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I'd say another rule of thumb, which may not be specific to developer marketing, is to avoid the "used by" pitfall. I often see tools that were launched, like,

I'd say another rule of thumb, which may not be specific to developer marketing, is to avoid the "used by" pitfall. I often see tools that were launched, like, a month ago claiming that it's "loved by teams at Uber/Slack/etc". What I imagine in those scenarios is that there's an intern who signed up for a beta using their company email, and the founders were like "hey good enough, technically we're now used by teams at [x] company!" I can see through it, and I'm sure others can as well. It comes off as disingenuous. A better way is to tell a specific success story. If some unknown brand has a story to tell about how your tool 10x'd their productivity, I'm all ears.

jordanmorgan10 4y ago
Absolutely something that immediately turns me off to a product as well.
andrenotgiant 4y ago
There's a variation of that in the data space, where early-stage data companies show the logos of _other_ data companies. It's so obviously just that the other company was like checking to see how your product and there's integrates. They weren't actually using it. But now they're in the "Trusted by" panel on the homepage.
- ghaff 4y ago
  While I don't doubt that, especially smaller, companies randomly use logos based on anecdotes or email signups, I can assure you that, at companies of any size, customer references go through a lot of vetting and whole teams devoted to it. And customer references are a big deal. Companies absolutely want to see other companies in their industry which are using your product and even have conversations with their peers about it.
- conductr 4y ago
  I tend to assume they’re all connected via founder’s prior employment/school/friends etc and so yeah they tapped their networks and they probably check out their friends new startup product. Maybe they’ve given some pre launch feedback but I also tend to think they’re not likely to indicate having a significant usage/integration at that logo company.
canyonero 4y ago
I'm with you. I've never found the "used by $BIG_NAME_COMPANY" to be influential for me at face value. But anecdotally, I think that level of marketing has been effective in getting devs to bring them up in that context. I've heard in meetings throughout my career, devs saying: "It's good enough for $BIG_NAME_COMPANY, it'd be good enough for us". That alone has influenced decision makers to at least consider it.
- gabereiser 4y ago
  I admire the use of php vars in your argument as most of these are Wordpress sites used to funnel folks to the actual software.
- dylan604 4y ago
  Now, if the site uses the company logo in their list of $BIG_NAME_COMPANY that links to one of these discussed blog write ups, then I'd accept that as a useful quick glance way of promoting that info. Otherwise, just a list of logos and/or company names does feel lazy and non-convincing to me.
mooreds 4y ago
I have so much fun reaching out and interviewing folks who use our software (both customers and free users) for our blog (making it clear that my goal is to promote both them and their use of our software). It doesn't have to be a difficult process either. An email interview with 8 initial questions and then another round if I need to dig deeper has worked for me. I turn it into a blog post after a light round of editing. Depending on the size of the company, there may be additional review on their side, but most of the time I've had folks be happy to be featured. This is a great way to share success stories, build content, and I was surprised at the various ways people used our software. The stories can also be used by marketing and/or a sales team. (Not typically great for posting on sites like HN unless they dig really deep into a technical topic, though.) Edit: make it clear that folks know the interview will be published.
SkyPuncher 4y ago
Do you choose the product with no references/used by over that? If you're in an organization with any type of compliance needs (SOC 2), that "used by" signals that the business is organized enough to pass security/audit requirements by that company. While it may be a single team using the product, they're still held to wider organizational standards.
- danielvaughn 4y ago
  It's not that I'd choose a product specifically because it doesn't have references/used-by, but it's more that I get annoyed at vague allusions to usage by larger companies. If the company in question actually uses your product, great! Tell me about it! But there's no legal guarantee that a "used by" statement is true - it's like saying "9/10 doctors trust this medicine I'm selling you". It just rubs me the wrong way. In your example, it's actually worse than annoying. If you're basing SOC2 compliant requirements on a "used by" signal, then the misdirection is potentially catastrophic.
  - SkyPuncher 4y ago
    > If you're basing SOC2 compliant requirements on a "used by" signal, then the misdirection is potentially catastrophic. I'm absolutely not basing it only on that, but it is an early signal. There are likely many options for any specific tool. "Used by" can help me differentiate between the side-project and the meaningful company before I go too far down the rabbit hole.
gumby 4y ago
Back in the 90s we had a surprising customer who paid tens of thousands of dollars a year for a subscription. They never reported any bugs but seemed happy -- our salesperson would check in on them ever few months and got an annual renewal without fail. Eventually she left (to get an MBA) and the guy who took over her territory had trouble reaching the customer on the phone. Eventually he did get a meeting and when he visited discovered that all our packages (software and printed docs) were on a shelf in a cubicle, and that they were uninterested in renewing. It seems someone had the budget to spend and everybody liked having the saleswoman come visit. But they didn't care about a visit from Norm. A rather extraordinary waste of money, but helped our bootstrapped company!
- KeithBrink 4y ago
  Did you think about having the saleswoman continue to visit that one customer on contract? Pay a few thousand for the day, land the sale, then back to the MBA.
  - gumby 4y ago
    Good idea -- but I never thought of it!
- xwdv 4y ago
  I could only imagine what this saleswoman was like to convince a company to spend tens of thousands a year just for a visit every few months.
  - gumby 4y ago
    She was quite attractive and fit, it is true (still is, 30 years later). We used to ski together. But more importantly as a salesperson she knew her stuff. She wasn't a developer, but she took the time to learn enough that she didn't waste the customer's or our team's time.
waboremo 4y ago
IMO the danger with those sections isn't how disingenuous it might be to some, it's the fact that you have to be very careful what brands you are highlighting here to not send the wrong message. What are you actually trying to convey here to potential clients? Having a bunch of consumer tech brands when your potential base is actually more about universities, sends the message that you're not a serious company in the field and won't have their best interests at heart. Worse, it can make you seem very generic, as most sites flaunt Google/Microsoft all over the place. This also applies to success stories. Highlighting irrelevant success stories also sends the wrong message. If a potential client in finance is looking at your tool, ready to drop substantial funds, but all they can find are success stories relevant to gamer brands, they're gone they aren't going to do the work for you to find out if you're good enough. You have to be selective even if that feels counter intuitive at first. So I don't mind the row(s) of brands related, just make sure it's sending the message you want to send.
mbesto 4y ago
Disagreed. Social proof is a HUGE signal, even if it's "fake". > It comes off as disingenuous. And if the product is valuable to you AND it has logos, I can guarantee you will still use it. This feels like the typical developer trope here of "ads don't work on me". The reality is that even if products (like Posthog) have developers as users, there is usually someone paying for it that's not the developer. So while you might not like logos, the person opening the wallet usually does. > A better way is to tell a specific success story. If some unknown brand has a story to tell about how your tool 10x'd their productivity, I'm all ears. Totally agreed (albeit this isn't mutually exclusive)
fmerian 4y ago
i do share the feeling. you should be specific, especially when marketing to developers. So, I’d rather write the product is "used by X developers or Y companies." in a past experience at an early-stage company that was starting its sales motion, we highlighted a testimonial from a customer in the headline as a workaround. Another option could be adding a short description of the use case, too. show, don’t tell.
agrippanux 4y ago
What I love is when competing services claim the same large companies use their product.
jerriep 4y ago
What are the legalities regarding using another company's name and logo as social proof without explicit conscent from that company? I am running my own Saas company (https://www.usecloudpress.com/ https://www.usecloudpress.com/) and I ask explicit permission from companies that use my product whether I can use their name, logo, and some testimonial text on my website. I would never even consider using it without their permission.
newmac 4y ago
One I saw recently was "With developer signups from the world’s leading brands" and then a wall of logos under it. Felt like a stretch to use a company's logo when all that happened was someone downloaded your open source code.
enra 4y ago
With our startup, the policy is that we don't put up a logo unless 1) we have permission 2) they use and pay us 3) the product is widely adopted in the company, not just with a single team.
fakedang 4y ago
Ironically, I noticed that in the Posthog Website (as is the case with a number of other companies). I think the best option would be a mix of the two (which AWS does). You have a tileset of companies which "use" your product, but you also back that up with individual testimonials which link back to case studies on your blog.
- corywatilo 4y ago
  Which logo?
  - fakedang 4y ago
    Not any of your logos per se (rather, I haven't done a deep dive yet :P), but when I usually see a SaaS say that they partnered with so and so BigCorp, I just assume it's one developer trying out the product, as compared to a team using it for an extended duration (granted, everyone's doing that). So I just skip that testimonials section now. Case studies are a much better validation imo.
elevation 4y ago
Posting the logos of huge companies signals to small companies that they're not your target market. So if the office manager of the IBM facility in Mobile, Alabama uses your SMS service to coordinate the contract janitorial staff, then boosting the IBM logo without this context sends the wrong message to the long tail of small companies who don't pay "IBM" prices for anything.

jordanmorgan10 4y ago

Absolutely something that immediately turns me off to a product as well.

andrenotgiant 4y ago

There's a variation of that in the data space, where early-stage data companies show the logos of _other_ data companies. It's so obviously just that the other company was like checking to see how your product and there's integrates. They weren't actually using it. But now they're in the "Trusted by" panel on the homepage.

ghaff 4y ago
While I don't doubt that, especially smaller, companies randomly use logos based on anecdotes or email signups, I can assure you that, at companies of any size, customer references go through a lot of vetting and whole teams devoted to it. And customer references are a big deal. Companies absolutely want to see other companies in their industry which are using your product and even have conversations with their peers about it.
conductr 4y ago
I tend to assume they’re all connected via founder’s prior employment/school/friends etc and so yeah they tapped their networks and they probably check out their friends new startup product. Maybe they’ve given some pre launch feedback but I also tend to think they’re not likely to indicate having a significant usage/integration at that logo company.

canyonero 4y ago

I'm with you. I've never found the "used by $BIG_NAME_COMPANY" to be influential for me at face value. But anecdotally, I think that level of marketing has been effective in getting devs to bring them up in that context. I've heard in meetings throughout my career, devs saying: "It's good enough for $BIG_NAME_COMPANY, it'd be good enough for us". That alone has influenced decision makers to at least consider it.

gabereiser 4y ago
I admire the use of php vars in your argument as most of these are Wordpress sites used to funnel folks to the actual software.
dylan604 4y ago
Now, if the site uses the company logo in their list of $BIG_NAME_COMPANY that links to one of these discussed blog write ups, then I'd accept that as a useful quick glance way of promoting that info. Otherwise, just a list of logos and/or company names does feel lazy and non-convincing to me.

mooreds 4y ago

I have so much fun reaching out and interviewing folks who use our software (both customers and free users) for our blog (making it clear that my goal is to promote both them and their use of our software). It doesn't have to be a difficult process either. An email interview with 8 initial questions and then another round if I need to dig deeper has worked for me. I turn it into a blog post after a light round of editing. Depending on the size of the company, there may be additional review on their side, but most of the time I've had folks be happy to be featured. This is a great way to share success stories, build content, and I was surprised at the various ways people used our software. The stories can also be used by marketing and/or a sales team. (Not typically great for posting on sites like HN unless they dig really deep into a technical topic, though.) Edit: make it clear that folks know the interview will be published.

SkyPuncher 4y ago

Do you choose the product with no references/used by over that? If you're in an organization with any type of compliance needs (SOC 2), that "used by" signals that the business is organized enough to pass security/audit requirements by that company. While it may be a single team using the product, they're still held to wider organizational standards.

danielvaughn 4y ago
It's not that I'd choose a product specifically because it doesn't have references/used-by, but it's more that I get annoyed at vague allusions to usage by larger companies. If the company in question actually uses your product, great! Tell me about it! But there's no legal guarantee that a "used by" statement is true - it's like saying "9/10 doctors trust this medicine I'm selling you". It just rubs me the wrong way. In your example, it's actually worse than annoying. If you're basing SOC2 compliant requirements on a "used by" signal, then the misdirection is potentially catastrophic.
- SkyPuncher 4y ago
  > If you're basing SOC2 compliant requirements on a "used by" signal, then the misdirection is potentially catastrophic. I'm absolutely not basing it only on that, but it is an early signal. There are likely many options for any specific tool. "Used by" can help me differentiate between the side-project and the meaningful company before I go too far down the rabbit hole.

gumby 4y ago

Back in the 90s we had a surprising customer who paid tens of thousands of dollars a year for a subscription. They never reported any bugs but seemed happy -- our salesperson would check in on them ever few months and got an annual renewal without fail. Eventually she left (to get an MBA) and the guy who took over her territory had trouble reaching the customer on the phone. Eventually he did get a meeting and when he visited discovered that all our packages (software and printed docs) were on a shelf in a cubicle, and that they were uninterested in renewing. It seems someone had the budget to spend and everybody liked having the saleswoman come visit. But they didn't care about a visit from Norm. A rather extraordinary waste of money, but helped our bootstrapped company!

KeithBrink 4y ago
Did you think about having the saleswoman continue to visit that one customer on contract? Pay a few thousand for the day, land the sale, then back to the MBA.
- gumby 4y ago
  Good idea -- but I never thought of it!
xwdv 4y ago
I could only imagine what this saleswoman was like to convince a company to spend tens of thousands a year just for a visit every few months.
- gumby 4y ago
  She was quite attractive and fit, it is true (still is, 30 years later). We used to ski together. But more importantly as a salesperson she knew her stuff. She wasn't a developer, but she took the time to learn enough that she didn't waste the customer's or our team's time.

waboremo 4y ago

IMO the danger with those sections isn't how disingenuous it might be to some, it's the fact that you have to be very careful what brands you are highlighting here to not send the wrong message. What are you actually trying to convey here to potential clients? Having a bunch of consumer tech brands when your potential base is actually more about universities, sends the message that you're not a serious company in the field and won't have their best interests at heart. Worse, it can make you seem very generic, as most sites flaunt Google/Microsoft all over the place. This also applies to success stories. Highlighting irrelevant success stories also sends the wrong message. If a potential client in finance is looking at your tool, ready to drop substantial funds, but all they can find are success stories relevant to gamer brands, they're gone they aren't going to do the work for you to find out if you're good enough. You have to be selective even if that feels counter intuitive at first. So I don't mind the row(s) of brands related, just make sure it's sending the message you want to send.

mbesto 4y ago

Disagreed. Social proof is a HUGE signal, even if it's "fake". > It comes off as disingenuous. And if the product is valuable to you AND it has logos, I can guarantee you will still use it. This feels like the typical developer trope here of "ads don't work on me". The reality is that even if products (like Posthog) have developers as users, there is usually someone paying for it that's not the developer. So while you might not like logos, the person opening the wallet usually does. > A better way is to tell a specific success story. If some unknown brand has a story to tell about how your tool 10x'd their productivity, I'm all ears. Totally agreed (albeit this isn't mutually exclusive)

fmerian 4y ago

i do share the feeling. you should be specific, especially when marketing to developers. So, I’d rather write the product is "used by X developers or Y companies." in a past experience at an early-stage company that was starting its sales motion, we highlighted a testimonial from a customer in the headline as a workaround. Another option could be adding a short description of the use case, too. show, don’t tell.

agrippanux 4y ago

What I love is when competing services claim the same large companies use their product.

jerriep 4y ago

What are the legalities regarding using another company's name and logo as social proof without explicit conscent from that company? I am running my own Saas company (https://www.usecloudpress.com/ https://www.usecloudpress.com/) and I ask explicit permission from companies that use my product whether I can use their name, logo, and some testimonial text on my website. I would never even consider using it without their permission.

newmac 4y ago

One I saw recently was "With developer signups from the world’s leading brands" and then a wall of logos under it. Felt like a stretch to use a company's logo when all that happened was someone downloaded your open source code.

enra 4y ago

With our startup, the policy is that we don't put up a logo unless 1) we have permission 2) they use and pay us 3) the product is widely adopted in the company, not just with a single team.

fakedang 4y ago

Ironically, I noticed that in the Posthog Website (as is the case with a number of other companies). I think the best option would be a mix of the two (which AWS does). You have a tileset of companies which "use" your product, but you also back that up with individual testimonials which link back to case studies on your blog.

corywatilo 4y ago
Which logo?
- fakedang 4y ago
  Not any of your logos per se (rather, I haven't done a deep dive yet :P), but when I usually see a SaaS say that they partnered with so and so BigCorp, I just assume it's one developer trying out the product, as compared to a team using it for an extended duration (granted, everyone's doing that). So I just skip that testimonials section now. Case studies are a much better validation imo.

elevation 4y ago

Posting the logos of huge companies signals to small companies that they're not your target market. So if the office manager of the IBM facility in Mobile, Alabama uses your SMS service to coordinate the contract janitorial staff, then boosting the IBM logo without this context sends the wrong message to the long tail of small companies who don't pay "IBM" prices for anything.