Get first users from developer communities and treat them as co-creators
Insight from PostHog team
When to use
When building developer tools or technical products where your target users are active in communities like Hacker News, GitHub, or Reddit, and you want rapid feedback loops to improve product-market fit
Don't do this
Broadcasting marketing messages to developer communities without genuine engagement, or treating early users as passive consumers rather than collaborators who can shape the product direction
4 Founders Who Did This
First 1000 users from developer communities (HN, GitHub) and treating users as co-creators
Joined Discord communities, built rapport by helping people find channels using his tool without directly selling, joined voice chats and silently screen-shared while using the MVP—people organically asked 'what are you using?'
Formalized the Atlassian User Group program after noticing customers self-organizing meetups, providing seed funding and autonomy to community leaders, treating early developer users as co-creators of the product ecosystem
Released open-source Starter Kit on GitHub and built in-house community instead of Discord, treating early users as co-creators