Episode 51
· 31:45
If you look at all the marketing texts, they have things like an hour after someone signs up, you should send them an email because they might have signed up and forgotten about your tool. That doesn't work with developers. They're just annoyed that you emailed them twice within the hour, like once for signing up and then a little later for, hey. Do you still remember me?
Jack Bridger:Hi, everyone. You're listening to Scaling Dev Tools, the show that investigates how dev tools go from 0 to 1. I'm joined today by Kilian Valkov, who is the founder of Polypane. Polypane is the browser for ambitious web developers. Kilian, could you tell us a bit about what that means, ambitious web developers?
Kilian:Yeah. So Polypane is a browser that, that I originally created to help me with, like essentially just responsive design. Like the whole idea of the prototype was it feels stupid to resize my browser all the time. So what if I didn't have to resize my browser all the time? But since then, it has really grown into an app that still deals with responsive design, but also with, like, different media queries, like developing for dark mode and light mode, for reduced motion, forced colors, etcetera, for accessibility testing, to make sure you have the right color contrast, the right site structure, the right meta tags, and like just general quality, like web vitals, HTML validation, stuff like that.
Kilian:So it really, nowadays, is a is a tool for everything related to building really good websites. And, you know, that's what ambitious web developers wanna do. They they always wanna be or get the most out of the work they do, and Polypane really helps with that.
Jack Bridger:Yeah. And it's, it makes so much sense when you think about it. It's like everyone building websites is using their browser all day long, and yet using a tool that's not designed with developers in mind so much, primarily designed for, you know, Internet users rather than the people making the websites. So
Kilian:Yeah. Definitely.
Jack Bridger:And you're a 100% bootstrapped as well. Right?
Kilian:I'm I'm a 100% bootstrapped. Yes.
Jack Bridger:Yes. Amazing. So everyone go support Killian, on this journey. Go get Polypane. Killian, so today we're gonna dive into onboarding, particularly onboarding developers, because I know that's something that you have a lot of expertise in and that you've spent a lot of time thinking about.
Jack Bridger:So I wondered if you could maybe introduce us to the journey that you went on in terms of, learning how to onboard developers.
Kilian:Yeah, absolutely. So, my journey is as follows: I did everything wrong and now it kind of works. So that the neat thing about developers is that they're very aware of like when they're being marketed to, but also when what day wants and what's like the app or the the the, company wants don't align. And that makes sense because like all the companies lie to them and they know better. You know this, I know this.
Kilian:Whenever like you have to deal with some organization and they're like: I'm sorry the system won't let me do that. They're like: that's not how it works. So, so, Yeah, they're like hypersensitive to the truth in a way. And that also goes back to like literally every tool out there promises developers they'll be like 10 times more productive. And that's just never true.
Kilian:So whenever we as developers see that, we like automatically dismiss it. So those are all things that you don't have to explain to developers. But if you're like me and you need to, for better or worse, market an app, what you're gonna do is like listen to all the marketing experts. And and do as they say because, you know, they're they're the experts. So that's that's what I did with my initial onboarding.
Kilian:Specifically talking about like the email onboarding flow. And we can talk about like in app onboarding, a little later. But like if you look at all the marketing texts for how should your email onboarding flow look. They have things like: An hour after someone signs up, you should send them an email because they might have signed up and forgotten about your tool. That doesn't work with developers.
Kilian:They're just annoyed that you email them twice within the hour. Like once for signing up and then a little later for: Hey, do you still remember me? Also things like, you know, you have to keep emailing them throughout their trial period, which Polypane has a has a 2 week trial period. And, you know, you have to keep mailing them like at least once every 2 days so they don't forget that you exist. Which again, I'm sure it works for a lot of tools.
Kilian:But it just ends up being very annoying if people are engaged anyway. Or if they, you know, don't suffer from short term memory loss, And they know what they did 2 days ago. Which all makes sense if you say it out loud, but I still had to discover that on my own through many annoyed emails from many developers. But Yeah. So that that's just like a journey that you have to go through.
Kilian:And I figured, you know, it's better to start with, like, the default. What's most marketing experts say, like, this is the type of email flow you should use. And then just essentially what happens was, like, cutting off of it and ending up with something decent. So that's that's what I've been doing. Then in terms of, like, the contents of those emails, there's really there's 2 types of emails I I sent during the trial.
Kilian:One is sort of like state status updates. Like, you're halfway through the trial. You have a few days left. And then the other is information gathering, which is where most of, like, the useful feedback comes from. Like, how are things going?
Kilian:Like, after a few days, send an email. You've been using Polypane for a few days now. Can you let me know what you like, what you don't like? Really helps me out. And I get a ton of feedback on that, and that's super high value.
Kilian:But then also, after the trial ends and people, don't convert, I sent them an email asking, like, essentially why? And that really helps as well, because it it gives people, like the opportunity to either explain or ask for a retrial, which happens a lot as well, because, you know, life happens. Frequently people get a polypaint trial and then they think, no, I'm gonna work on this project, but then it ends up they have to work on another project that they can't use polypaint for. And then before you know it the trial is over. And this email really gives them the opportunity to say: Oh, can I please Or not please?
Kilian:Can I can I give it another go? And then we can, you know, we can make that happen, and get people engaged that way.
Jack Bridger:Yeah. These are amazing insights. And if we were to, like, dig in and you kind of covered it, but what what is the difference between, the email that comes in that says, like, I'm still here. I don't know what the suggested thing was. Maybe, like, the emails I get a lot are like, here are 5, you know, I'm your customer success rep.
Jack Bridger:Like, here are 5 tips for using our tool. Like, how why do you think, that is, like, different to the kind of, like, your the update that you send where it's, like, maybe that's, like, halfway? Because it seems like there is a big difference, but Mhmm. What do you think that is?
Kilian:So one of the things I very purposely don't do is, they're not like very well designed emails. They're very simple because very well designed emails, if you receive them for a trial, they feel like work. Like if you have like a very fancy email with like a header and then like there's the face of your customer rep and it's all, like, neatly designed. It feels like work. Yeah.
Kilian:Whereas that email shouldn't be the work. Like, trying the app should be the work. So I I do send, like, we we can go through it. I'm I'm happy to share, like, my my secret sauce. Like, one day after people sign up, I send an email titled how to get the best out of your Polypaint trial.
Kilian:And that does send them to, like, a few pages. It points them out to the, like, the getting started tutorial in the app. And then also points them to a video of me going through that tutorial. So they have, like, 2 ways. They can do it themselves or they can watch me do it.
Kilian:And that's just to make sure like they can find the documentation. They can they can, or they know that I think the getting started tutorial is important. Then a couple of days later, I sent them an email titled Quick Question, which is the one where it's like you've been using it for a few days. Let me know what you like and what you don't like. And all of these, they get sent from my personal email and replies end up in my regular inbox as well.
Kilian:So there's no, like, fancy logic or system or whatever. It's just I email you, you email me, which trips up a lot of developers as well. Like, most emails I get are like, I'm not sure you'll ever read this. And then I reply in 10 minutes and they're like, woah. But, yeah.
Kilian:I think that's important. Like, if if I'm going to email you then you should be able to email me as well and get a person. I think that's a fair deal. So I work hard on making good on that. So then, like, halfway, I sent them an email with, like, a customer testimonial, which is it's my most fluff email.
Kilian:But despite what I initially thought, like a lot of people really enjoy reading that and they really enjoy like figuring out how other people use BoyPay. So even though it it feels like the least useful one, it still does very well on, like, open rates and click through rates. And it really only links to that that user testimonial.
Jack Bridger:Could I could I just ask on that testimonial? Yeah. Sure. What what kind of is what is the testimonial? What is it?
Kilian:So I've done a bunch of case studies with, like, different companies, on, you know, how they use Polypane, what results they had, what they like. And then this is just one of them. And it's really like I just introduced the company, introduced the case study, and then link to it, and then tell them, like, if you have a similar story or if just if you're enjoying polypain, we'd love to hear that as well.
Jack Bridger:Interesting. And in the testimonial, did you kind of follow that sort of practice in the same way? Like, I know sometimes you read a testimonial and it feels like it's like, before I discovered this product, I was, like, on the street, all my dreams are broken, and then I discovered the product. And now I'm living in a palace and I drive a Ferrari. It's like
Kilian:So, all my case studies, I co write with the companies and I do try to stick to that pattern because it's a good pattern. Like you can't say that how things are going now is the right way if you can't compare it to something else, right? So for example, in in this particular use case or a case study, this company has, like a set number of tasks they do for each website each month. And they just ask their developer to do the same tasks with Chrome versus with Polypane and then time themselves. And then we talk about that.
Kilian:And it turns out that what takes 30 minutes in Chrome takes 6 minutes in Polypane.
Jack Bridger:Oh, my God. That is amazing. Yes. That's like such a good I I see why people like that. That's incredible.
Kilian:Yeah. And that's like I I didn't come up with that. I I wish I did but Yeah. Like the the company owner was just like, no. Let's let's just time it.
Kilian:Let's try it out. And then this was the result and now I get to tell people that this was the result.
Jack Bridger:Yeah. Like, how how much of the success of that do you think is the it it would be, like, relatively easy to, like, disprove in a sense. Like, I think, like, I feel like a developer could see that, and they'd be like, that would be so easy for me to go and check the I believe it, if you know what I mean. Like, it's like Yeah. Like, you couldn't say that unless it was true because it would be so easy for people to, like, go in and be like, well, clearly, that's that's, you know, that's not right.
Jack Bridger:It's, like, very visible in a sense.
Kilian:Yeah. Exactly. And and before that, I did have Like I experimented with a bunch of taglines and then one of them was like: Improve your workflow efficiency three times. Because there's other case studies where things,
Jack Bridger:you
Kilian:know, where they compare it and it went from an hour to 20 minutes, or like 3 weeks to 2 weeks or stuff like that. But like just that no one believes. Again, because all the tools tell you like you'll be 10 times more efficient. Yeah. And that never happens because that like even if you save time it just fills up with other stuff because of reasons in the tooling.
Kilian:So I never found that a super compelling argument. But what I do really like and what I think people respond to is like a real company really using the tool and talking about it. And of course, like, it's a case study on my website, so they're not going to be like negative about Polypane. Just that that would be really weird. But they're also not exaggerating.
Kilian:Because, you know, developers can smell that from a mile away. So it makes no sense to, like, try to deceive people, because as you say, like, they'll find out very quickly for themselves. So Yeah. Why bother?
Jack Bridger:Yeah. It's it's really interesting. Yeah.
Kilian:It it's still surprising to me that, people do really enjoy getting that email, like, from what I see, from the click throughs and the the open rates, etcetera. Then, 3 days before the trial ends, I sent them an email that they have 3 days left. So, if they still wanna check anything, make sure that that they do so within those 3 days. And, I also offer them, like, if you didn't have enough time to try polypane, just let me know and we can extend your trial. Like, that's it's that's never an an issue.
Kilian:But yeah. Like, really just that. Like, I don't wanna send overly long emails either, because I again, I don't want to receive overly long emails.
Jack Bridger:Yeah.
Kilian:And it's just like a a quick, you know, we're still here. If you still have this on your to do list, make sure to get around to it. Then I sent an email, like, if they have 24 hours left. And this is where this is my most sales y email, because, you know, this is where they decide whether or not to or maybe not decide, but where they have to convert to a subscription or not. So this is where I link them to an online ROI calculator, as well as like a template letter they can send to their manager.
Kilian:Just to make it easy for people to, you know, ask their employer for for a subscription, essentially. This is twofold. So for 1, you know, it it helps people get to that next step where they need to subscribe. But it also really helps developers realize that, right, I can ask my employer for a license rather than paying for it myself. Which a surprising number of developers don't realize that, like, their employer is going to look, at this and make a calculation.
Kilian:And that calculation, I think is very favorable to Polypane, because developers are expensive. So if they enjoy using Polypane and it saves them like minutes per month, then it already is a no brainer purchase for an employer. Whereas a developer themselves might compare it to like Spotify or Netflix, and then think well it's it's as expensive as Netflix or as expensive as Spotify. That sounds like a lot. Whereas an employer looks at it and thinks well it's as expensive as 10 minutes of this developer's time so why are we having this discussion?
Kilian:So that that email really helps. Then after the trials ended, I sent another email like your trials ended. Here's a link to get a subscription and and that's essentially it. I think. Let me just quickly check.
Kilian:Yeah. And then again, like always in the emails, like, if you have any questions, you know, this is by literal email. Just email me. And then the next two emails, I sent 2 weeks out and 3 weeks out. Like, 2 weeks out is, you know, I noticed you didn't get a license.
Kilian:If there was anything missing or it wasn't the right time, you know, can you let me know? Because it would really help me out. And then 3 weeks later, I sent an email just like a general one time email, like here's what's been happening in Polypane in the past few months or weeks. Do you wanna try it again with all the new features that we've added since?
Jack Bridger:Do you get much of a kind of take up on that?
Kilian:I I do get quite a lot of uptake on that. For one, like people are generally happy to say or to tell me why why they didn't convert or, what frequently happens as well, which is a good ego boost is that they say, you know, I converted but I just used my company email instead of this trial email that I that I used. Nice. And then, like, the other one, which is like, here's all the cool stuff we added. I get get a a fair amount of response on that as well with people saying like, yeah.
Kilian:I'll I'll I'll try it again. It wasn't the right time previously, but these features sound intriguing. Let me give it
Jack Bridger:a go. That's really, really cool. That's really cool. And do you think, like, the changes you made from where you started, is it like is it like a like an order of magnitude sort of better or is it like kind of
Kilian:Yes. And that's that's mostly because of the stuff I took out. So, like, an onboarding flow only works up to the point where people say unsubscribe, Like stop emailing me. Which I then do, of course. And so I've I've played around with the emails that I sent and also like when I sent them.
Kilian:Which in general for developers, I found that you need to send less email. No brainer. But also less frequently. So, you know, you don't need to email them every 2 days. They'll be fine.
Kilian:And then also the the the type of email I took out were, like, the, you know, poorly performing ones. So, I want one email, that was like, you know, do you want a personal demo of polypaint? Which like a lot of people recommend you do. Because you know, if you're in a conversation with your customer then you can upsell them. Whatever.
Kilian:But that's also just something that most developers really don't want. Like, no. I don't want to hear you talk about polypane for an hour. I have work to do. Leave me alone.
Kilian:So I tried that for a while. I think like a handful of people scheduled a demo and then like 1 or 2 actually showed up. So I took it out. And then that also helped with the rest of the emails because less people, tuned out. And then the other one that I took out was It was kind of the same as the case study email, just a little earlier.
Kilian:And it was like this appeal to authority, like a testimonial from like a couple of well known developers. And people also just didn't really like that, didn't really care. And it it also didn't feel very good. It was like appeal to authority type thing, which I think gets people in the door. If you're a developer tool, like, you know, this person uses it.
Kilian:I'll give it a go. But then once they give it a go they just want to, you know, see what the tool does for them and and not what the tool does for someone else. That's no longer relevant. Gets people in the door, I think. But after that, they don't really care about other people's opinion, of the app.
Kilian:So I took that out as well and then spread out the rest of the emails a little bit more.
Jack Bridger:Yeah. That makes sense. And I think this is just really, like, an amazing, like, deep dive into how to do email onboarding. I really feel like I've learned a lot in this. If you had to kind of recap, like, the main points that you learned, what would you say they were?
Kilian:I think the main point is if you're gonna send email, like, make sure that it's something that your audience can do something with. And that also means make it something that your audience doesn't have to immediately dismiss because it's, like, overly sales y, feels like work, comes from a no reply email address, or in other ways sounds and looks like, you know, this is just sending. It's not it's not trying to to do or be a conversation. So I I really see this onboarding as or the onboarding emails as like a two way street. Like, you're trying to evaluate Polypane, and I'm trying to help you with that.
Kilian:But then you as a developer can also help me in figuring out how to improve the app, how to make it work for you. So, you know, let's let's try and get get that going, rather than me pushing stuff onto you and you just, you know, receiving that.
Jack Bridger:Yeah. That's, that's really good. And, Kilian, I think that's all we've got time for today. This is certainly, like, one of the most educational episodes I think we've ever done. It's it's absolutely brilliant.
Jack Bridger:Really wanna do more of this. Where can people learn more, about Kilian and about, Polypane?
Kilian:Yeah. So, you can find polypane@polypane.app. There's a free trial. I'm gonna email you a couple of times but you can email me back. So it's all good.
Kilian:I have a personal blog at klianfalcove.com where I write mostly about HTML CSS JavaScript stuff, and and my opinions on that. Polypane is on Twitter at twitter.com/polypane. I'm on Twitter at twitter.com/kylianvalkov where it's more of the same essentially. So if that sounds interesting to you, come say hi.
Jack Bridger:Yeah. And I think everyone listening should just sign up for the trial anyway just to see your just to see your email chains. And have you written anything about this as well if anyone wants to reference?
Kilian:No. I I haven't. So the the way I write blog posts is it's something that really needs to interest me. And usually that's something technical. I don't think this is like the ultimate way to do developer marketing or developer onboarding or whatever.
Kilian:It's just what's worked best for me so far. So I I also don't feel like I can write a blog post and say like, this is the way you used to do it. Because no. There there's probably much, much better ways that I haven't discovered yet that other people know about that that I don't. So no.
Kilian:That's not really something I I enjoy writing about, so I I don't.
Jack Bridger:You enjoy talking about it on podcast though. Right? Just to share.
Kilian:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I like I I like sharing this stuff because it is complicated and I do spend a lot of time thinking about it. So I'm I'm I'm happy, like, to share that with other people, but I don't like the idea of, like, having to write, like, a guide for it or whatever.
Jack Bridger:Yeah. That's fair. Okay. Amazing. Well, thank you so much for joining, Killian.
Kilian:Thank you for having me.
Jack Bridger:Very welcome. Very welcome. Thanks everyone for listening, and see you again soon. Bye bye.
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