gtm-developer-ecosystem

Choose curated when brand risk is high and you can scale human review across dozens of partners. Choose open when hundreds or thousands of partners are expected, replacing gatekeeping with search, verified badges, usage stats, ratings, and post-publication moderation.

Track time to first API call for onboarding, percentage of developers reaching production for integration success, monthly active developers for engagement, and developer NPS for advocacy. Avoid vanity metrics like sign-ups and downloads.

Use a four-tier hierarchy: quick starts for a five-minute hello world, use case guides for real problems, complete API reference, and conceptual architecture docs. Most developers need tiers one and two first, not comprehensive references.

Route common questions to community channels like forums, Slack, or Discord where answers become searchable. Escalate to direct support for paying customers, security or compliance issues, and complex integrations unanswered after 24 hours.

Follow a three-year arc: year one builds university partnerships and student licenses, year two adds certification and student-led events, year three creates job boards connecting certified students to employers. Students become enterprise buyers years later.

Common mistakes include building the ecosystem before product-market fit, lacking a developer success team, poor documentation, treating all developers equally, no integration quality standards, measuring vanity metrics, and hiring advocates without technical depth.