Don’t Build an Ecosystem Build a Relationship - Eomji Park

Transcript

[Music] Okay. So hello everyone. Uh thank you for coming uh today. So today I going to talk about how to build the ecosystem but focusing on relationship. So with the developers but not focus on ecosystem KPI but what it really matters. First thing first um I am checking actually if it's working. If not I will just click. Uh I'm MJ, head of research and operations at Incot Club. Incot Club is the education community. We focus on on boarding and training developers and accelerating the founders. And also uh I studied at Technical University of Munich and at the moment like affiliated as a guest scientists and supporting

next generation of the researchers and students coming into the industry. Now why are developers important to your ecosystem? Everyone said that developers are important but why? because we are building a technical product. So let's start with the foundation. So we are building a blockchain. Um not every one of us but like if you're building a protocol developers are your primary user who need to use your product and build something for end users. Like think about Google cloud, kubernetes, those are platform builders and ultimately they must use your product to build something to create the value that others can use. So blockchain is no different from like those type of like previous like tag we were using. Um

without developers your product remains unused. No apps, no users, no ecosystem. Just a bit of the difference is because of the coin. Um so that like we feel like sometimes retail users are direct user of your chain. But unless you focus on payment system only, that's not true. And developer don't just build. They are your ambassadors because they are the one who going to be perhaps testing all different nitty-gritty features in your ecosystem. And then they going to bring other users who will be perhaps a little bit tacky in the beginning who going to create the users uh users who are like a perhaps like a will not realize that blockchain is behind the app and continue using them.

So they're your best shot at meaningful distribution because if you don't make them on board like at certain point it'd be very difficult that like your team itself need to build like thousand app instead of like thousand developers going to be building 10,000 apps on your ecosystem without your team creating everything. Many ecosystem still chase the wrong KPIs because to build a hype and also drive the token value of the token often you focus on discord signups, Twitter retweets, Twitter replies with the BS, one time like hackton submissions or like all like little things that easier to quantify but not necessarily driving the value.

So those are like some like KPIs that shortlived. I'm not saying that it's like useless but if you are building your strategy just for the sake of the number like it disturbs you. So let's think about that. How many people come to your dev docs and how long are they staying? If they stay in your dev docs 20 minutes is it great or not? If they are looking for some short answer come but they couldn't find the information and staying 20 minutes that's actually really bad. But if you have a tutorial log information on your dev docs and they stay 20 minutes and building something that's great. So like if you are focusing on some vanity matrix without thinking through then we often ending up the situation that oh we had

like 10,000 people doing X and Y such as the wallet creation a lot of people were very like obsessed with the wallet equation but if you want 10,000 wallet on your network I can do it by myself but that's what like we don't want right. So that's the reason why we need to a little bit think through what kind of like metrics we need to like check and why and don't make them as a target but it should help us to see retrospectively uh how healthy the protocol is. We need to focus on the retention ongoing contributions actual engagement. It's not a rocket science. All of you may agree but of course it's very difficult to measure properly how it is and often we have like a distracted like focus there and developer loyalty takes time.

It's built on value. It's not it can't be bought. So often you may think that like oh we have x much of funding why people are building. So there's a lot of like a nangs around that even though a lot of protocols with a big funding are fighting for on boarding developers. So think about your relationship with developers as dating. So often we are very rushing into the this relationship that like developers who try your tech need to stay forever. Like how many of you like fall in love with your partner at first date and decide to marry like anybody like in day one you knew that you're going to marry and then next day you jump into the marriage. Oh there's one guy. Okay then he is the one if you're protocol you need to aim him.

he gonna like directly jump into your ecosystem. So it's like a non-zero chance. But like let's be realistic. If you're thinking that you provide like one nice experience to developers and thinking that they going to stay in your ecosystem building that's a little bit crazy idea like you are very underestimating like how people are making a decision. This honeymoon phase of like a very interesting tech like just start and can fade away very easily with a few frustrations. Maybe they have a questions, they contact your devril team. Your devril team are completely overwhelmed. Then they don't get an answer. They move on. Like they are like a busy developers. Maybe they work in big IT companies already. They have like three hours on the weekend. They want to work on side projects. Two and a half

hours they were struggling that like there's no documentation and nobody answer me on Discord. They will leave because it's not useful for them anymore. So like those like little attentions like when you want to capture them, you need to think about what kind of like long-term strategy we need to build and building a playground for them either by you or with your community like effort it can be. That's reason why there's a lot of like education opportunities that they can come and learn. They can build something and compete not necessarily to make every idea into a startup but because it's the fun part that developers can come and learn and build something. So we need to think long term to give all this kind of like a support and having shared wins.

So not only the ecosystem perspective seeing as number that like it's a thousand developer but rather thinking about how those thousand developers are winning in your ecosystem. If you don't think about that what their future step going to be in your ecosystem you will lose them very very soon. You might be upset they are not lawyer but why they should be you don't think about their future. So in the end you need to build a partnership with developers. It's not transactional relationship. If you start very transactionary this relationship will continue transactional and then you will be very disappointed in the end of the in the end of this game. So there's a few myth like we are um um like one second. Okay. There's

like a few myth like we are always like a tackling. So often we believe that there is a one playbook that everyone can follow. If you think about like what ecosystem has the most like vivid de dev community recently you may think about like one two protocol in your head right okay maybe one in EVM maybe nonem there's a few you it comes to your mind and often what you do is like I want to have exactly copy paste like strategy what they did three years ago with a complete different market condition completely different community vibe and then you realize it just doesn't work for you so that's the reason why like you need to think about stage of your project what kind of developers coming what is the product of yours this is like a something you need to retarget

all the time and that's reason why it's very difficult to play an ecosystem KPI and developer KPI so I'm not saying the whole organization need to focus on developer KPI you're going to have a team focus on your own product and ecosystem as well but you also need a people often it's a de in your team thinking about the perspective from developers what kind of success like they can get out of this like interaction with your ecosystem. So one thing is like a um like a the other things about like a one interaction like we already talked about it before but one thing is like a hybrid marketing can can like replace the actual value that's the often misconception that like a we have a huge narrative cycle in crypto

which is true but it fade away. So while you use that momentum if you don't build real value they will not come back. So that when your protocol is just like making your strategy around the narrative when narrative is gone like you continuously like need to chase that but it doesn't come and you don't need to write every narrative but if you have like a fundamental value you have you are providing a value to developer many narratives are plausible if it's something appliable to you can that use that to create the momentum create like a really fun vibe in the community while creating the value. So like having very void value while just like following the hype they going to be a very very like

um sad strategy like in 12 months you realize that like nobody around there in long term and also often think you want everyone should stay in your ecosystem and become founders. It's very unrealistic. Someone need to be employed in your ecosystem as well. So the thing is like if you are thinking there was a 10 amazing developers in your ecosystem become a company right they will need someone to build together but then you are making another like dev initiatives it can be hackathon it can be some boot camps it can be like cues conference and you expect all of them becoming a founder who going to be working together with them so like we sometimes have like this unrealistic wishes that every hackathon winners become founder and

fundra and then every hackathon like winner is going to be like continuously staying in your ecosystem with a one-time interaction and then you got guted because they don't just we are wishing very unrealistic things and it's not healthy for your ecosystem either. So developers come with a various motivations and ecosystem also go through different stages. If you see very very good developer who just had weekend like who are like a weekend hobbyist coming to your ecosystem building something cool but they have zero intention to stay use them they should be your extended de on they going to be create the demo for you they inspire others they make some open source project the others can pick up

and building something further you shouldn't think that oh my god they are pirates they are just raining our money look no like they are the one who actually work for you over the weekend as a freelancer creating a demo for you. If someone comes for like those kind of short or like part-time like in attention span on your ecosystem, instead of like a reject them, use them for momentum while you're going to have a few people stay long time as a rockstar. So like this is like again like often so that like a when we don't like prioritize the developer outcomes but like a focus on ecosystem optics in the long term we lose them. There's like a few thing few cases I can like um

explain here. One is like a don't chase 10,000 developers if you're never not ready to serve 100 developers. Sometimes like we are thinking about like thousands developers are really small but if you see the electric uh capital report like every like year we have like less than 10,000 developers in the whole ecosystem who is full-time and the definition of full-time here is 20 hours a week. So we don't have that many full-time developers in the whole ecosystem as a whole blockchain not just Ethereum not just like Bitcoin Solana like as a whole and then we think that we can on board thousand developers with some two interactions and they going to stay in your ecosystem working full-time do you have thousand jobs in your

ecosystem? No. They need to make a living. So do you have like thousand activities they can do? No. You actually don't want thousand developers come to your ecosystem with a full engagement at once. They're going to come in different stage. Some become founder. They going to create job in your ecosystem. Give them funding. Make them create the job for others. Some developers going to come just for fun. But they create the momentum because communities that keep talking about it. They're asking technical questions. Maybe in four weeks their attention span is over. They're going to leave. It's fine. they serve the great purpose to on board others and being a fun person to work with. So the thing is like okay let's not focus on like big numbers because that's great in

optics you actually cannot digest them. Let's start small and then let's enable these different types of contributors short-term long-term part-time all those contributors coming instead of complaining or like blaming that they're living so soon we need to extract the value from them in different way and of course providing the value. So short-term contributors, they're also great. Long-term contributors, they're also great. But we often like it a little bit like discriminate them and a like framing the short-term ones are like pirates or like a hunters or like they're greedy ones. But also don't forget they are the one who create the like a best momentum in early stage.

They're the nosy one. They are the one who want to learn like 100 different technology where nobody is asking for because they just want use them as a momentum. building something fundamentals for long-term builders who are coming to your ecosystem and also like a so there's a ways like you know asking them to create the demos keep providing your learning content some community engagement so you can see that like a a lot of different this conference or like some like saloon or like you make this like um what is that like a local communities making a little events you know meetups or like a developer like hackathons or like more like workshop series those are all made for these then not necessarily each going to be turning people into the

founder or something like really like substantial rather providing a playground they can continue coming recruit their partners enjoying like their conversation and stick around to the ecosystem. So this is like something like in general what kind of things we can do while like a um yeah there's like another thing like a uh one thing I wanted to bring it up is now especially if you're working on the protocol side like once when we are complaining for those short-term like um or like some hackers or developers coming to ecosystem and living we need to remind ourself we are the one who designed that reward we are the one who resign designed the rule not the developers if

they're gaming the system we need to build a better system so uh airdrop grants everything is same so like a last time in if I was talking about more diving into the grand ecosystem that if you are um depending on what kind of activity you are aiming so like a long-term activity short-term activity if they want if you want them to build specific feature for your protocol or if they want them to build a business on your protocol we need to design the grant program or error air drops or this reward program more smart like retrospectively proactively everything has its like pros and cons. So instead of like blaming people who are gaming the system what we built, we need to build our system better so that it can

be a fun game for everyone so that you don't feel like you're getting drained. So in the end like what I wanted to say is like a whole like this like dev ecosystem strategy is mainly about the spirit not a script. It's not something we can set like 20 rules and just blindly following but we need to understand that what kind of motivation developer has what stage of your product are and then what types of developer you need like maybe in the beginning like a lot of developers will not game and battle in your platform. So you need to type someone who can fall in love with you in first date and going to stick to it. It's a little bit irrational like love, right? I think all of you because you're very baby like techsavvy. You

have that experience that some phone some device or some software nobody likes but you wanted to really try those type people you will need it in early stage. But if you're look if you're working on stage in different stage for mass adoption at certain point those like techsavvy users who are like a market users in the beginning may not be the main drive over your your ecosystem growth but you don't want to lose them then you need to have like different to track strategy. So in the end there's no one template that you can just follow and apply to every developers in your ecosystem and in every stage but there are some principle you can follow. So that's something I wanted to um like emphasize and another thing is like think like a partner not a platform. So like don't see them as a number and

think that once they are in they going to just be there but you need to think about as a partner especially in early stage till certain level you need to think about what is the realistic number of developers founders you can take care of. If your target is 200 to 300 just remember that your team must be able to answer them when they message you so that you need to help them. So be realistic starting with a five teams 10 maybe 20 and then like okay make them su succeed in your ecosystem make them make money make them have a great product they are proud of make them feel like they are changing the world so that's the important part that you can have a long-term loyalty instead of giving a 20k funding and they left our ecosystem

after three months because I didn't answer them I thought they just going to be continuously building how they can leave like they going to leave if they come for money they will leave for money but if they come for something else they going to stay and what value you can provide that's important so I can see that these days protocol start to a little bit offering different types of help like marketing support hiring support legal support and this is important because once founder is looking for help 10k is in the end it's peanut you cannot do anything with your startup I mean it's not a small money but you will not have a like long run with that money but what they need is actual support to make their project successful. So this like ecosystem success means in the end you need to

enable developer success at scale because at certain point you don't want to focus on just 20 developers but the whole group and the great ecosystem evolve based on how developers are using them and in the end to to make the ecosystem successful like don't focus on just ecosystem KPI we need to build a great relationship and that's the reason why like you will see that like a some developers are following certain devil s to ecosystem unless like text tech is complete different because they know that they can actually get support from them. So I'm not saying like we need to blindly focusing on devel only but in your unit if you are working on dev strategy let's make sure that we are not focusing on vanity metrics and then like

try to extract the like optic value from the developers but providing a value to them so that they can be succeed. So my last thing I like to always tell is if you are investing in the success of developers they will invest in your success as well but if you want to extract the value out of them for your own success like they will not stay. So it sounds like perhaps like a little bit you know like a same thing in the end but it's all about the mindset and spirit. So once when your ecosystem give the developers a feeling that they feel supported and you really care about their success, that's the way to make

your ecosystem bigger. Thank you. We have a few minutes for Q&A. So if anyone has any questions, feel free to go ahead. Thanks. Interesting talk. Uh I guess I have two questions but they're kind of related. So what do you think is the best way to get feedback like how to interact or communicate with the developers in the ecosystem and connected to that like what is like like the request like let's say like product feature request like how it should be like I actually couldn't hear your cache really well. So yeah, sorry. So the

first question was like what is the best way to communicate with the with the ecosystem developers and connected to that um how like how they should be able to kind of like um influence the product feature decisions. So like core core developments like they say oh it would be nice to have this feature for the projects like uh how you can ensure that they are also prioritized but you're not like completely you know like um like throughout your original product um priorities. So like um first like a how would you communicate with your ecosystem developer like a depending on like your stage but like let's assume that like you are like a small project and now

starting to building like a is your assumption is you already have a developer or you need to look for developer. Do you already have a developer and you want to be in contact or like a you don't have a developer and you want to create developer group. What is the case? Yeah, because the thing is like okay we often want to achieve everything at the same time but this can be very different strategy. So let's say if you need to like create a group of developer who are interested in your products in the beginning then like okay you're going to perhaps like look for all the opportunity where you can get an exposure right and that's the reason why a lot of like protocols are even looking for partnership but instead of like blind partnership getting your logo somewhere which perhaps don't do anything too much but like what you need

to do often as my perspective from education community is like providing education to developers try to make them like use your product for fun and get some feedback and then be in touch if it's just more intangible enough like in crypto I see that a lot of developers in touch with other like you know engineers in the ecosystem through discord forum or like um even telegram jump on a call so that like if it's something you can handle you will provide very hands-on support and the other way is like a providing like continuous some um like let's say workshop series or like a people make like amas with a Clear goal is important. So like if your goal is like a we already have a 20 developers

in our ecosystem and we want to really take care of them. Maybe you want to have like weekly office hour. We actually going to maybe schedule one ones maybe every four weeks and asking them what kind of progress they are making. You may create specific bounty or grant for them that it's a small enough so that you can explore and making experiment. It's not too huge but they have incentives to work with you. So you kind of reward them but play well so that it doesn't become um it doesn't ruin the relationship. One fun example I really like to use is there was a kindergarten and then a lot of parents who are working like very hard they often went to kindergarten too late to pick up their kids. So kindergarten was like thinking how can we make these parents come earlier because teachers

need to wait. So in the beginning like they were thinking uh maybe we introduced the fine so if you come late I will ask you to pay the penalty. So they thought if they do that people will come early because they don't want to pay penalty. But what happened? Everyone prefers to pay more and don't come. So that they completely ruined this incentive system. So once they realize that it actually make parents less guilty because now they can pay. Before that they were feeling very sorry and then they removed the system they couldn't change back. So like of course in the beginning you are a little bit worried about how this incentive plays out. So don't overpay. Try to build a relationship. If it's a small group give your time. Spend money is much easier than spending time. So you often want to

do that but you need to spend time with them. Any more questions? Thank you. Um, from your experience, how are the devs currently choosing which ecosystem to join? Because from my experience working with startups and talking to some devs, ultimately they when they have enough um confidence that they're going to build their product and their product could be successful, they need the distribution and they're like looking do you think there is still like tech-wise and support-wise enough difference between the ecosystems or between the chains that someone is choosing just for the tech or do they

kind of like need to look forward to partnership? ship to distribution to actual users not just within the dev community. So I think distribution really matters and then in the beginning like a lot of death said that we are choosing this for the tag but I think a lot of founders actually in the end not choosing a certain ecosystem purely because of the tag maybe only very first users who are interested in like reading their consensus or like how they design their protocol like sequencers provers but let's be honest a lot of like smart contract developers going to be building when it's comfortable and nice but distribution matter but how distribution works now our distribution is very tied into token. So that many people are looking for people who are like a you

know actively trading that token because that token is serving as a treasury but also as the guests of users right uh so now like it's quite common that people going to look for oh I want to see that I had like highest transaction volume ecosystem because it means that there's a lot of users it's partially true but two thing we need to think about is like now chain obstruction coming that like a more and more developers can can build like a multi-chain app or like hey you know uh chain agnostic app easier which means that at certain point for developers where the volume is where the token is doesn't matter because they can handle back end users don't care so that you need some chain giving you a very good dev experience it means like a good docs good tooling and then like a

answering question very quickly that that's very important because I like to try some new tools and I often even like sending a feature request and if some like a you know team come back for that like you really like them you want to stick to it, you know. So that's important part. So chain obstruction is like a not perhaps as like permanent yet, but when it gets like more and more um my belief is like a where the token is perhaps become less like important but rather like a who give the best experience to developers and support going to be more successful protocol that people can build an app on top of it. And then like a another way of distribution is like a for example bass is really trying hard right like a bass is making a great marketing. So while I don't think necessarily like bas is the

bast chain but they are very interesting because not that they are technically superior to others I don't actually personally I don't think like that but they are doing great job that people who may build on top of that may get a exposure and that feeling and belief bring people or like Solana like having a very like dense community and then that's the reason why like they feel like when I build something they're lucky tacky crazy people in our ecosystem may use our app but how long it going to go it's all about like distribution matters most but how distribution is working now it look like token incentives but I believe that that going to change thank you that's about it uh that was a wonderful conversation

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