're building your developer program around this is really really tough and it continues to be something t one I got you next one figuring out how it's going for these various people and then ecosystem Health you've got to avoid that overreliance on a few Partners you've really got to spread out the wealth to as many people as possible and you maybe this Early Access program (26:43) you're doing for this product cool you've got those don't maybe so easy to be like okay well they already have experience let's do it again it's like well maybe we can bring someone else in new and make a valuable contrib gs continue to operate and are doing well and lastly scalability it these can take off they can really do well but you're gonna run out of resources real quick like it's one of the things we struggle with where it's like how do we do more but maintain what we currently have because like you (27:38) need automation you need self-service tools and gradually expand as you can um and argue for additional resources so quick few quick key takeaways partner focused and high tier developer relations uh everybody so they understand the value that's being done because that's where you're going to get your like basically resourcing to help as many developers as possible and then lastly next steps um if you want to do this one feel free to reach out happy to chat about this any time uh added my Twitter at the bottom but I'm also just G chorba at any Roku (28:44) Gmail whatever it is I'm happy to talk to you but um and then figure out if you're want to develop a third party like model for you to be tle little guy uh awesome presentation uh the history walkthrough is just like spot on Curious within the context of Roku you know this feels like this was an evolution so I'm curious like what was happening before and what was the Catalyst for Roku building this out yeah honestly it a lot of it came was there when I joined Roku um it was a partner focused org uh because entertainment but uh I brought a lot of (29:58) we did similar things at Riot when I was running that program where it was lik well where it's like okay you may go try and sign this contract but we have to say that that's physically even possible or like build a lot of uh work around hey how does someone innovate or like bring in like they didn't really have a how do we do Early Access development or how do we do um providing people like limited access to certain things and about three years ago we started doing that yeah he jeene good good presentation lots of good detail there um (30:59) in some of the experience that as kind of saying where it was very focused on these high tier developer accounts and they forgot about the devs and so the balance that's why I will Hammer constantly is like you're doing this so you can pay for the other things but they brought in a lot of people who were very much strategic account managers or here's how you do business growth and it's building just those people ignoring the tier twos the tier 3es the longtail developers out there that will provide value eventually (32:01) an they'll tell you (32:34) something like hey this takes 20 seconds every day of my life can we remove that and it's like well that is a huge quality of life happiness thing for any level of development for them it's so much more impactful and then it it can it bleeds down to a lot of different people like we have a bug right now that is affecting our entire developer ecosystem that is basically like it signs you out of the developer portal randomly we've been trying to fix it forever um CSS or s start thinking as just like money and you just think okay we'll just (33:31) put the money where the most value is only there and that stuff doesn't percolate elsewhere then that's not going to work because like if you're going to build a tool why not give it to everybody else because but some companies don't want to do that no any other bigger little cues arays all right Jean thank you so much a big round of applause e
