Kurtis Kemple

A Measured Approach to Top-of-Funnel Alignment

October 15th, 2024

Six months ago, our developer platform teams were islands. Sure, we collaborated a lot, we shared a lot, but come planning time, Marketing, DevRel, and Developer Experience each had our own goals, our own metrics, our own definition of success. This caused confusion amongst leadership and limited our ability to showcase the relationship and impact between each others work. Fast forward to today: we’re a unified force, with executive buy-in, driving meaningful platform adoption. The catalyst for this transformation? A simple shift in what we measure.

To measure top-of-funnel growth effectively, I’ve developed a strategy focusing on three key metrics: New Developer Acquisition, Activation Rate, and Time-to-Value. This approach provides insights into developer reach, engagement, and value discovery while aligning efforts across marketing, developer relations, and developer experience teams.

Concentrating on these metrics establishes common goals that reach beyond departmental boundaries. Each team’s contributions are reflected in these metrics, offering a comprehensive view of platform growth and fostering collaboration.

Let’s explore how these metrics work together to measure top-of-funnel success.

New Developer Acquisition: Tracking Developer Intent

The first critical metric is the number of new developers engaging with your platform. This metric represents a developer’s intent to experiment or build with whatever you’re offering. Depending on your company, this can be tracked by monitoring things like:

  1. CLI usage
  2. API token generation
  3. App creation
  4. Project creation
  5. Developer program sign-ups
  6. Sandbox environment creation
  7. Account creation
  8. Other signals of intent

For example, we use first app creation at Slack to understand how many new developers are engaging with our platform.

🧠 Tracking these first interactions will come in handy later as well!

Activation Rate: Measuring Value Creation

Once developers are on the platform, knowing how many find value is crucial. For Slack, we define activation as a developer building something that provides consistent value. We consider an app activated when it achieves Useful status — used for 3+ user days in 7 days. The activation rate is the percentage of new developers who have reached this milestone.

This metric helps us understand how well the platform enables developers to build valuable integrations. A high activation rate indicates that the content, onboarding, documentation, and initial developer experience are effective.

Time-to-Value: Understanding Velocity

Time-to-Value (TTV) measures how long a developer goes from their first interaction to achieving activation.

TTV = Activation Date - First Interaction Date

Where:

  • Activation Date: The date when a developer first achieves activation
  • First Interaction Date: The date when a developer first interacts with the platform (you can use your aqcuisition events here)

This metric is crucial for understanding the velocity of the top-of-funnel:

  1. It highlights the efficiency of the onboarding process
  2. It indicates how intuitive the platform and tooling are for new developers
  3. It helps identify potential roadblocks in the early stages of the developer journey

A shorter TTV suggests that developers can quickly understand and leverage the platform’s capabilities.

How to Use These Metrics

By tracking these three metrics, we gain valuable insights into platform growth and the effectiveness of top-of-funnel strategies:

  1. Identify Trends: Spot developer acquisition and activation patterns to help understand trends or the impact of specific projects and initiatives.
  2. Measure Improvements: When changes are made to the onboarding process, documentation, or platform features, we can directly measure the impact on activation rate and TTV.
  3. Set Realistic Goals: These metrics allow for setting data-driven targets for growth and developer success.
  4. Allocate Resources: By understanding where developers might struggle (low activation rates or long TTV), efforts can be focused on improving those areas.
  5. Benchmark Performance: Current performance can be compared against historical data to ensure continuous improvement.

Cross-Functional Alignment and Representation

One of the most powerful aspects of this metrics approach is its ability to foster cross-functional alignment. These metrics include work done across marketing, developer relations, and developer experience teams, regardless of who is responsible for specific tactics.

  1. Unified Goals: By focusing on New Developer Acquisition, Activation Rate, and Time-to-Value, we create a shared language and common objectives for teams that might otherwise operate in silos.
  2. Holistic Representation: Whether a marketing campaign drives new usage, a DevRel initiative improves documentation, or a Developer Experience team adds a new feature to an SDK, these metrics capture the impact of each team’s efforts.
  3. Collaborative Improvement: When we see changes in these metrics, it prompts cross-team discussions. For example, a drop in the Activation Rate could lead to collaboration between DevRel and Developer Experience to identify and address pain points.
  4. Balanced Attribution: This methodology promotes shared accountability, discouraging individual teams from receiving exclusive success for shared wins or shouldering complete responsibility for challenges. It encourages a more nuanced understanding of how different efforts contribute to platform growth.
  5. Strategic Alignment: These shared metrics make it easier to align strategies across teams. When conducting planning sessions or reviewing feedback, we have a framework for prioritization.

By implementing these metrics, we’re not just measuring platform growth — we’re fostering a culture of shared responsibility for developer success. This approach recognizes the interconnected nature of our work and celebrates our collective impact on the developer journey.

Conclusion

By focusing on New Developer Acquisition, Activation Rate, and Time-to-Value, we can accurately measure top-of-funnel and the effectiveness of the initial developer experience. This data-driven approach enables the continuous refinement of top-of-funnel strategies and improves your ability to attract and empower developers.

While these metrics are crucial for understanding top-of-funnel success, it’s essential to recognize that they only tell part of the developer story. You should also consider other quantitative and qualitative data to ensure the best possible experience for developers at all stages of their journey.