Your shortcut to the hall of fame

In my teenage years, I practiced free throws for hours. Standing 15 feet from the basket, I’d follow the same routine, take a breath, and release the ball toward the hoop.

I was pretty good at that part of the game.

My accuracy is still good enough that I can swish an eyes-closed shot more than half of the time.

I never had visions of making it to the NBA. But if I had, I’d surely have been in the hall of fame.

Success in the NBA comes down to a simple choice: jersey number! While there are several good options, the best choice is #23.

Here’s why:

1. Michael Jordan (32,292 lifetime pts)
2. LeBron James (37,062 lifetime pts)

Both Jordan and LeBron wore #23 for the bulk of their careers. One is in the hall, the other is destined to join once eligible.

With the right jersey on my back, I’d have certainly joined their ranks, right?

Of course not!

Yet we think that Stripe-like docs are going to make us the Michael Jordan of dev tools.

It’s not as simple as the number basketball players choose… and devs need more from you than a three column API reference.

Instead, let’s take the right lessons from Stripe and examine its home page circa 2011:

Look at the way Stripe shows how they understand developers and what that audience wants to see in a payments tool.

​The latest EveryDeveloper post looks over this early Stripe page and how it points to the company’s real success.

How well do you know your product’s audience?