Session: Does Your Tech Company Even Need A Community?
Over the last 5 years (especially since the COVID-19 pandemic began), most major tech companies and startups have developed a community program as a part of their growth funnel to accelerate adoption within the developer audience. While the impact and benefits of developer communities are undeniable, this has caused an oversaturation of product communities with thousands of members and almost no activity (don’t we all know at least a couple of such servers on Discord?)
Therefore, in this talk, we will understand the intricacies of how communities impact the product development cycle and growth funnel at tech companies and at what stage a tech company needs a community program, if at all.
By the end of this session, audience members will:
- Understand which aspects of the product development cycle and growth funnel are influenced by developer communities.
- Learn what practices and actions may cause community programs to fail for tech companies.
- Hear real-world examples of successfully developed and matured developer community programs (featuring anecdotes from companies like Microsoft, Twilio, Appwrite, and others).
- Gain a rudimentary “roadmap” to assess whether their company is ready to start a new community program or transition users from existing forums into one.
