A DevRel-Led Funnel That Puts Developers First  🔗 **Source:** [A DevRel-Led Funnel That Puts Developers First](https://hackernoon.com/a-devrel-led-funnel-that-puts-developers-first#reader-recovered) > [!note]+ Document Notes > --- > tags: > - developer-relations > - developer-marketing > - content-strategy > - demand-generation > - sales-funnel > author: Leon Adato > source: https://hackernoon.com/a-devrel-led-funnel-that-puts-developers-first > reference: DevRel-led conversational funnel > date created: 2026-08-11 > --- > > [!info] Generated analysis — not the author's words. Sections below are machine-written > > from the captured source. Only text inside `> [!quote]` blocks is verbatim from the author. > > Do not quote or attribute any other line to the named author. > # 🏷️ Title > A DevRel-Led Funnel That Puts Developers First > # 🧭 Table of Contents > 1. Summary > 2. Main Content > 3. References > 4. Paraphrase > 5. Newsletter > 6. Action Items > 7. Hypotheses > 8. Methodology > 9. Questions > 10. Future Research > 11. Implications > 12. Learning Styles Assessment > 13. Accessibility Assessment > 14. DEIB Assessment > 15. Logical Validity > 16. DARVO Analysis > 17. Conclusion > 18. Refactor Appendix > 19. Template Library > # 🔗 References > - [Source article](https://hackernoon.com/a-devrel-led-funnel-that-puts-developers-first) > - [DevRel Foundation](https://developerrelations.com/) > - [Developer Marketing Alliance](https://www.developermarketing.io/) > - [Google Analytics guidance on funnel exploration](https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/9327974) > # 📝 Summary > Leon Adato proposes a conversational funnel in which Developer Relations leads with credible, vendor-agnostic stories about practitioner problems. Product Marketing then revisits the same problem with product-specific detail. Demand Generation offers related knowledge and lets people self-select into broader needs. Sales enters only after prior interactions have established context. > The model matters because it gives DevRel, Product Marketing, Demand Generation, and Sales distinct roles while preserving one coherent audience conversation. Developers get problem-first material before product claims or sales outreach. Companies gain a handoff structure that may reduce repetitive qualification and abrupt sales contact. > Stakeholders include practitioners, DevRel advocates, Product Marketing Managers, campaign teams, salespeople, and leadership deciding where DevRel sits. Risks include treating educational engagement as consent to tracking or sales contact, forcing every audience journey into a linear funnel, and measuring DevRel only by downstream revenue. > Bottom line: the framework is a useful content and handoff hypothesis, not a proven universal funnel. Its developer-first promise depends on consent, audience choice, and whether each stage provides independent value. > # 📖 Main Content > ## 🗒️ Notes > - The author grounds the proposal in 11 years of personal DevRel experience and disclaims universal expertise. > - Organizational reporting lines matter less to him than the continuity between audience conversations. > - DevRel sits at the broadest, most vendor-agnostic stage and describes real practitioner problems. > - The first content should produce recognition: “that was me,” not immediate product interest. > - Product Marketing retells the problem with tool-specific implementation detail. > - The reader’s decision to open the product-specific piece is presented as permission for that content to mention the product. > - Demand Generation offers more educational material and observes which topics attract continued engagement. > - Continued interaction helps people self-select toward a problem that may justify paid help. > - Sales arrives after prior stages establish the audience’s problem and the company’s relevance. > - The author explicitly says the framework isn't foolproof or a guaranteed conversion engine. > - Authentic voice and problem-forward storytelling are the framework’s stated ethical center. > # 📚 References > The article is an experience-based essay, not an empirical study. Its primary evidence is Adato’s professional observation. The linked “Texas Sharpshooter” technique may clarify his problem-first content method. Independent evaluation should draw on consent guidance, attribution research, developer-audience studies, and organization-specific funnel data. Funnel analytics can test stage transitions, but qualitative interviews are needed to learn whether developers experience the sequence as helpful or manipulative. > # 🗣️ Paraphrase > DevRel can report to different departments without losing its purpose. What matters most is how each group continues the audience conversation. > DevRel begins by telling credible stories about problems practitioners recognize. The content stays broad and avoids centering a vendor’s tool. > Product Marketing takes the same situation and explains how a named product solves it. Because the reader chooses the product-focused follow-up, the author sees that specificity as earned. > Demand Generation responds to engagement with more useful knowledge instead of an immediate pitch. These interactions help the audience reveal whether a problem is isolated or part of a larger need. > Sales contacts people after the earlier content has established the problem, context, and possible fit. The resulting conversation may feel less intrusive and require less introductory explanation. > The framework isn't guaranteed to convert everyone. Its value lies in coordinating teams around authentic, problem-first communication. > # 📰 Newsletter > ## A DevRel funnel without the bait-and-switch > The proposed sequence is simple: DevRel names a practitioner problem without turning the first paragraph into a product pitch. Product Marketing follows with the tool-specific version. Demand Generation offers the next useful resource. Sales waits until there’s enough context for a real conversation. > For WordPress organizations, that could mean contributor-facing education first, a product or service implementation guide second, an opt-in workshop third, and human outreach only when someone asks for help. The hard part isn’t drawing the funnel. It’s making every stage valuable even when the reader never advances. Read [Adato’s article](https://hackernoon.com/a-devrel-led-funnel-that-puts-developers-first). > # ✅ Action Items > ## DevRel > - Map one practitioner problem across vendor-neutral, product-specific, educational, and sales stages. > - Define handoff criteria that don't turn page views into assumed buying intent. > - Interview developers about where the sequence feels useful or intrusive. > - Keep DevRel success measures distinct from sales attribution. > ## OSPO > - Review whether open-source education remains reusable outside the company’s sales path. > - Publish clear boundaries between community participation, product marketing, and lead capture. > - Protect contributor data from silent enrichment. > ## Community > - Offer ways to continue learning without entering a commercial funnel. > - Create feedback paths that don't require sales qualification. > - State when community interactions are recorded or shared across teams. > ## WordPress teams > - Core: keep technical problem statements separate from vendor positioning. > - Core Performance: provide reproducible performance evidence before product claims. > - Core AI: explain AI problems and risks before promoting specific tooling. > - Core Program Team: define ethical handoffs between contributor education and sponsorship work. > - Mobile: tailor examples to mobile contributors rather than reusing web-only journeys. > - Playground: use interactive demos as opt-in learning steps. > - Community: preserve noncommercial participation routes. > - Training: build problem-first learning paths with clear next choices. > - Marketing: coordinate narratives without rewriting community education as lead generation. > - Support: turn recurring problems into educational inputs while protecting user privacy. > - Design: make commercial transitions and consent choices visible. > - Documentation: link vendor-neutral concepts to optional implementation guides. > - Photos: not applicable to this source; no photo workflow is discussed. > - TV: publish talks that stand alone without gated follow-ups. > - Polyglots: localize the problem context, not only the product copy. > - Accessibility: ensure every funnel stage meets WCAG 2.2 AA. > - Meta: avoid tracking assumptions based on WordPress ### A DevRel-Led Funnel That Puts Developers First By Leon Adato — August 10, 2026 > > DISCLAIMER: No, I don’t believe I’m the universe’s gift to DevRel. I don’t have all the answers, all the skills, or even all the Pokemon. What I have is my experiences, collected over the 11 years I’ve been doing this work. That – my experiences and observations – are what I’m sharing in this series. > > > Sales. Demand Generation. Product Marketing. Technical Marketing. Plain old MARKETING-Marketing. And then there’s Developer Relations. Depending on the company, the leadership, and sometimes the season, DevRel might be slotted into any one of those silos. Or more than one. Or all of them. For my money, it kind of doesn’t matter – at least not nearly as much as how the functions of a DevRel advocate fit into the overall conversation with the target audience, and how those conversational moments are carried over from one to the other. Maybe Demand Gen sets the direction, and Product Marketing (PMM), Marketing, and Sales follow their lead. Maybe Marketing creates the message and the other groups build on it. Maybe… well, maybe a lot of things. But I’ve been doing this a while and (with the caveat at the top of this post firmly in mind) I’ve hit upon a structure that allows each group to play to its strengths and more importantly creates a consistent and coherent “thread” of conversations with customers, prospects, and users. #### Top of Funnel: DevRel At the top of the conversational funnel – meaning the broadest approach, the most varied set of topics, and (perhaps most importantly) the most vendor-agnostic type of conversation – sits DevRel. Their job – my job (our job if you’re also in DevRel) – is to talk about the problems, issues, and experiences faced by IT practitioners. The goal at this stage is to tell a story (not a fiction, but rather a narrative of an experience) that is so credible, so real-world, so on-the-nose that the reader has an almost visceral reaction: > > OH MY DOG, that was ME last week! Were you looking in the window of my office?!? What did you do next???? > > > At that point, I might simply focus on the problem, leaving the solution up in the air. I’ve written about this before as part of the Texas Sharpshooter technique. Or I might write about a an actual solution, putting it into the most vendor-agnostic terms. Even if the screenshots show my employer’s software, there’s a bit of latitude because my toolbox has to have SOMETHING in it, and these are just the tools I happen to have at my disposal. The key is to talk about the problem, the solution, and the techniques without mentioning the tool. #### Same Story, More Detail: PMM Product Marketing Managers are – in my (not so) humble opinion – close relatives to the evangelist / developer relations advocate role described in the previous section. They should have just as much technical acumen, and should understand the problem space and the user personas just as well. In a different world, the PMM could write the same story as the evangelist. In fact, that’s exactly what they SHOULD do, with one tweak. > > “Last week, Leon wrote about (some particular problem). He brought up a lot of good points, but he wasn’t exactly specific about how to go about solving it in a particular tool – OUR tool, in fact. So today I want to revisit that blog but offer up some advice on how you can fix this issue, in XYZ’s software. Let’s get started…” > > > Presuming the reader is coming to this blog having read the first one (or if they take a moment to read it now), the PMM has effectively earned the privilege to be vendor-specific. By virtue of their click, the reader has bought into the idea that THIS blog (compared to the last one) is going to talk about a product, feature, or module. #### Offer More Value: Demand Gen So “Demand Generation” (or just “Demand Gen”) is, as the name would imply, the group that finds ways to get people into the sales funnel. While part of that job lies in promoting the content generated by the previous two sections, another action they can take is to track the folks who interact with those pieces and reach out to them directly, offering – no, NOT a sales pitch – but rather another “gift of knowledge”. That might be a whitepaper, related blog post or video, an ebook, an upcoming webinar, or something similar. It builds on the understanding that: > > “You’ve engaged with us on a specific topic, here are some additional ideas, use-cases, and solutions that we help you with.” > > > At this stage, Demand Gen is both broadening the conversation and narrowing the funnel – helping the audience to self-select whether they are only interested in a single specific problem or use-case, or if their needs extend beyond that, into the realm of things a company would pay money to fix, if a solution was available. #### Close The Conversation: Sales “Sales”, as a concept, doesn’t require much elaboration. What I want to emphasize is that, as the final stage of the previous sequence, it is a lot less intrusive and a lot more natural than other types of sales interactions. If the reader/audience has been engaged to this point, a call or email from sales makes sense. There’s a context to the conversation and, once again, the individual has more or less agreed that this is the next logical step. There’s no guarantee, of course, but there’s much less time that has to be spent on what the company does, what problems the prospective user is having, and so on. That all is a known quantity, because it was validated in the previous stages of this funnel. #### The Mostly Unnecessary Summary This framework is, (somewhat) obviously, not fool proof. It’s not the One True Sales Funnel that will win you the client every time. It is – much like the software your company sells – another valuable tool in your tool belt. But if you believe in speaking to users with an authentic, human voice; in telling stories that are problem-forward and put the user’s needs first, then it’s a framework you probably ought to consider., A DevRel-Led Funnel That Puts Developers First, Leon Adato, 01kzrgbd1qrs706pn031cddtfx.