#21 - David Dorman (VP Self Serve, Grafana) - Open Source GTM, Developer First Marketing, Product Marketing & Self Serve Tactics

This episode is useful for all founders, startup employees, and investors who are interested in product marketing, self serve, and PLG for developer focused, enterprise software products.

David Dorman is VP, Self Serve at Grafana and formerly Director of Product Marketing at DigitalOcean. In this episode, we cover learnings from DigitalOcean’s incredible content strategy, what Self Serve means and specific advice that David has for teams in this area, how developer marketing differs from Self Serve workflows, and advice for teams trying to improve their strategies in these areas. This is a tactical episode where David shares specific insights into how teams are structured, metrics to track, and where and how to interact with developers for the hosted product.

Where to Find David:

* Twitter: https://twitter.com/ddorman

* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davedorman/

* Personal Blog: https://dorman.io/

Where to Find Shomik:

* Twitter: https://twitter.com/shomikghosh21

* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shomik-ghosh-a5a71319/

* Software Snack Bites Newsletter: https://www.shomik.substack.com

* Software Snack Bites Podcast: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google.

In this episode, we cover:

(01:02) - Learnings from DigitalOcean’s Content Strategy

(05:53) - Product Marketing’s Roles and Tactics

(10:36) - How Self Serve Differs Between DigitalOcean and Grafana

(16:58) - Early Stage Advice for Approaching Self Serve

(22:28) - Structuring Self Serve Teams

(30:08) - How to Manage Multi-Product User Engagement

(31:53) - Anti-Patterns in Self Serve

(35:04) - Interplay of Dev Rel /Marketing and Self Serve

(39:37) - How to Position Products in Competitive Markets

(43:45) - Most Common Advice for Startups

How to Subscribe:

Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Google.