Søren Bramer Schmidt, co-founder and CEO of Prisma, discusses his journey in building a vibrant developer community. He highlights how intentional partnerships with educators and influencers fueled Prisma's growth. The conversation dives into the evolution of Prisma from Graphcool to a powerful ORM and the introduction of Prisma Postgres, showcasing community-driven development. Søren also explores innovative, usage-based pricing models and how emotional engagement with users shapes product decisions in a rapidly changing landscape.
Prisma's strategic partnerships with influential educators helped build a loyal developer community by integrating their tools into popular courses and frameworks.
The transition to a usage-based pricing model for Prisma Postgres, shaped by community feedback, simplifies costs and enhances scalability for developers.
Deep dives
Strategic Early Adoption and Community Building
Prisma successfully built a large developer community by targeting influential educators and frameworks early in their journey. Collaborating with figures like Andrew Mead, who had significant reach with his tutorials, was a deliberate strategy that helped to drive adoption among new developers. By integrating Prisma into widely-used courses and upcoming frameworks such as Redwood.js, they created opportunities for users to become excited about Prisma's potential. This approach prioritized long-term engagement and community affinity, contributing to a loyal user base that continues to grow over time.
Growth Metrics and Community Engagement Challenges
As Prisma's community expanded, the company faced the challenge of maintaining engagement while managing an influx of feature requests, which became overwhelming. Prioritization of feedback was addressed by establishing a clear process involving strategic initiatives combined with community input. This was operationalized through their GitHub issues, allowing users to signal their needs effectively. By focusing on high-impact features identified through community interaction, Prisma enhanced its responsiveness, fostering a more positive sentiment within its user base.
Innovative Pricing Model and Infrastructure Cost Management
Prisma's recent shift to offer a database service, notably Prisma Postgres, revolves around a unique pricing model that charges users based on data requests rather than traditional compute hours. This innovative approach emerged from deep engagement with developers who expressed confusion and frustration with standard pricing structures in the industry. By operating their own infrastructure and offering scalability without the complexities of conventional cloud pricing, Prisma provides a simple and predictable cost structure, which resonates well with users who prefer a straightforward solution. This strategy allows developers to create multiple applications without the fear of unexpected costs.
Evolution of Technology and Future Outlook
Prisma has undergone significant evolution since its inception, transitioning from a GraphQL-based platform to a robust ORM capable of handling various database interactions at scale. The introduction of products like Accelerate and Pulse demonstrates their commitment to enhancing performance and rediscovering lost capabilities from earlier iterations like Graphcool. As the landscape shifts towards integrating AI and rapidly building applications, Prisma's focus on developer experience and community-driven features positions it well to capitalize on new trends. The company is dedicated to simplifying workflows for developers, ultimately enabling them to innovate at a faster pace.
Søren Bramer Schmidt, co-founder and CEO of Prisma, joins us to discuss the journey of building one of the largest developer communities in DevTools.
Søren shares how Prisma's deliberate strategies have shaped its growth, feature prioritization, and the launch of new products like Prisma Postgres.
We also explore the challenges of managing a vast user base and how Prisma is adapting to shifts in application development.
We discuss:
How intentional partnerships with educators and influencers fueled Prisma’s early growth.
Strategies to engage the GraphQL community and gain visibility on platforms like Hacker News.
Managing a large developer community while balancing innovation with stability.
The evolution from Graphcool to Prisma ORM, including lessons from early pivots.
Launching Prisma Postgres and how community feedback influenced its development.
Implementing a simple, usage-based pricing model and reducing infrastructure costs through self-hosting.
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