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I just finished The New Kingmakers or How developers Conquered the World by Stephen O’Grady (2013). A great read about the ever growing importance of developers in pretty much any industry. You might also have heard that developers are the new rockstars. O’Grady does a fantastic job at explaining how that happened and what it means.

A great read for those working with developers and those still trying to market to them.

My take

I’m not going to summarise the book – you’ll just have to read the 60 pages yourself – but here’s what I was left with in Evernote after I finished it:

Developers…

  • Want the widest possible market.
    • Offer a large platform and show off with high numbers of users, apps, modules, whatever.
  • Want control.
    • Build your company on services they can also directly access themselves.
  • Don’t want to be forced into a full stack.
    • Allow them to use whatever they like from your products and make them work with their their other tools.
  • Stick with the first (type of) tech they use.
    • Have a presence in education and the startup scene. Which means you’ll have to go open-source and/or freemium.
  • Will likely use what is easiest to obtain and most fun to use.
    • Focus on great on boarding and first developer experience.
  • They want to be talked with, not at.
    • Go where they are (online), organise and attend events. No marketing but code, invest in documentation and samples.
app imagineer

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  1. ”
    The facts:

    Existing users get a free for life $39/month Indie seat
    New users can try/develop for free, but yes; to publish he has to purchase the Indie seat

    You can keep running from vendor to vendor to not pay any money, but al of them in the end have to pay their bills. Maybe as developers we’ve become a bit spoiled with free software? As an entrepreneur you have to make investments. Those who start a physical shop, pay rent before their first sell, those who start a digital venture invest in design, brand and yes… the software that forms the very core of their business.

    — commented 5 months ago by Fokke Zandbergen
    ”

    in response: the nature of these web based platforms is so fragile that it is not worth buying from them. Look at some extremely sturdy but free products and services:
    1. apache
    2. mysql
    3. linux
    4. openbsd
    5. jquery

    and you are asking money for something as shallow/newbie (in comparison) as titanium?

  2. I’m not sure what your question is. You’re responding to a personal blog post with my take on a book, quote me from an answer on the Q&A, list 5 products that seem to have little in common and then ask why Appcelerator asks money for Titanium.

    What is your point?

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