Find the Story in the Static

I have, quite possibly, seen more dev tools than anyone. I’m a developer who spent years as a tech journalist, getting pitched by their makers. As editor of ProgrammableWeb during the rise of APIs, it was my job to find the story in the static. I leaned on my journalism experience, honed as a long-time contributor to Wired.

But I was left wondering why dev tool companies don’t better tell their own stories. I went in-house and became an accidental marketer. I ran DevRel and marketing for API, database, and automation tools, including SendGrid and Zapier.

In 2018, I started EveryDeveloper to help dev-focused products do right by the people who build with them. I’ve reached thousands of marketers through my work, including my best-selling book, Developer Marketing Does Not Exist. Yet dev tools keep making the same mistakes.

Today my work has two sides. I consult with about five dev tool teams at a time, so they have me on call for their important developer decisions. And every month I ask AI models the questions developers ask, then track which of 1,592 dev tools they recommend on LLM Rank.

I still look for the story in the static. These days, much of it lives in what AI tells developers about your tool.

Adam DuVander