Attracting and Retaining Developers: The Key to a Thriving Platform Ecosystem

This is the third part of a series on platforms and ecosystems.

In the previous installments of this series, we discussed platforms and ecosystems. It is now crucial to focus on one of the most important factors for the success of a platform: developers. Skilled and talented developers create robust, well-designed, and user-friendly applications that users enjoy using. When developers build high-quality applications, it ensures platform performance, security, and user experience. Additionally, skilled developers bring a culture of creativity and innovation to the platform.

Attracting and retaining skilled developers is challenging, especially in today’s competitive environment where every company is competing for a share of this valuable resource. Companies invest significant time and resources in improving the developer experience and catering to the needs of these skilled individuals.

Developer Expectations

When coming across a new platform, developers typically follow a series of steps to evaluate and decide whether to invest their time building on the platform or explore other ones. Typically they go through these steps:

Discovery:

• They discover the platform through online sources, social media, or word of mouth, and they look for positive reviews and a growing user base.

Research:

• They visit the platform’s website to gather information about its features, tools, and benefits. They want to see a well-designed website that is informative, and highlights relevant features.

Documentation Review:

• They check the platform’s documentation, API, and SDK details. Documentation should be comprehensive, well-organized, and easy to understand.

Monetization and Pricing Evaluation:

• Usually, they look to monetize their work so they review the platform’s pricing plans and compare it with competitors. They like to see that the pricing is competitive, transparent, and offers a free trial or developer-specific discounts.

Developer Community & Support:

• The platform’s developer community, forums, and support resources are very important. An active community, responsive support, and helpful resources are available.

Ecosystem & Third-Party Integrations:

• Is the platform compatible with popular third-party tools and services? Does the platform have a strong ecosystem and supports relevant integrations.

Hands-on Experience, sandboxes, and test environments:

• They need a free trial or sandbox environment to test the platform’s functionality. They are looking for a smooth onboarding, and want to make sure that the platform meets or exceeds expectations.

Licensing & Policies:

• The platform’s terms, conditions, and policies are reviewed. Are terms fair, clear, and align with project goals?

Developer Incentives & Success Stories:

• Developers like to see offered incentives and publish success stories. Incentives are attractive, and other developers have had success on the platform.

Final Decision:

• They weigh the pros and cons, and they make a decision on whether to invest time and effort into the platform.

It’s worth nothing that not all these steps may apply to every platform, as they are more tuned to third-party developers looking to build their next product, service, game, or offering on a public platform. Depending on the business model and use cases, a subset of these steps may be selected, ensuring alignment with the business sector and market.

Minimum Requirements for a Positive Developer Experience

Based on the journey we explained above, here is a list of features that a good developer experience requires:

Comprehensive Documentation:

• Provide clear, thorough, and up-to-date documentation that covers all aspects of the platform, including APIs, SDKs, and other tools.

Developer-friendly API:

• Ensure that the API is well-designed, consistent, and easy to use, including best practices in API design, multiple programming language support, and clear error messages.

Robust Developer Support:

• Offer a strong support system, including dedicated developer forums, community resources, and responsive customer support.

Competitive Pricing:

• Offer fair and transparent pricing that is competitive within the market, including tiered pricing plans, free trials, and developer-specific discounts.

Developer Incentives:

• Incentivize developers with rewards, recognition, or revenue-sharing programs to encourage them to build and promote their tools on the platform.

Strong Ecosystem:

• Create a thriving ecosystem by integrating popular third-party services and tools, attracting developers who are already familiar with these services and can leverage them to build new tools.

Open Source Options:

• Provide open-source libraries, tools, or frameworks to make it easier for developers to contribute and collaborate, fostering innovation and improving the overall quality of the tools built on the platform.

Marketing and Exposure:

• Promote developer-created tools through the platform’s website, social media, and other marketing channels, providing valuable exposure for developers and encouraging others to join the platform.

Regular Updates and Improvements:

• Demonstrate commitment to developers and the success of their tools by releasing regular updates and new features.

Easy Onboarding:

• Simplify the process for developers to sign up and start using the platform with a straightforward registration process, clear terms and conditions, and easy-to-understand platform policies.

By offering these capabilities and features, a platform ensures it is on par with some of the leaders in developer experience. However, building these features is just the start. Continuous monitoring and improvement of these features based on analytical KPIs is essential.

KPIs to measure the performance of the developer experience

Comprehensive Documentation:

• Page views and time spent on documentation pages
• Number of documentation-related support tickets
• User feedback and ratings on documentation

Developer-friendly API:

• API usage and adoption rate
• Number of API-related support tickets
• API response times and error rates
• User feedback and ratings on API

Robust Developer Support:

• Average response time for support tickets
• Support ticket resolution rate
• User satisfaction ratings for support interactions
• Activity and engagement metrics in developer forums

Competitive Pricing:

• New developer registrations (conversion rate)
• Developer retention and churn rate
• Revenue per developer
• Comparison with competitors’ pricing plans

Developer Incentives:

• Number of developers participating in incentive programs
• Increase in the number of tools built after launching incentive programs
• Developer satisfaction ratings with incentive programs

Strong Ecosystem:

• Number of third-party integrations
• Usage of third-party integrations
• Developer satisfaction ratings with available integrations

Open Source Options:

• Number of open-source contributions (commits, issues, pull requests)
• Number of forks and stars on open-source repositories
• Community engagement metrics (e.g., mailing list subscriptions, forum discussions)

Marketing and Exposure:

• Traffic to developer-created tool pages or listings
• Social media engagement metrics (likes, shares, comments) for developer tool promotions
• Conversion rate from marketing campaigns targeting developers

Regular Updates and Improvements:

• Number of updates and new features released
• Developer satisfaction ratings with platform updates
• Usage and adoption rates of new features

Easy Onboarding:

• Time to first successful API call or tool deployment
• Developer drop-off rate during onboarding
• User feedback and ratings on the onboarding process

in today’s dynamic business landscape, developers are recognized as invaluable assets that contribute to the growth and success of a platform and its ecosystem. As such, it is crucial to address their needs, actively compete for their attention, and foster an environment that encourages them to remain loyal to the platform and trust it for their long-term objectives.