Episode 28
· 21:40
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 Ramiro Nunez Dosio, who is growth marketer at Supabase, and has previously worked as a marketer for ably and off 0, which may be familiar to you as they are also dev tools. I am actually a big fan of Supabase, and if I have to introduce Supabase, it is that it solves all the things that you have to do when you wanna get a project off the ground really quickly. It was previously that Firebase was the best way to do this for kinda getting your off and your database up and running really quickly.
Jack Bridger:And Superbase came along, and they addressed all the teething issues that Firebase had where you kinda get locked in. And they made an open source alternative that actually has, like, a a really strong foundation. So I'm using it in a project, and it's really great. So I am really excited to speak with you, Ramiro. Thanks so much for joining.
Ramiro Nuñez Dosio:Thanks a lot for the invitation. Happy to be here.
Jack Bridger:Ramiro, Supabase is arguably, like, the hottest dev tool right now. So I just wondered what your marketing approach is.
Ramiro Nuñez Dosio:Yeah. In some ways, like, we don't do the usual marketing that you see out there. We have a a different approach that is sometimes just showing and promoting, like, the developer culture just like I'm building the brand. Well, with that, right, we care about getting in touch and, like, connecting with developers. And because, like, the pro loop is used can be used by any type of developer.
Ramiro Nuñez Dosio:Right? You see that there's web developers looking to not think about the back end, maybe the majority, but super base being built in by with open source tools. Now you can use any, side of the product anywhere. So, yeah, like, it's kind of like an open way of getting to them. And, yes, of course, we also talk about our features and integrations, but that's not the main way of doing it.
Ramiro Nuñez Dosio:Right? Like, we don't start by that. What we are doing also is building a brand, which is sometimes something, like, very overlooked in this industry. Sometimes, you know, like, people just go for, like, more, like, direct approaches or growing quickly, and they forget about what matters, which is, like, building a brand, having a great product with a big focus on developer experience. Another two key things from SuperBase is something that I always preach and is having your the founders involved in, you know, building community and in marketing, from the start.
Ramiro Nuñez Dosio:So you can see that with a couple, Anant, the CEO and CTO and cofounders, you know, like, talking with developers, listening to their feedback, answering support tickets, engaging with the community. Yeah. Like, if something is not working, they're going to be there, acknowledging the error. So it's something very important. Being active on social media.
Ramiro Nuñez Dosio:Right? Like, it's very important nowadays and especially for the founders. I saw this also. It's a really cool story, like, with Auth0's CTO and cofounder, Matias Woloski. Yeah.
Ramiro Nuñez Dosio:Like, he was always there, right, like, getting customer feedback, doing, like, user research on Twitter, just, like, acknowledging the feedback, saying, like, yeah, once something was working, was not working. Right? Like, trying to fix that. And this was from the early days till now. So he was there from the beginning, right, like, working closely with the community, providing feedback.
Ramiro Nuñez Dosio:And you could even see it in the, last few months. Salio CEO had a downtime, like, a couple of months ago, like, really long downtime. And you could see him answering on Twitter to each of the complaints saying, sorry about this. We're working hard on fixing. I'll keep you updated.
Ramiro Nuñez Dosio:And we are talking about a CTO with a 6,500,000,000 exit, right, who's, like, deeply cares about developers and the users and just, like, was there while trying to fix the problem. So, yeah, that's, like, what I mean by having the founders involved deeply in community building marketing. Another thing that we do really well is listening and engaging. Yeah. We we Supabase is a product built with open source technologies.
Ramiro Nuñez Dosio:Right, so, like, we give a voice to anyone that is building on top of Supabase or using war using one of our features, and we boost. Right? Like, we we see, like, people coming to us and then, you know, like, tell what they're building, and we help amplify that message.
Jack Bridger:And that kinda ties in with this very surprising fact that you are the only full time marketer at Superbase.
Ramiro Nuñez Dosio:Yeah. So I'm the 1st marketing hire. I'm the only one at the moment. I just want to say that I'm the only full marketer. Right?
Ramiro Nuñez Dosio:Like, because, well, everyone does marketing in the company. We have a dev real team with the for people. The founders, again, are very, important in our marketing and and everyone in the company. So, like, for launch weeks, we have our engineers writing blog posts, documentation, participating in the live streams, in the Twitter spaces, so everyone does their part.
Jack Bridger:Yeah. And that kinda ties again onto the launch weeks, which are a very interesting way of doing marketing. I think Paul was saying that you only do marketing during launch weeks, and then it's like you don't do any marketing in between, or at least that's what he spends his time on.
Ramiro Nuñez Dosio:Yeah. Launch weeks, it's it's pretty crazy. Right? Like, they have become a phenomenon, and they're deeply tied on how we ship products. You know, they set up the way we we ship, the the time frames.
Ramiro Nuñez Dosio:One thing also is that we're con constantly shipping. It's not just launch weeks. We are always, you know, like, doing announcement. We're releasing new things. We also believe in launching several times.
Ramiro Nuñez Dosio:Right? I've been learning also that approach of, like, you know, like, launching something several times or not waiting till the it's, like, in the perfect shape to do it. So you can see that, you know, sometimes we do, yeah, beta, then they fully release. We also gather user feedback in in the meantime so we can improve the feature or product. But, but, yeah, like, and that's, like, one of the things we do between launch weeks.
Ramiro Nuñez Dosio:Right? Like, really focus on feedback and getting the the features ready. And then with launch weeks, we focus on top of the funnel and, marketing them hard and getting as new as possible, while also, you know, providing the news to our existing users and community.
Jack Bridger:One of the things that I imagine must be really hard is when everyone's talking about Supabase and and you do it things are going so well, how do you kinda keep focus when you hear so much positive feedback in the community?
Ramiro Nuñez Dosio:At the moment, regarding success, one of the things, we are focusing is on, adoption. Right? So, like, we are bringing a lot of new users all the time, but, we want to help people build fast and, you know, get the the products, to market as quickly as possible. So one of the things one of our most important metrics is, like, weekly active databases. That's doing really well.
Ramiro Nuñez Dosio:So, like, people, they don't just sign up, but they also use Tbate, SuperBase, users using production. And, of course, that we also want to build a sustainable business. Hosting, 200 50 k databases is is is not cheap, so we are supposed to look at revenue.
Jack Bridger:I think Anne sends you an email maybe automatically when you don't use your database.
Ramiro Nuñez Dosio:Yeah. So, at the moment, yeah, like, we put the database to sleep if there's no use. Right? Because it has a cost infrastructure. It's not cheap.
Jack Bridger:It kind of kick starts me to, like, oh, I really should get back on that personal project, though.
Ramiro Nuñez Dosio:Yeah. It it it also has, right, as a growth tactic, right, to get people back in it. So, yeah, it works in in in many ways. Like, you we nudge people to, like, remember we're here, continue working your project.
Jack Bridger:I know that one of the things that is your kind of your specialty, right, is working with DevRel teams.
Ramiro Nuñez Dosio:Yeah. So I've been doing this for many years. I think that, yeah, that's, like, one of the things I'm, yeah, I like doing the most. And, thankfully, I like I'm good at doing it, which is, yeah, helping, several teams embrace marketing in some way, whether it is from, like, the process point of view or kind of improving, having a better understanding on what we have to do, why, how to measure, tackling the goals that the business, needs. So, yeah, I work with them in creating more, like, targeted content or more being more strategic about what we should talk about, how to create content, how to distribute it.
Ramiro Nuñez Dosio:That's also the thing I'm very passionate about, content distribution. And, and, yeah, all with, you know, finding the balance. Right? Because me not being a technical person. Right?
Ramiro Nuñez Dosio:Like, I I work with them on getting that technical knowledge and, you know, like yeah. Like, for example, propose content creation process. You know, like, I've introduced too many several teams to the brief and outline the steps that are key for content creation and help, you know, improve the creation and the the effect, the results of the content.
Jack Bridger:So you you mentioned there about, like, kind of the process and, like, briefs and stuff. Are there any other areas that you, like, see when kind of marketers are working with DevRel that, like, could be done better, like, quite frequently?
Ramiro Nuñez Dosio:Yeah. So distribution is 1. Right? Like, distribution is super important. It's not just about, like, creating content, but also making sure it's seen by the right people.
Ramiro Nuñez Dosio:So distribution process, also, it's, it's key. And working with them also, like, identifying places to distribute where it's, like, communities, newsletters, you know, like, Discord groups. Also and also reusing content, right, and repurposing. That's also you could see that inside distribution, right, like, the content repurposing. But, yeah, just like not just do something and let it there, but also see, like, how we can reap more benefits, more uses, where it's a video into other formats or a topic itself.
Ramiro Nuñez Dosio:Right? Sometimes it happens that the real person will acquire knowledge of a topic, right, to create a video or a blog post. If that's successful, we should continue tackling that. Right? We should put that knowledge to good use or, you know, continue delving into other areas of that topic, just reusing and repurposing that in our formats, identifying the topics that we should, also, like, talk about something I do, right, whereas by, you know, like frameworks, for example, in time, which which ecosystem should we focus.
Ramiro Nuñez Dosio:Right? Like, which, like, programming language should we do? Sometimes it's, like, you know, from the content point of view, but also, you know, from the product. Right? Like, should we build integration with this new tool, or is there a framework now you know that, like, we should focus on where is this from the community point of view, where is from, like, it's gonna bring revenue, how our product works with that framework.
Ramiro Nuñez Dosio:That's something I also, like, really enjoy in doing.
Jack Bridger:I guess that sounds like there's so many kind of moving parts, especially when you start thinking about the product strategy. So I suppose is it, like, something that you decide together with the founders and with the DevRel team? Or
Ramiro Nuñez Dosio:I have, like, a process, right, like, for identifying from, like, several aspects, right, of, like, where to focus, like, where, for example, you know, if the new SDK need to be built or, you know, like, sometimes you you're not just gonna go and build 1 just because of right? Like, a good tactic is just starting by generating some content to validate, that the users, you know, are enjoying and then are going to on that content, you know, sign up and use the your product. And then also, right, like, that our product works well with that, framework or tool that we want to to focus more. And in that aspect, you work with, like, founders or, you know, the product team. These are done in in our companies, not currently at SuperBase.
Ramiro Nuñez Dosio:But yeah.
Jack Bridger:Yeah. That's super interesting, actually, because it sounds like you're kind of validating the product side of things with the marketing.
Ramiro Nuñez Dosio:Yeah. You use even, like, things like SEO. Right? Is there an SEO, like or is there, like, search search can be, right, like, a number that you put? Is there, like, yeah, how big the community is?
Ramiro Nuñez Dosio:Yeah. Inably, we're, like, looking into, which frameworks, we should focus. And then let's does this framework have, like, a, at least, like, a real time provider? It's like, does this framework have something with real time? Right?
Ramiro Nuñez Dosio:Like, we would be competing with something inside the same ecosystem. What is already there. Right? Like, we don't which other products similar products or, like, competitors already focusing this ecosystem.
Jack Bridger:It sounds like this is, like, really hard stuff. Like, this is not easy work. How do you kind of measure, like, the success on something like that when it has so many kind of moving parts?
Ramiro Nuñez Dosio:Yeah. That's a very good question. Right? Well, it's important to set up, you know, like, metrics, KPIs in the beginning and, you know, actually report on them on a on a certain period. Yeah.
Ramiro Nuñez Dosio:And just like, you know, I think one of the things is just when you decide on what you're gonna track, what which is the success criteria. Right? Like, really go hard into that and use it also to focus. It gets harder, right, like, when you also want to align that with the business needs, something else, just defining the success. Right?
Ramiro Nuñez Dosio:It's the same with the an experiment. Right? Like, it's about saying, okay. How hypothesis? How is this gonna work?
Ramiro Nuñez Dosio:Set up metrics to measure, and then see what happens and iterate to get closer to those metrics.
Jack Bridger:One thing I wanted to circle back on just because it's something that I find really difficult even with the scaling DevTools podcast is, like, how to distribute content. And a lot of what I find is, like, kind of engaging in communities. If you just do, like, a kind of hit and run, like, here's my stuff. Like, hi, everyone. I've never spoken and engaged with.
Jack Bridger:Here's my stuff. It just usually just bombs, and maybe you kind of create a negative effect. But then engaging with these things takes time, so it's like, how do you do it?
Ramiro Nuñez Dosio:Yeah. It's tricky. One of the things is when you do a long term plan. Right? So for example, with Superbase, you know, Next.
Ramiro Nuñez Dosio:Js. Right? Like, it's something that is not a a onetime thing. Right? Like, and we have, like, in, like, Deborah's specialized or also spelled.
Ramiro Nuñez Dosio:Right? We have one of our Deborah's Andrew silent works. He's the spelled, Deborah. So, you know, like, by having him promoting the content, going to these communities, going to these, like, forums, whether it's Reddit, or Slack, you know, is different because, like, he's not going to do just that just once, but it's going to be continuous. Right?
Ramiro Nuñez Dosio:And that's also, again, when the focus or, you know, or, like, sometimes, you know, having the long term into into something, right, like base. Another thing yeah. Sometimes it's better to use, like, for the darils to do the the distribution. Right? Like, and help as much as possible because they are, like, the the public faces, like, building their brand with the communities, with the, ecosystems.
Ramiro Nuñez Dosio:Right? Like, it also helps to get a better reception of this promotion.
Jack Bridger:Yeah. So it's like you're not just doing these short term fine things. You're, like, picking your focus areas, and you're, like, doing the hard stuff, which is, like, having dev rel teams. And
Ramiro Nuñez Dosio:And and it depends on each company, each product. Right? Like, Superbase, again, it's, we can write content about whatever, basically, because we do so many things, and it can be used by so many people. But, yeah, like, on the content side of things, right, they're we're focusing on web developers at the moment. And, you know, we have, like, these, like, 5 communities or ecosystems, frameworks, however you want to call them, that, yeah, like, we are active in, right, like, by creating content, by help helping them.
Ramiro Nuñez Dosio:Right?
Jack Bridger:When you say focus on web developers, I know for Firebase, like, one of I mean, I used Firebase with a mobile app, and I know it was, like, a really big kind of, like, weigh in for them. Is it something that you've, like, purposely, like, spent less, like, marketing attention on? Or so, like, mobile developers?
Ramiro Nuñez Dosio:Yeah. No. Like, no. Because, like, one of our strongest and the one we're focusing the most is Flutter. But, and even other being the Google framework, Firebase, we're seeing huge reception and, like, if our developers love Superbase.
Ramiro Nuñez Dosio:I guess, also, again, the the focus thing is about how you structure the team. And, again, right, like, we have a DevRel, Flutter DevRel, Tyler, who is great. Like, he's a machine. Knows a lot about Flutter, like, loves being active. The content he creates is great.
Ramiro Nuñez Dosio:Super you know, like, I was, like, looking to help the community. And, yeah, he's doing really well. Like, we just moved our Flutter SDK, to be, like, fully supported. We released the v one, and people are loving it. Yeah.
Ramiro Nuñez Dosio:We see a lot of flower products building integrations with Supabase, because of that. And even we have, like, this case of things flower flow, like, this product that we want the super base integration. They have a firebase, but they've been, you know, in social media in the last weeks months. Like, we want, super base.
Jack Bridger:That's really cool. So one last question, Ramiro. I saw that you're, like, huge on Twitter, and that seems to be, like, a massive focus. But then, like, TikTok and stuff like that, I think you're, like, less of a focus on, and I just wondered, like, how do you think about channels and, like, where to reach developers as someone that's currently trying to do some stuff on TikTok as well.
Ramiro Nuñez Dosio:Yeah. So you're right about the focus. So being the only pure marketeer, right, and, where the real the real team also, you know, been involved in parts of the product, Like, for example, you know, the auth helpers, integrations. So we can tackle everything as we would like. So we double down on Twitter and YouTube and Hacker News because they're, like, really effective, for us as a channel.
Ramiro Nuñez Dosio:But we are definitely, open to expanding to our channels if we had the right people, if we can find the right people. So, like, if, anyone is listening and, you know, you're a creative person and you want you like to come and run our TikTok and Instagram accounts, get in touch because we'd love to chat about this. You'll get the opportunity to do creative things with a very cool product and a very, like, very engaging community.
Jack Bridger:That would be a cool job.
Ramiro Nuñez Dosio:Yeah.
Jack Bridger:Ramiro, I think that's all we've got time for now. That was super fun. Thank you so much for your time. Where can people learn more about Ramiro and about Supabase if they're interested?
Ramiro Nuñez Dosio:So Supabase, of course, at Supabase on on Twitter or in YouTube. We're very active on Twitter, as you know. And myself, yeah, you can follow me on Twitter, ramiro n g. Also, add me on LinkedIn. I'm always happy to chat with anyone about, marketing, developer marketing.
Ramiro Nuñez Dosio:I'm I'm very lucky to not to call this my passion, not only my my my works.
Jack Bridger:So we we want passionate DevTool lovers on the podcast. Thanks so much. And thanks everyone for listening, and we'll see you again next week.
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