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Summary

The Crossing the Enterprise Chasm podcast discusses the success of WorkOS, a platform for building a successful company. The success of the app, AI, has led to a better product for developers, and the importance of product market fit is crucial for building a successful company. The importance of building a strong brand and early stage marketing teams is emphasized, and the importance of finding the right people to hire and building a core ecosystem is emphasized. The importance of early stage marketing teams and finding the right people to hire is emphasized, and the importance of building a core ecosystem is emphasized.

Topics
.topic
Software start-ups (0.1818927), Enterprise customers (0.46203843)
.text
Welcome to Crossing the Enterprise Chasm, a podcast about software start ups and their journey moving upmarket to serving enterprise customers.
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1
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21

.topic
Workos (0.46415615)
.text
I'm the founder of WorkOS, which is a platform that helps developers quickly ship common enterprise features like single sign on. On this podcast, you'll hear directly from founders, product leaders, and early stage operators who have navigated building great products for enterprise customers. In every episode, you'll find strategies, tactics, and real world advice for ways to make your app enterprise ready and take your business to the next level.
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26
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96

.topic
Marketing to developers (0.11637)
.text
We're delighted to have her here on the podcast to chat about a particular area of her expert ex expertise, marketing to developers.
.start_word
150
.end_word
172

.topic
Developer relations (0.42263317), Api integration (0.21139933)
.text
I was doing developer relations for Box, trying to get people to build with the API, which didn't really make sense because I'm not an engineer, but I was able to because the API was straightforward enough, so props to box.
.start_word
363
.end_word
403

.topic
Mobile ecosystem (0.24870476)
.text
And was, like, had this idea for this mobile ecosystem, and I got to go and build it with them. So it was really fun. I just literally was, like, scouring the app store and emailing cold emailing all of these people who are building these apps in the productivity and, like, sort of business space.
.start_word
438
.end_word
493

.topic
Platforms (0.39001444)
.text
I I know platforms are kinda always the hot thing. Everyone wants to be a platform, so everyone wants to do it. But why did you know it was the right time to do it for Box? So platforms always were the hot thing, but I've worked with a lot of companies since then launching their ecosystems, like getting their platforms together.
.start_word
658
.end_word
719

.topic
Adi development (0.00011196902)
.text
2, we mobile was the Wild West at this point. So it's sort of like, I would say, AI is right now where, like, everyone's just scrambling to build to figure out where the little growth angle is going to be that's going to make them into a big company by building with this new technology.
.start_word
874
.end_word
929

.topic
New technology (0.015145802)
.text
So it's sort of like, I would say, AI is right now where, like, everyone's just scrambling to build to figure out where the little growth angle is going to be that's going to make them into a big company by building with this new technology.
.start_word
884
.end_word
929

.topic
Files on mobile (0.17401023)
.text
So there was this question of, like, how are files gonna move on mobile, and how is mobile gonna play out? Maybe remember paper?
.start_word
938
.end_word
961

.topic
Mobile app (0.60940164)
.text
They ended up, you know, selling to the New York Times. It didn't end up being a huge outcome, but everyone thought that, like, that was going to be the future. It's like you're building on iPads, and it was really, really cool. So there was also this this moment of hype around mobile and lots of opportunities, so people were very willing to work together.
.start_word
1000
.end_word
1065

.topic
Api development (0.07563245), Ai development (0.051892783)
.text
So it was really fun, and there was a lot of, like, greenfield for exploring how to take an API that was about moving files around securely and applying that to mobile, which then changed over time as the operating system kinda, like, got everything locked down.
.start_word
1143
.end_word
1189

.topic
Platform growth (0.16717291)
.text
You have to like, if you're going to be a really cutting edge winning company built on top of a platform platform with an ecosystem like that, you kinda always have to be, like, seeing and trying to find out where they're going to cannibalize your business eventually and building ahead of it.
.start_word
1474
.end_word
1526

.topic
Slack (0.32545972)
.text
And we thought a lot about this at Slack because we didn't want to offend our ecosystem at all, or, like, really destroy them. So we would do a lot to basically communicate in advance if we were going to add features, which we obviously did. Like, look at all the features Slack has now that would, sort of directly impact or compete with our ecosystem.
.start_word
1528
.end_word
1593

.topic
One-to-one outreach (0.29098973)
.text
And I think that just doing that, like, sort of one to one outreach or even group outreach was it did a lot to help the ecosystem stay healthy.
.start_word
1593
.end_word
1621

.topic
Marketing motion (0.29602805)
.text
What was the, you know, marketing motion there? How how is that different or similar to Box? Can you talk about that?
.start_word
1654
.end_word
1675

.topic
Product market fit (0.29519156)
.text
So one of the biggest things I I observed, especially in developer marketing, is you can out market especially products that you're trying to bring to, in, like, a sales led world.
.start_word
1861
.end_word
1892

.topic
Influencers (0.14762338)
.text
And you can often out market things in a very consumer oriented world by, like, having influencers push stuff and things like that.
.start_word
1893
.end_word
1915

.topic
Bs filter (0.06955181)
.text
But with developer products, there's just a different level of BS filter, I would say.
.start_word
1917
.end_word
1931

.topic
Developer products (0.953197)
.text
But with developer products, there's just a different level of BS filter, I would say. I don't know if you feel that. Do you feel that in your world?
.start_word
1917
.end_word
1945

.topic
Developer audience (0.55350184)
.text
And I actually really love that about the developer audience. There's, like, more discernment there. So you it's pretty hard to beat product market fit.
.start_word
1988
.end_word
2012

.topic
Product market fit (0.8043821)
.text
So you it's pretty hard to beat product market fit.
.start_word
2003
.end_word
2012

.topic
Growth management (0.40030578)
.text
And we're basically managing growth, I would say, at Slack.
.start_word
2143
.end_word
2152

.topic
Developer marketing (0.43872595)
.text
And then a lot of the stuff I think we did well in terms of developer marketing was, I mean, one, we just had a really high bar for how we marketed and, like, the way we used words and what we would do. We were really equipped to do awesome events and, like, sort of just bring a craftsmanship to the work that was really fun that I think people resonated with.
.start_word
2153
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2225

.topic
Embedded events (0.050323676)
.text
We were really equipped to do awesome events and, like, sort of just bring a craftsmanship to the work that was really fun that I think people resonated with.
.start_word
2197
.end_word
2225

.topic
Ecosystem (0.0068032146)
.text
I still know the ecosystem pretty well. Like, get, you know, lots of work through that ecosystem well still. So I think there was also a lot of personal touch that we did that made a big difference in terms of how we worked with, the ecosystem overall.
.start_word
2250
.end_word
2297

.topic
Personal touch (0.91254383)
.text
So I think there was also a lot of personal touch that we did that made a big difference in terms of how we worked with, the ecosystem overall.
.start_word
2269
.end_word
2297

.topic
Developer communication (0.32023865)
.text
There's, like, a lot of basic tooling stuff I could talk about with, like, just opening up developer communications was a really big deal when I joined.
.start_word
2299
.end_word
2325

.topic
Marketing strategies (0.34371287)
.text
I think a lot of it has to do with how you talk to developers, and that's, like, a lot of what I learned there and then had to teach the team, in terms of, like, you can't just cut the fluff, cut the marketing stuff, get to the meat, and get it across.
.start_word
2356
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2409

.topic
Product market fit (0.9673009)
.text
Let's talk about that a little bit more because I think, you know, you're totally right that that product market fit that Slack had really propelled the company.
.start_word
2410
.end_word
2437

.topic
Voice to developers (0.051345024)
.text
That's a great way to market our voice to developers and, maybe what should they stay away from or common pitfalls that you see the, you know, un indoctrinated, make as they as they try this.
.start_word
2590
.end_word
2625

.topic
Developer marketing (0.15631855), Developer marketing (0.90037316), Developer marketing (0.32380697), B to b marketing (0.9499543), Developer marketing (0.09474459), Marketing (0.24140978), Marketing (0.11993152)
.text
The I don't wanna sound too mean, but the first one I see is that you take someone who does, like, classic b to b marketing and then you plug them into developer marketing, and they're just using the language of b to b marketing with the developer audience.
.start_word
2673
.end_word
2721

.topic
Marketing 101 (0.05337857)
.text
And this is, like, such basic marketing 101, but there's a understanding of who is your target user or, like, your persona.
.start_word
2721
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2742

.topic
Cto (0.35326627)
.text
So I'm getting into, like, fractional CMO right now. It's really fun, and I love working with our CTO at this company because we'll work on some stuff, and then he'll look at it and he'll be like, ugh. I hate this.
.start_word
2758
.end_word
2799

.topic
Innovation (0.006466653)
.text
And developers, like we were saying, there's just this desire for things to be very honest and maybe even a little bit humble in the way they're stated because when you're building software, you are building, like, net new things, and there are things that are really impressive and cool.
.start_word
2806
.end_word
2855

.topic
Api (0.043580655)
.text
And it's easy as a marketer to be like, oh, I'm charged with trying to make people excited about this feature of the API.
.start_word
2865
.end_word
2888

.topic
Technical marketing (0.4066488)
.text
It's really hard to find real technical marketers, obviously. Like, usually, people who go into marketing are not technical or technical people stay in technical roles.
.start_word
3118
.end_word
3143

.topic
Developer products (0.10098075)
.text
And with developer products, you know, these these iconic products that developers are drawn or drawn towards, you know, like Stripe brand is such a huge part of it.
.start_word
3303
.end_word
3331

.topic
Platform building (0.632643)
.text
How does it fit into kind of that, like, developer angle and the kind of platform building narrative?
.start_word
3349
.end_word
3366

.topic
Working with founders (0.08857773)
.text
I really hope that for these types of companies, a lot of it is just determined by the founders.
.start_word
3386
.end_word
3404

.topic
Product design (0.053113647)
.text
I really hope that for these types of companies, a lot of it is just determined by the founders. And I think I would actually point to that for WorkOS. I feel like you have a very strong perspective on, like, how the branch should look and feel, how the API should work, like, how your product should really work for people, and that impacts how it literally looks and feels.
.start_word
3386
.end_word
3456

.topic
Brand experience (0.09017282)
.text
But I actually think a lot of the brand experience that developers care about is literally the ease of use of the API or, like, the ease of use of the of the different products or, like, how great the examples are, in the SDK. I think that's a huge part and and a way more important part of the brand experience for developer products.
.start_word
3650
.end_word
3714

.topic
Brand experiences (0.7872807)
.text
So I think that actually the docs are one of your most important brand experiences, and I think a lot of this comes to your CEO or, like, the founder DNA and, like, the feel the founders wanna get across in the company.
.start_word
3761
.end_word
3803

.topic
Marketer success (0.0021341885)
.text
I have not seen a lot of marketers successfully, like, get around, CEOs who have strong feelings like that.
.start_word
3803
.end_word
3821

.topic
Customer support (0.2305839)
.text
Every single customer support message trying to make it on point. It's it's not just the gradients on your home page or the color of your logo.
.start_word
3986
.end_word
4012

.topic
Slack training (0.3053095)
.text
This is like a little inside Slack story. So hard to train marketers in Slack's voice and tone.
.start_word
4094
.end_word
4111

.topic
Slack's voice and tone (0.4434939), Slack's support for developers and ecosystems (0.00038861256)
.text
It's it was almost impossible because people would always come in and be like, oh, Slack's voice and tone is so playful and fun, and then try to replicate it and then just sound really hokey and, like, lame.
.start_word
4113
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4151

.topic
Calyxt's focus on development platforms and ecosystems (0.013739409), Calyxt's focus on developers and ecosystems (0.012382573)
.text
I wanna switch gears a little bit and talk about what you've been doing since Slack, with Calyxt, which is, I think generally focused on helping companies that are building platforms navigate this, whether those are developer platforms or ecosystems or or just ways of working with other other companies.
.start_word
4259
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4308

.topic
Platform product (0.9767083), Measuring value (0.09209153)
.text
You've built a true platform product when the value of the things built on top of it in sum is greater than the platform itself.
.start_word
4481
.end_word
4505

.topic
Dev tools (0.68126965)
.text
And then when it comes to dev tools, I actually think it's totally cool to be a really useful tool, and you can make lots of money that way and have a really good business.
.start_word
4571
.end_word
4605

.topic
Go to market philosophy (0.8306568)
.text
Well, I wanna also ask about something you've written about, which is your go to market philosophy. You have this this approach to it, these, like, seven principles.
.start_word
4613
.end_word
4640

.topic
Five principles (0.0019850582)
.text
You have this this approach to it, these, like, seven principles. Can you give us a quick summary of that? Like, what's what's across the seven principles, the seven points, and maybe a little bit of color around it? Like, what are your your favorite ones or what's not been you know, what what do people not usually adopt or recognize? Yeah.
.start_word
4630
.end_word
4691

.topic
Platform development (0.11557995), Economic integration (0.0011999641)
.text
The first value prop is you can make a lot of money with this platform or built or by building on top of it.
.start_word
4868
.end_word
4891

.topic
User engagement (0.33718383)
.text
2nd one is you can get a lot of users, which usually translates to money.
.start_word
4891
.end_word
4905

.topic
Sustainable development (0.38198382)
.text
But if you're really trying to build a great platform, you need to treat your developers well to keep them around and to make it sustainable.
.start_word
4985
.end_word
5010

.topic
Enmeshed ecosystem (0.000009412933)
.text
The term ecosystem comes from, like, the outside kind of ecosystem where you have a pond and a bunch of stuff is, like, dying within the pond, and there are a bunch of animals and bacteria that are eating that, and then growing up and other things are gonna eat those. It's messy.
.start_word
5067
.end_word
5119

.topic
Developer product (0.19622426)
.text
And I think the ones that are, like, most important, the developers being first class citizens one, if your product is not a developer product, gets missed a lot.
.start_word
5246
.end_word
5274

.topic
Early stage founders (0.047834743)
.text
What advice would you give out to an early stage founder, maybe looking to build that initial go to market team or go to market motion?
.start_word
5372
.end_word
5397

.topic
Content teams (0.0033911723)
.text
And then you hire this, like, stand alone content person who is disconnected from anything else you're already doing. That just doesn't work.
.start_word
5490
.end_word
5512

.topic
Growth (0.35458755)
.text
The biggest thing I'd say is you if you're seeing some growth, if you're, like, getting users on the product, getting paying customers, you're doing some marketing.
.start_word
5513
.end_word
5539

High confidence topics

Mobile app, Developer products, Product market fit, Personal touch, Developer marketing, B to b marketing, Platform building, Brand experiences, Platform product, Dev tools, Go to market philosophy

High confidence intents

Discuss future collaborations with box, Build platform, Build mobile, Explain native operating systems, Seek patent, Discuss ai's role in ai's ecosystem, Market voice to developers, Make money, Get user, Keep developers around, Create sustainable platform, Build ecosystem, Recruit people

Utterances

Michael Grinich 00:00:00 : Welcome to Crossing the Enterprise Chasm, a podcast about software start ups and their journey moving upmarket to serving enterprise customers.I'm your host, Michael Greenwich.I'm the founder of WorkOS,which is a platform that helps developers quickly ship common enterprise features like single sign on.On this podcast, you'll hear directly from founders,product leaders, and early stage operators who have navigated building great products for enterprise customers.In every episode, you'll find strategies, tactics, and real world advice for ways to make your app enterprise ready and take your business to the next level.Today, I'm joined by Cece Stalsmith, partner and cofounder at Calyxt Consulting and former director of platform marketing at Slack.CCS spent most of her career thinking about developers and how to reach them. First at Box and then at Slack. Her company Calyxt focuses focuses on companies and their journey becoming platforms.We're delighted to have her here on the podcast to chat about a particular area of her expert ex expertise,marketing to developers.

Cece Stalsmith 01:04 : Cece, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for having me, Michael. I really appreciate it.

Michael Grinich 01:08 : Alright. Let's go back in time a little bit. We'll start there. Tell us about your time at Box, first in the developer relations role and then later,as the platform product and ecosystem manager,where I know Box went from 0 integrations to over a1000 eventually.

Cece Stalsmith 01:24 : Yeah. It was so fun. This story could be so long, so I'll try and keep it short.The journey at Vox to platform was fascinating. I joined it about 200 people.Box had always had an API because we they'd always been sort of platform first, butAaron was really great at sort of capturing the zeitgeist at various moments in order to grow the company. And so mobile do you remember, like, 2011, Michael, mobile was, like, really, really hot and exciting? Oh, yeah. It was the AI of the early 2010s. Yeah.Absolutely was. And the iOS App Store and also the Android App Store were, like, where VCs were, like, mining for new companies, and everything was really exciting. So I had the opportunity. I was doing developer relations for Box, trying to get people to build with the API, which didn't really make sense because I'm not an engineer, but I was able to because the API was straightforward enough, so props to box.And,Aaron, one night, like, pulled me and my manager into a room. This is like we would work at 10 PM, and it was fun.What was my life back then? I don't know. And was, like, had this idea for this mobile ecosystem, and I got to go and build it with them. So it was really fun. I just literally was, like, scouring the app store and emailing cold emailing all of these people who are building these apps in the productivity and, like, sort of business space.And I just got them to integrate with Box, and then we would do these big marketing launches to sort of, like, blow out the excitement about our ecosystem,and it worked surprisingly well. We started and launched with, like, 10 apps, but we got a ton of press and then grew it to 50. Took on the Android App Store, grew another 15, then grew to, like, well over 200 apps and stopped counting.So it was like a very, very funsort of crazy ecosystemjourney.That there were also a lot of lessons learned too I can share as well, but that was the experience in Vox.

Michael Grinich 03:06 : Yeah. Going back to that, the very first, you know, set that you did that first ten, do you remember what the the kinda catalyst was foractually doing this? Like, what what did you see or what did Aaron see? Was it a thesis bet where people are already starting to use it? I I know platforms are kinda always the hot thing. Everyone wants to be a platform, so everyone wants to do it. But why did you know it was the right time to do it for Box?

Cece Stalsmith 03:26 : So platforms always were the hot thing, butI've worked with a lot of companies since then launching their ecosystems,like getting their platforms together. Andit is a little more like playbookized at this point. They weren't as clearly there wasn't as clear of a playbookin 2011, I would say. Like, Microsoft and Apple had done it, but there wasn't anyone recently who had done a really cool ecosystem that everyone was sort of jealous of or or wanted to be like. So one, it was still a little bit novel. Like, I recently worked with launching an ecosystem for a pretty big company, andgetting partners to deal like, to want to build to our platformwas really hard. Like, everyone's been playing this build to my platform or I'll build to your platform game for the last decade, and people are a little tired of maintaining integrations.Back then, this was sort of new,and exciting.We alsoso that was one thing. 2,there was it was still some novelty to this whole effort.2,wemobile was the Wild West at this point. So it's sort of like, I would say, AI is right now where, like, everyone's just scrambling to build to figure out where the little growth angle is going to be that's going to make them into a big company by building with this new technology. Mobile was that at this moment in time. So there was this question of, like, how are files gonna move on mobile, and how is mobile gonna play out?Maybe remember paper? It was like a really beautifully built note taking app. It was like the hottest thing. It took tons of money from big VCs. Like, they had this beautiful office in New York. They were a mobile app. They ended up, you know, selling to the New York Times. It didn't end up being a huge outcome, but everyone thought that, like, that was going to be the future. It's like you're building on iPads, and it was really, really cool. So there was also this this moment of hype around mobile and lots of opportunities, so people were very willing to work together. And then the last thing was we were totally explaining, like,lack issues on the, native operating systems. So there weren't secure ways to pass files between apps at that point on the operating systems, especially on Android. Our Android had, like, some weird protocol thing that they had. So I actually got a patent in my name when I was doing product, which is hilarious because, like, how did that happen?Along with the yeah. So it was really fun, and there was a lot of, like, greenfield for exploring how to take an API that was about moving files around securely and applying that to mobile,which then changed over time as theoperating system kinda, like, got everything locked down. And I think you're gonna watch that play out a lot right nowwith, AI because there's it's the wild west, Like, even with the announcement that OpenAI made,I don't know when this will air, but this was, like, yesterday, November 6th. They're kind of, like, resetting the ecosystem repeatedlybecause they're bringing out so many new tools. And, like, as those tools change, it's going to really change the game for what apps can do. So it's kinda like the flashlight app on iOS where everyone had that app and then they added it natively and it changed. So that was part of the way things played out.

Michael Grinich 06:19 : That's a really interesting,comment about how how those things end up becoming in housekind of native to the platform.I was literally just talking with a friend at lunch today about how all of the AI work he's been doing in a startup for the last 6 months is,

Cece Stalsmith 06:32 : sort of no longer relevant given what opening has announced. But you just kinda keep moving the goalposts, and they're working on the next the next new thing around that. I have a set of so I've I have a wonderful mentor who's did a lot at Microsoft, and, we talk about this stuff a lot. And he one of the things he always says is when you're building with a platform like that, you have to always especially if you're, like, a smaller player working on top of them, you have to always be trying to see around corners. Because the assumption that we're all just friends and we're all just trying to only make each other's businesses grow is the wrong one. You have to like, if you're going to be a really cutting edge winning company built on top of a platform platform with an ecosystem like that, you kinda always have to be, like, seeing and trying to find out where they're going to cannibalize your business eventually and building ahead of it.And we thought a lot about this at Slack because we didn't want to offend our ecosystem at all,or, like, really destroy them. So we would do a lot to basically communicate in advance if we were going to add features, which we obviously did. Like, look at all the features Slack has now that would, sort of directly impact or compete with our ecosystem.And I think that just doing that, like, sort of one to one outreach or even group outreach was it did a lot to help the ecosystem stay healthy.

Michael Grinich 07:40 : Let's talk more about Slack. I think that's a great segue.Obviously, very different platform, different kind of type of developer,and, you know, different timing of the market and and industry.What was the, you know, marketing motion there? How how is that different or similar to Box? Can you talk about that? What maybe what drew people into building the Slack platform? Then we can talk about some of the specifics.

Cece Stalsmith 08:01 : Totally. So Box is interesting because if you looked at Boxlike Dropbox was in the space, and we were we were the enterprise option, but we were also more of a number 2. Like, we weren'tthe hottest kid on the block. Whereas Slack, we were the leader in the category. We were the thing that everyone wanted to use. People were like, we were growing, like, gangbusters when I joined. Again, I joined around 200 people and got to, like, watch a ton of growth for the company.I was, like, thinking and preparing for this podcast, and I hate to say it, but I think I could have been pretty bad at my job, and we would have done perfectly well and and succeeded.I think that my team was amazing, and I think we did a good job. So I think we hopefully had an impact on, like, making things even better at Slack.But there was just simply product market fit. Soone of the biggest things I I observed, especially in developer marketing, isyou can out market especially products that you're trying to bring to,in, like, a sales led world. And you can often out market things in a very consumer oriented world by, like, having influencers push stuff and things like that. But with developer products,there's just a different level of BS filter, I would say. I don't know if you feel that. Do you feel that in your world?

Michael Grinich 09:09 : I think developers have like a very, very refined sense of smell for when things are just a little bit off.

Cece Stalsmith 09:16 : And it's it's almost a sense that other non developers don't have. They don't even know that they're doing something wrong. Yeah. And I actually really love that about the developer audience. There's, like, more discernment there. So you it's pretty hard to beat product market fit. So Slack had product market fit. When I joined, we didn't have a third party developer API. So we had APIs that you as a customer could use for your own Slack.That was it.So it was insane because we were growing so fast. Developers wanted to build these third party apps to reach our big customer base and our very fast growing customer base, and they would have to ask customers individually for their API keysto get them an app, and they were doing it. So they were just, like, doing back flips on climbing over,like, really impossible to scale walls in order to get apps built. So we were just, like, as fast as we could shipping the API to work and then launched it. And we're basically managing growth, I would say, at Slack.And then a lot of the stuff I think we did well in terms of developer marketing was,I mean, one,we just had a really high bar for how we marketed and, like, the way we used words and what we would do. We were really equipped to do awesome events and, like, sort of just bring a craftsmanship to the work that was really fun that I think people resonated with. And then we also just did a very we have awesome BD team and developer relations team, and we really, like, knew our ecosystem. I still know the ecosystem pretty well. Like,get, you know, lots of work through that ecosystem well still.So I think there was also a lot of personal touch that we did that made a big difference in terms of how we worked with, the ecosystem overall. There's, like, a lot of basic tooling stuff I could talk about with, like, just opening up developer communications was a really big deal when I joined. We hadn't been saying anything. We just started sending a newsletter. We just started doing some really basic stuff, which made a big difference.So those are the highlights for me. I think a lot of it has to do with how you talk to developers, and that's, like, a lot of whatI learned there and then had to teach the team,

Michael Grinich 11:07 : in terms of, like, you can't just cut the fluff, cut the marketing stuff, get to the meat, and get it across. Let's talk about that a little bit more because I think, you know, you're totally right that that product market fit that Slack had really propelled the company.My current definition of product market fit when I talk to other founders is is, is when you can just keep screwing everything up and yet keep succeeding. You know, it's just kinda you you you keep tripping over your shoelaces and yet you keep, like, scoring goal after goal, with your with your customers.So, you know, that and that's an amazing thing to have and a magical place to be. But there's so many companies that have had that and then screwed it up, or they've had a product and then tried to launch for developersand totally missed. You know, have it whether it's on tone of voice or the way they launch their platform or kind of how they connect. And and the benefit of a developer platform is huge, so everyone really tries it. What would you say are the things that companies should look out for? That's a great way to market our voice to developers and,maybe what should they stay away from or common pitfalls that you see the,you know, un indoctrinated,make as they as they try this.

Cece Stalsmith 12:12 : Okay. I think a lot of the reason why people run into I, like, work across so many different companies now that I get to see and then edit the work of a lot of different marketers or people who are thinking about working with developers.The I don't wanna sound too mean, but the first one I see is that you take someone who does, like, classic b to b marketing and then you plug them into developer marketing, and they're just using the language of b to b marketingwith the developer audience. And this is, like, such basic marketing 101, but there's a understanding of who is your target user or, like, your persona.And part of being decent at developer marketing is understandingwhat developers will react to. So I'm getting into, like, fractional CMO right now. It's really fun, and I love working with our CTO at this company because we'll work on some stuff, and then he'll look at it and he'll be like, ugh. I hate this. Like, that's such an overstated claim.And developers, like we were saying, there's just this desire for things to be very honestand maybe even a little bit humble in the way they're stated becausewhen you're building software, you are building, like, net new things, and there are things that are really impressive and cool. And then there's stuff that's pretty straightforward and basic. And it'seasy as a marketer to be like, oh, I'm charged with trying to make people excited about this feature of the API. So I'm gonna go act like it's, like,so thrilling. And it's like, no. It's actually just basic and useful and just state it as that and stop trying to hype this thing up that's actually just normal. Like, if you're really building if you're building OpenAI,they're not even being very hype either. Like, that's really changing the world and how we think about things. If you're building an endpoint for a feature or, like, access management controls,that's a nice feature, and you should just stay in a straightforward way because it's not, like, so impressive and amazing. So taking 1, like, reducing the hype unless something's actually really cool. 2,watching out for just, like, regular business jargon and lingo. Like,I would just give it to an engineer on your team if you're trying to, like, practically do this and be like, what do you gag at? And just let them redline it. Just take someone who's a little bit, like, snoo snooty about stuff, and just, like, literally let them redline your blog or your website because they will take that language that just, like, feels fake to them and cut it down.Those are the 2 big things. I think the last one that is important here, and I think I learned this at Vox, which was really fun.There is a danger.It's really hard to find real technical marketers,obviously. Like, usually, people who go into marketing are not technical or technical people stay in technical roles. You occasionally can, but, like, you can't, you know, bet your farm on that.If you find a marketer who needs the market market technical things, they need to be able to sit down with the person who developed it, the engineer, the product person, whoever it is, and really understand how it works.Because the work of technical marketing or, like, marketing to developers is being able to explain how this thing works without having to, like, be extremely technical in the explanation.It's like distilling the hard thing into something simple is really important.Andoften, I think you you see I'll I'll work with people who don't really understand how the product works, and then the marketing is just very bad because it doesn't clearly communicate what's possible. So

Michael Grinich 15:11 : Let's talk about brand a little bit because you haven't touched on this, but I know it's a big thing. We've talked about it a bunch 101. And with developer products,you know, these these iconic products that developers are drawn or drawn towards, you know, like Stripe brand is such a huge part of it. How do you see that fitting in? Slack obviously had an amazing brand too instead of Box.How does it fit into kind of that, like, developer angle and the kind of platform building narrative?

Cece Stalsmith 15:34 : I have a funny and weird perspective on this one, so I guess I'll just let it rip.I really hope that for thesetypes of companies, a lot of it is just determined by the founders.And I think I would actually point to that for WorkOS. I feel like you have a very strong perspective on, like, how the branch should look and feel, how the API should work, like, how your product should reallywork for people, and that impacts how it literally looks and feels.I would say at Slack, like, so much of that marketing brand is just Stewart or was Stewart. Like, it's hard to talk about Slack now because just, like, in your brains when you're listening to this rewind 3 or 4 years and then think about Slack then,like, that was just Stewart distilled. And he, like, really did get into those marketing choices. He was in all the brand conversations. He blocked brand stuff left, right, and center.I think when you look at Stripe, again, the Collisons are, like, notorious for being very careful about what gets out the door for that company's marketing.And I think that a lot of their brand, and I would say this for your product too,is actually predicated on the it's the product that is the brand. It's not just, like, the marketing stuff that is the brand. And I think there's something too. They have a good sense of, like, what aesthetic they wanna be getting across. They have a sense of, like, the palette and some of, like, the look and feel that's gonna come across in the actual, like, marketing brand stuff. But I actually think a lot of the brand experience that developers care about is literally the ease of use of the API or, like, the ease of use of the of the different products or, like, how great the examples are,in the SDK. I think that's a huge part and and a way more important part of the brand experience for developer products.And, hey, as a marketer, it's actually a little hard to control because I don't write the docs, but I can bother people to make sure that they'remanaged well and have good IA and have good examples and, like, are doing cutting edge things. So I think that actually the docs are one of your most important brand experiences, and I think a lot of this comes to your CEO or, like, the founder DNA and, like, the feel the founders wanna get across in the company.I have not seen a lot of marketerssuccessfully, like, get around,CEOs who have strong feelings like that. And I do see a lot of companies that are kinda like meh and brand, and it's just because it just the leaders don't care that much.

Michael Grinich 17:48 : And you can build a successful company without doing that too. I mean, many folks many folks do. You just don't get that

Cece Stalsmith 17:53 : that the je ne sais quoi kinda like supercharged on top of it. You don't get the, like, sparkle. And I think the biggest piece to it is you want peopleto want to be hanging out with you. Like, I think the value of of that brand piece is, like, I look cool if I'm associated.Whereas, like, you don't look as cool with a company that doesn't that no one cares as much about.

Michael Grinich 18:13 : Not as aspirational. Sure. I mean, I I can definitely tell you at Workhorse. We it's not just me. We obsess around it across the whole company even down to, like, error messages being thrown by the API.Every single customer support message trying to make it on point. It's it's notjust the gradients on your home page

Cece Stalsmith 18:30 : or the color of your logo. A disproportionate amount of it at Slack was the product and then the voice. I think that more of it was the voice than, like, the imagery or or the coloring schemes or anything. And that's a combination of Stewart and this woman, Anna Pickard, who isone of the most amazing voice and tone people or the most amazing person I've ever worked with on that front. She just has a real talent for this, andit was so hard. This is like a little inside Slack story. So hard to train marketers in Slack's voice and tone. It's it was almost impossible because people would always come in and be like, oh, Slack's voice and tone is so playful and fun, and then try to replicate it and then just sound really hokey and, like, lame.But Anna had this great she's British. I feel like there also was this element of it was a little, like, extra sophisticated. Like, one of our tone things was, we're not above a joke from English literature. Like, we would just throw in little random sophisticated tidbits.I'm actually sitting on a piece that I wanna publish that's like this overview of sort of what you're allowed to say and not say, as a Slack marketer, but it was so painful. We would have to put people through the ringer and then just realize, like, a lot of people couldn't write for the company because of that.

Michael Grinich 19:36 : I wanna switch gears a little bit and talk about what you've been doing since Slack,with Calyxt,which is, I think generally focused on helping companies that are building platforms navigate this, whether those are developer platforms or ecosystems or or just ways of working with other other companies.Let's start off maybe tell me about what being a platform means to you. How would you define that? Like, what is a platform?

Cece Stalsmith 20:00 : This is an interesting one.One of my favorite companies that I invested in when I was in venture.I printed this shirt that was a toaster, and it was like, I'm not a toaster. I'm a platform, was the caption of the shirt.Everyone says they're a platform.Everyone is not a platform.Iif we're talking about what's interesting at Calyxt, I don't only work with ecosystem players anymore. I actually also just work with straight up developer products becausethere are a lot of them and there are not a lot of people who do marketing for them.So I work with both.I would say a platform, especially in terms of the ecosystem. I like Bill Gates' measure of a platform. I don't think I've worked with tons of platforms who have become that. His measure is, a platformit's a true platform. You've built a true platform product when the value of the things built on top of it in sum is greater than the platform itself.That's a pretty hard and high order, but I actually like that as the goal becauseit helps you understand that, like, you're trying to build something that's much greater than the core underlying product.And that the platform is going to take that core underlying product and, like, bring it to really new heights in terms of what's possible.So I'm really into that concept.And then when it comes to dev tools, I actually think it's totally cool to be a really useful tool, and you can make lots of money that way and have a really good business. And then if people extend it, awesome.

Michael Grinich 21:22 : Well, I wanna also ask about something you've written about, which is your go to market philosophy.You have this this approach to it, these, like, seven principles.Can you give us a quick summary of that? Like, what's what's across the seven principles, the seven points,

Cece Stalsmith 21:35 : and maybe a little bit of color around it? Like, what are your your favorite ones or what's not been you know, what what do people not usually adopt or recognize? Yeah. They're all over the place. The first one is that Bill Gates principle, like, the platform, everything built on top of it, and some is greater than the platform itself.The second is this concept of a flywheel.So basic.I've been at so many companies where I have to, like, teach people about how flywheels work, and I think that's getting more understood understood as people, like, listen to Lenny a lot and people like that. But,basically, a platform makes your core underlying product more useful to more users and therefore grows it. But this is you have to kinda, like, get the flywheel growing by yourself first and then it kicks and starts to do it itself as you grow.And there are so that's the second one. The third one,a lot of the work I do is, like, figuring out messaging and value of platforms.And as I've done that work, I've realized there are only actually 3 ecosystem value props, and 2 of them are nearly the same thing. The first value prop is you can make a lot of money with this platform or built or by building on top of it. 2nd one is you can get a lot of users, which usually translates to money. And the third one is this is really, really useful technology,that you can use and do brand new things or really important things with.So usually you're focusing on one of those three value props.The 4th is that developers are first class citizens. I've worked a lot of places wherepeople just don't see the developer asan important user because the customer that's paying in, like, a b to b scenario is often the higher priority.But if you're really trying to build a great platform, you need to treat your developers well to keep them around and to make it sustainable.3rd or 4th or 5th one, I think it's 5th,is that I've already mentioned this. Take care of, like, marketing lingo, like, synergy or,seamless, things like that. Like, just stop saying sort of classic b to b marketing words.Developers don't wanna hear it.The 6th one is that, like, ecosystems are really messy. The term ecosystem comes from, like, the outside kind of ecosystem where you have a pond and a bunch of stuff is, like, dying within the pond, and there are a bunch of animals and bacteria that are eating that, and then growing up and other things are gonna eat those. It's messy.It is important that, like, the growth is where is in the mess, and you do need to have people place to kinda safeguard that and make sure it's not too, like,inhospitable for people. So I think that's important. And then the last one is very basic.It'severyone wants to be the center of the wheel. Everyone wants to be the platform. Not everyone is. And that's okay.It's okay to say, like, this is not the moment for us to build an ecosystem. It's the moment for us to build a set of really useful integrations for our users, and that moment of tipping into becoming the core ecosystem could come in the future.But I've seen that kind of force before.And I think the ones that are, like, most important, the developers being first class citizens one, if your product is not a developer product, gets missed a lot. And you often, like, throw them bad APIs with bad documentation and, like, expect them to build stuff and that just simply won't work. Like, it will work for a minute and then it will fail. So,I think it's one of the most important ones.

Michael Grinich 24:36 : Last question for you before we wrap up.A lot of folks listening to this podcast are probably earlier in their journey,maybe just getting started, maybe haven't hired their 1st marketer yet even, you know, just early in that in that journey developing their platform or product or what have you.What advice would you give out to an early stage founder, maybe looking to build that initial go to market team or go to market motion? What would you say to them?

Cece Stalsmith 25:00 : I'm working with a really early stage marketing team right now.Sort of doing the part time CMO thing, and it's been very, very fun.Biggest I think the biggest stumbles I see people make is trying to say, oh, like, our marketing motion is going to be that thing that you're not doing at all right now, and then trying to hire someone. Like, let's say you don't actually have a lot of content going, but you're like, I think we need a content team. And then you hire this, like, stand alone content personwho is disconnected from anything else you're already doing. That just doesn't work.The biggest thing I'd say is you if you're seeing some growth, if you're, like, getting users on the product, getting paying customers, you're doing some marketing.It's just a question of who's doing the marketing at the company who doesn't have the titleand what are they doing? And I want you tofind those people. It's often probably you, CEO,or the product person. Like, it's often one of those people.And write out what those jobs are, and then go build the job description around that by giving that to someone who's experienced and who's done it well.Because taking your existing motion that is working and then scaling that is going to grow you. But trying to, like, artificiallyplace marketing into this thing is, like, a huge fail.You end up firing that team, and it's not fun.

Michael Grinich 26:12 : I have definitely heard that storytime and time again.That's all the time we have for today. Cece, thanks again for joining us. This is really, really great. Thanks, Michael. Appreciate it.You just listened to crossing the enterprise chasm, a podcast about software startups and their journey moving upmarket to serving enterprise customers.Wanna learn more about becoming enterprise ready? The WorkOS blog is full of tons of articles and guides outlining best practicesfor adding features like single sign on, SCIM provisioning, and more to your app.Also, make sure to subscribe to this podcast so you're first to hear about new episodes with more founders and product leads of fast growing startups.I'm Michael Grenich, founder of WorkOS. Thanks so much for listening, and see you next time.

Transcript
Welcome to Crossing the Enterprise Chasm, a podcast about software start ups and their journey moving upmarket to serving enterprise customers. I'm your host, Michael Greenwich. I'm the founder of WorkOS, which is a platform that helps developers quickly ship common enterprise features like single sign on. On this podcast, you'll hear directly from founders, product leaders, and early stage operators who have navigated building great products for enterprise customers. In every episode, you'll find strategies, tactics, and real world advice for ways to make your app enterprise ready and take your business to the next level. Today, I'm joined by Cece Stalsmith, partner and cofounder at Calyxt Consulting and former director of platform marketing at Slack. CCS spent most of her career thinking about developers and how to reach them. First at Box and then at Slack. Her company Calyxt focuses focuses on companies and their journey becoming platforms. We're delighted to have her here on the podcast to chat about a particular area of her expert ex expertise, marketing to developers. Cece, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for having me, Michael. I really appreciate it. Alright. Let's go back in time a little bit. We'll start there. Tell us about your time at Box, first in the developer relations role and then later, as the platform product and ecosystem manager, where I know Box went from 0 integrations to over a1000 eventually. Yeah. It was so fun. This story could be so long, so I'll try and keep it short. The journey at Vox to platform was fascinating. I joined it about 200 people. Box had always had an API because we they'd always been sort of platform first, but Aaron was really great at sort of capturing the zeitgeist at various moments in order to grow the company. And so mobile do you remember, like, 2011, Michael, mobile was, like, really, really hot and exciting? Oh, yeah. It was the AI of the early 2010s. Yeah. Absolutely was. And the iOS App Store and also the Android App Store were, like, where VCs were, like, mining for new companies, and everything was really exciting. So I had the opportunity. I was doing developer relations for Box, trying to get people to build with the API, which didn't really make sense because I'm not an engineer, but I was able to because the API was straightforward enough, so props to box. And, Aaron, one night, like, pulled me and my manager into a room. This is like we would work at 10 PM, and it was fun. What was my life back then? I don't know. And was, like, had this idea for this mobile ecosystem, and I got to go and build it with them. So it was really fun. I just literally was, like, scouring the app store and emailing cold emailing all of these people who are building these apps in the productivity and, like, sort of business space. And I just got them to integrate with Box, and then we would do these big marketing launches to sort of, like, blow out the excitement about our ecosystem, and it worked surprisingly well. We started and launched with, like, 10 apps, but we got a ton of press and then grew it to 50. Took on the Android App Store, grew another 15, then grew to, like, well over 200 apps and stopped counting. So it was like a very, very fun sort of crazy ecosystem journey. That there were also a lot of lessons learned too I can share as well, but that was the experience in Vox. Yeah. Going back to that, the very first, you know, set that you did that first ten, do you remember what the the kinda catalyst was for actually doing this? Like, what what did you see or what did Aaron see? Was it a thesis bet where people are already starting to use it? I I know platforms are kinda always the hot thing. Everyone wants to be a platform, so everyone wants to do it. But why did you know it was the right time to do it for Box? So platforms always were the hot thing, but I've worked with a lot of companies since then launching their ecosystems, like getting their platforms together. And it is a little more like playbookized at this point. They weren't as clearly there wasn't as clear of a playbook in 2011, I would say. Like, Microsoft and Apple had done it, but there wasn't anyone recently who had done a really cool ecosystem that everyone was sort of jealous of or or wanted to be like. So one, it was still a little bit novel. Like, I recently worked with launching an ecosystem for a pretty big company, and getting partners to deal like, to want to build to our platform was really hard. Like, everyone's been playing this build to my platform or I'll build to your platform game for the last decade, and people are a little tired of maintaining integrations. Back then, this was sort of new, and exciting. We also so that was one thing. 2, there was it was still some novelty to this whole effort. 2, we mobile was the Wild West at this point. So it's sort of like, I would say, AI is right now where, like, everyone's just scrambling to build to figure out where the little growth angle is going to be that's going to make them into a big company by building with this new technology. Mobile was that at this moment in time. So there was this question of, like, how are files gonna move on mobile, and how is mobile gonna play out? Maybe remember paper? It was like a really beautifully built note taking app. It was like the hottest thing. It took tons of money from big VCs. Like, they had this beautiful office in New York. They were a mobile app. They ended up, you know, selling to the New York Times. It didn't end up being a huge outcome, but everyone thought that, like, that was going to be the future. It's like you're building on iPads, and it was really, really cool. So there was also this this moment of hype around mobile and lots of opportunities, so people were very willing to work together. And then the last thing was we were totally explaining, like, lack issues on the, native operating systems. So there weren't secure ways to pass files between apps at that point on the operating systems, especially on Android. Our Android had, like, some weird protocol thing that they had. So I actually got a patent in my name when I was doing product, which is hilarious because, like, how did that happen? Along with the yeah. So it was really fun, and there was a lot of, like, greenfield for exploring how to take an API that was about moving files around securely and applying that to mobile, which then changed over time as the operating system kinda, like, got everything locked down. And I think you're gonna watch that play out a lot right now with, AI because there's it's the wild west, Like, even with the announcement that OpenAI made, I don't know when this will air, but this was, like, yesterday, November 6th. They're kind of, like, resetting the ecosystem repeatedly because they're bringing out so many new tools. And, like, as those tools change, it's going to really change the game for what apps can do. So it's kinda like the flashlight app on iOS where everyone had that app and then they added it natively and it changed. So that was part of the way things played out. That's a really interesting, comment about how how those things end up becoming in house kind of native to the platform. I was literally just talking with a friend at lunch today about how all of the AI work he's been doing in a startup for the last 6 months is, sort of no longer relevant given what opening has announced. But you just kinda keep moving the goalposts, and they're working on the next the next new thing around that. I have a set of so I've I have a wonderful mentor who's did a lot at Microsoft, and, we talk about this stuff a lot. And he one of the things he always says is when you're building with a platform like that, you have to always especially if you're, like, a smaller player working on top of them, you have to always be trying to see around corners. Because the assumption that we're all just friends and we're all just trying to only make each other's businesses grow is the wrong one. You have to like, if you're going to be a really cutting edge winning company built on top of a platform platform with an ecosystem like that, you kinda always have to be, like, seeing and trying to find out where they're going to cannibalize your business eventually and building ahead of it. And we thought a lot about this at Slack because we didn't want to offend our ecosystem at all, or, like, really destroy them. So we would do a lot to basically communicate in advance if we were going to add features, which we obviously did. Like, look at all the features Slack has now that would, sort of directly impact or compete with our ecosystem. And I think that just doing that, like, sort of one to one outreach or even group outreach was it did a lot to help the ecosystem stay healthy. Let's talk more about Slack. I think that's a great segue. Obviously, very different platform, different kind of type of developer, and, you know, different timing of the market and and industry. What was the, you know, marketing motion there? How how is that different or similar to Box? Can you talk about that? What maybe what drew people into building the Slack platform? Then we can talk about some of the specifics. Totally. So Box is interesting because if you looked at Box like Dropbox was in the space, and we were we were the enterprise option, but we were also more of a number 2. Like, we weren't the hottest kid on the block. Whereas Slack, we were the leader in the category. We were the thing that everyone wanted to use. People were like, we were growing, like, gangbusters when I joined. Again, I joined around 200 people and got to, like, watch a ton of growth for the company. I was, like, thinking and preparing for this podcast, and I hate to say it, but I think I could have been pretty bad at my job, and we would have done perfectly well and and succeeded. I think that my team was amazing, and I think we did a good job. So I think we hopefully had an impact on, like, making things even better at Slack. But there was just simply product market fit. So one of the biggest things I I observed, especially in developer marketing, is you can out market especially products that you're trying to bring to, in, like, a sales led world. And you can often out market things in a very consumer oriented world by, like, having influencers push stuff and things like that. But with developer products, there's just a different level of BS filter, I would say. I don't know if you feel that. Do you feel that in your world? I think developers have like a very, very refined sense of smell for when things are just a little bit off. And it's it's almost a sense that other non developers don't have. They don't even know that they're doing something wrong. Yeah. And I actually really love that about the developer audience. There's, like, more discernment there. So you it's pretty hard to beat product market fit. So Slack had product market fit. When I joined, we didn't have a third party developer API. So we had APIs that you as a customer could use for your own Slack. That was it. So it was insane because we were growing so fast. Developers wanted to build these third party apps to reach our big customer base and our very fast growing customer base, and they would have to ask customers individually for their API keys to get them an app, and they were doing it. So they were just, like, doing back flips on climbing over, like, really impossible to scale walls in order to get apps built. So we were just, like, as fast as we could shipping the API to work and then launched it. And we're basically managing growth, I would say, at Slack. And then a lot of the stuff I think we did well in terms of developer marketing was, I mean, one, we just had a really high bar for how we marketed and, like, the way we used words and what we would do. We were really equipped to do awesome events and, like, sort of just bring a craftsmanship to the work that was really fun that I think people resonated with. And then we also just did a very we have awesome BD team and developer relations team, and we really, like, knew our ecosystem. I still know the ecosystem pretty well. Like, get, you know, lots of work through that ecosystem well still. So I think there was also a lot of personal touch that we did that made a big difference in terms of how we worked with, the ecosystem overall. There's, like, a lot of basic tooling stuff I could talk about with, like, just opening up developer communications was a really big deal when I joined. We hadn't been saying anything. We just started sending a newsletter. We just started doing some really basic stuff, which made a big difference. So those are the highlights for me. I think a lot of it has to do with how you talk to developers, and that's, like, a lot of what I learned there and then had to teach the team, in terms of, like, you can't just cut the fluff, cut the marketing stuff, get to the meat, and get it across. Let's talk about that a little bit more because I think, you know, you're totally right that that product market fit that Slack had really propelled the company. My current definition of product market fit when I talk to other founders is is, is when you can just keep screwing everything up and yet keep succeeding. You know, it's just kinda you you you keep tripping over your shoelaces and yet you keep, like, scoring goal after goal, with your with your customers. So, you know, that and that's an amazing thing to have and a magical place to be. But there's so many companies that have had that and then screwed it up, or they've had a product and then tried to launch for developers and totally missed. You know, have it whether it's on tone of voice or the way they launch their platform or kind of how they connect. And and the benefit of a developer platform is huge, so everyone really tries it. What would you say are the things that companies should look out for? That's a great way to market our voice to developers and, maybe what should they stay away from or common pitfalls that you see the, you know, un indoctrinated, make as they as they try this. Okay. I think a lot of the reason why people run into I, like, work across so many different companies now that I get to see and then edit the work of a lot of different marketers or people who are thinking about working with developers. The I don't wanna sound too mean, but the first one I see is that you take someone who does, like, classic b to b marketing and then you plug them into developer marketing, and they're just using the language of b to b marketing with the developer audience. And this is, like, such basic marketing 101, but there's a understanding of who is your target user or, like, your persona. And part of being decent at developer marketing is understanding what developers will react to. So I'm getting into, like, fractional CMO right now. It's really fun, and I love working with our CTO at this company because we'll work on some stuff, and then he'll look at it and he'll be like, ugh. I hate this. Like, that's such an overstated claim. And developers, like we were saying, there's just this desire for things to be very honest and maybe even a little bit humble in the way they're stated because when you're building software, you are building, like, net new things, and there are things that are really impressive and cool. And then there's stuff that's pretty straightforward and basic. And it's easy as a marketer to be like, oh, I'm charged with trying to make people excited about this feature of the API. So I'm gonna go act like it's, like, so thrilling. And it's like, no. It's actually just basic and useful and just state it as that and stop trying to hype this thing up that's actually just normal. Like, if you're really building if you're building OpenAI, they're not even being very hype either. Like, that's really changing the world and how we think about things. If you're building an endpoint for a feature or, like, access management controls, that's a nice feature, and you should just stay in a straightforward way because it's not, like, so impressive and amazing. So taking 1, like, reducing the hype unless something's actually really cool. 2, watching out for just, like, regular business jargon and lingo. Like, I would just give it to an engineer on your team if you're trying to, like, practically do this and be like, what do you gag at? And just let them redline it. Just take someone who's a little bit, like, snoo snooty about stuff, and just, like, literally let them redline your blog or your website because they will take that language that just, like, feels fake to them and cut it down. Those are the 2 big things. I think the last one that is important here, and I think I learned this at Vox, which was really fun. There is a danger. It's really hard to find real technical marketers, obviously. Like, usually, people who go into marketing are not technical or technical people stay in technical roles. You occasionally can, but, like, you can't, you know, bet your farm on that. If you find a marketer who needs the market market technical things, they need to be able to sit down with the person who developed it, the engineer, the product person, whoever it is, and really understand how it works. Because the work of technical marketing or, like, marketing to developers is being able to explain how this thing works without having to, like, be extremely technical in the explanation. It's like distilling the hard thing into something simple is really important. And often, I think you you see I'll I'll work with people who don't really understand how the product works, and then the marketing is just very bad because it doesn't clearly communicate what's possible. So Let's talk about brand a little bit because you haven't touched on this, but I know it's a big thing. We've talked about it a bunch 101. And with developer products, you know, these these iconic products that developers are drawn or drawn towards, you know, like Stripe brand is such a huge part of it. How do you see that fitting in? Slack obviously had an amazing brand too instead of Box. How does it fit into kind of that, like, developer angle and the kind of platform building narrative? I have a funny and weird perspective on this one, so I guess I'll just let it rip. I really hope that for these types of companies, a lot of it is just determined by the founders. And I think I would actually point to that for WorkOS. I feel like you have a very strong perspective on, like, how the branch should look and feel, how the API should work, like, how your product should really work for people, and that impacts how it literally looks and feels. I would say at Slack, like, so much of that marketing brand is just Stewart or was Stewart. Like, it's hard to talk about Slack now because just, like, in your brains when you're listening to this rewind 3 or 4 years and then think about Slack then, like, that was just Stewart distilled. And he, like, really did get into those marketing choices. He was in all the brand conversations. He blocked brand stuff left, right, and center. I think when you look at Stripe, again, the Collisons are, like, notorious for being very careful about what gets out the door for that company's marketing. And I think that a lot of their brand, and I would say this for your product too, is actually predicated on the it's the product that is the brand. It's not just, like, the marketing stuff that is the brand. And I think there's something too. They have a good sense of, like, what aesthetic they wanna be getting across. They have a sense of, like, the palette and some of, like, the look and feel that's gonna come across in the actual, like, marketing brand stuff. But I actually think a lot of the brand experience that developers care about is literally the ease of use of the API or, like, the ease of use of the of the different products or, like, how great the examples are, in the SDK. I think that's a huge part and and a way more important part of the brand experience for developer products. And, hey, as a marketer, it's actually a little hard to control because I don't write the docs, but I can bother people to make sure that they're managed well and have good IA and have good examples and, like, are doing cutting edge things. So I think that actually the docs are one of your most important brand experiences, and I think a lot of this comes to your CEO or, like, the founder DNA and, like, the feel the founders wanna get across in the company. I have not seen a lot of marketers successfully, like, get around, CEOs who have strong feelings like that. And I do see a lot of companies that are kinda like meh and brand, and it's just because it just the leaders don't care that much. And you can build a successful company without doing that too. I mean, many folks many folks do. You just don't get that that the je ne sais quoi kinda like supercharged on top of it. You don't get the, like, sparkle. And I think the biggest piece to it is you want people to want to be hanging out with you. Like, I think the value of of that brand piece is, like, I look cool if I'm associated. Whereas, like, you don't look as cool with a company that doesn't that no one cares as much about. Not as aspirational. Sure. I mean, I I can definitely tell you at Workhorse. We it's not just me. We obsess around it across the whole company even down to, like, error messages being thrown by the API. Every single customer support message trying to make it on point. It's it's not just the gradients on your home page or the color of your logo. A disproportionate amount of it at Slack was the product and then the voice. I think that more of it was the voice than, like, the imagery or or the coloring schemes or anything. And that's a combination of Stewart and this woman, Anna Pickard, who is one of the most amazing voice and tone people or the most amazing person I've ever worked with on that front. She just has a real talent for this, and it was so hard. This is like a little inside Slack story. So hard to train marketers in Slack's voice and tone. It's it was almost impossible because people would always come in and be like, oh, Slack's voice and tone is so playful and fun, and then try to replicate it and then just sound really hokey and, like, lame. But Anna had this great she's British. I feel like there also was this element of it was a little, like, extra sophisticated. Like, one of our tone things was, we're not above a joke from English literature. Like, we would just throw in little random sophisticated tidbits. I'm actually sitting on a piece that I wanna publish that's like this overview of sort of what you're allowed to say and not say, as a Slack marketer, but it was so painful. We would have to put people through the ringer and then just realize, like, a lot of people couldn't write for the company because of that. I wanna switch gears a little bit and talk about what you've been doing since Slack, with Calyxt, which is, I think generally focused on helping companies that are building platforms navigate this, whether those are developer platforms or ecosystems or or just ways of working with other other companies. Let's start off maybe tell me about what being a platform means to you. How would you define that? Like, what is a platform? This is an interesting one. One of my favorite companies that I invested in when I was in venture. I printed this shirt that was a toaster, and it was like, I'm not a toaster. I'm a platform, was the caption of the shirt. Everyone says they're a platform. Everyone is not a platform. I if we're talking about what's interesting at Calyxt, I don't only work with ecosystem players anymore. I actually also just work with straight up developer products because there are a lot of them and there are not a lot of people who do marketing for them. So I work with both. I would say a platform, especially in terms of the ecosystem. I like Bill Gates' measure of a platform. I don't think I've worked with tons of platforms who have become that. His measure is, a platform it's a true platform. You've built a true platform product when the value of the things built on top of it in sum is greater than the platform itself. That's a pretty hard and high order, but I actually like that as the goal because it helps you understand that, like, you're trying to build something that's much greater than the core underlying product. And that the platform is going to take that core underlying product and, like, bring it to really new heights in terms of what's possible. So I'm really into that concept. And then when it comes to dev tools, I actually think it's totally cool to be a really useful tool, and you can make lots of money that way and have a really good business. And then if people extend it, awesome. Well, I wanna also ask about something you've written about, which is your go to market philosophy. You have this this approach to it, these, like, seven principles. Can you give us a quick summary of that? Like, what's what's across the seven principles, the seven points, and maybe a little bit of color around it? Like, what are your your favorite ones or what's not been you know, what what do people not usually adopt or recognize? Yeah. They're all over the place. The first one is that Bill Gates principle, like, the platform, everything built on top of it, and some is greater than the platform itself. The second is this concept of a flywheel. So basic. I've been at so many companies where I have to, like, teach people about how flywheels work, and I think that's getting more understood understood as people, like, listen to Lenny a lot and people like that. But, basically, a platform makes your core underlying product more useful to more users and therefore grows it. But this is you have to kinda, like, get the flywheel growing by yourself first and then it kicks and starts to do it itself as you grow. And there are so that's the second one. The third one, a lot of the work I do is, like, figuring out messaging and value of platforms. And as I've done that work, I've realized there are only actually 3 ecosystem value props, and 2 of them are nearly the same thing. The first value prop is you can make a lot of money with this platform or built or by building on top of it. 2nd one is you can get a lot of users, which usually translates to money. And the third one is this is really, really useful technology, that you can use and do brand new things or really important things with. So usually you're focusing on one of those three value props. The 4th is that developers are first class citizens. I've worked a lot of places where people just don't see the developer as an important user because the customer that's paying in, like, a b to b scenario is often the higher priority. But if you're really trying to build a great platform, you need to treat your developers well to keep them around and to make it sustainable. 3rd or 4th or 5th one, I think it's 5th, is that I've already mentioned this. Take care of, like, marketing lingo, like, synergy or, seamless, things like that. Like, just stop saying sort of classic b to b marketing words. Developers don't wanna hear it. The 6th one is that, like, ecosystems are really messy. The term ecosystem comes from, like, the outside kind of ecosystem where you have a pond and a bunch of stuff is, like, dying within the pond, and there are a bunch of animals and bacteria that are eating that, and then growing up and other things are gonna eat those. It's messy. It is important that, like, the growth is where is in the mess, and you do need to have people place to kinda safeguard that and make sure it's not too, like, inhospitable for people. So I think that's important. And then the last one is very basic. It's everyone wants to be the center of the wheel. Everyone wants to be the platform. Not everyone is. And that's okay. It's okay to say, like, this is not the moment for us to build an ecosystem. It's the moment for us to build a set of really useful integrations for our users, and that moment of tipping into becoming the core ecosystem could come in the future. But I've seen that kind of force before. And I think the ones that are, like, most important, the developers being first class citizens one, if your product is not a developer product, gets missed a lot. And you often, like, throw them bad APIs with bad documentation and, like, expect them to build stuff and that just simply won't work. Like, it will work for a minute and then it will fail. So, I think it's one of the most important ones. Last question for you before we wrap up. A lot of folks listening to this podcast are probably earlier in their journey, maybe just getting started, maybe haven't hired their 1st marketer yet even, you know, just early in that in that journey developing their platform or product or what have you. What advice would you give out to an early stage founder, maybe looking to build that initial go to market team or go to market motion? What would you say to them? I'm working with a really early stage marketing team right now. Sort of doing the part time CMO thing, and it's been very, very fun. Biggest I think the biggest stumbles I see people make is trying to say, oh, like, our marketing motion is going to be that thing that you're not doing at all right now, and then trying to hire someone. Like, let's say you don't actually have a lot of content going, but you're like, I think we need a content team. And then you hire this, like, stand alone content person who is disconnected from anything else you're already doing. That just doesn't work. The biggest thing I'd say is you if you're seeing some growth, if you're, like, getting users on the product, getting paying customers, you're doing some marketing. It's just a question of who's doing the marketing at the company who doesn't have the title and what are they doing? And I want you to find those people. It's often probably you, CEO, or the product person. Like, it's often one of those people. And write out what those jobs are, and then go build the job description around that by giving that to someone who's experienced and who's done it well. Because taking your existing motion that is working and then scaling that is going to grow you. But trying to, like, artificially place marketing into this thing is, like, a huge fail. You end up firing that team, and it's not fun. I have definitely heard that story time and time again. That's all the time we have for today. Cece, thanks again for joining us. This is really, really great. Thanks, Michael. Appreciate it. You just listened to crossing the enterprise chasm, a podcast about software startups and their journey moving upmarket to serving enterprise customers. Wanna learn more about becoming enterprise ready? The WorkOS blog is full of tons of articles and guides outlining best practices for adding features like single sign on, SCIM provisioning, and more to your app. Also, make sure to subscribe to this podcast so you're first to hear about new episodes with more founders and product leads of fast growing startups. I'm Michael Grenich, founder of WorkOS. Thanks so much for listening, and see you next time.
Intents

Welcome to Crossing the Enterprise Chasm, a podcast about software start ups and their journey moving upmarket to serving enterprise customers. I'm your host, Michael Greenwich. I'm the founder of WorkOS, which is a platform that helps developers quickly ship common enterprise features like single sign on. On this podcast, you'll hear directly from founders, product leaders, and early stage operators who have navigated building great products for enterprise customers. In every episode, you'll find strategies, tactics, and real world advice for ways to make your app enterprise ready and take your business to the next level. Today, I'm joined by Cece Stalsmith, partner and cofounder at Calyxt Consulting and former director of platform marketing at Slack. CCS spent most of her career thinking about developers and how to reach them. First at Box and then at Slack. Her company Calyxt focuses focuses on companies and their journey becoming platforms. We're delighted to have her here on the podcast to chat about a particular area of her expert ex expertise, marketing to developers. Cece, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for having me, Michael. I really appreciate it. Alright. Let's go back in time a little bit. We'll start there. Tell us about your time at Box, first in the developer relations role and then later, as the platform product and ecosystem manager, where I know Box went from 0 integrations to over a1000 eventually. Yeah. It was so fun. This story could be so long, so I'll try and keep it short. The journey at Vox to platform was fascinating. I joined it about 200 people. Box had always had an API because we they'd always been sort of platform first, but Aaron was really great at sort of capturing the zeitgeist at various moments in order to grow the company. And so mobile do you remember, like, 2011, Michael, mobile was, like, really, really hot and exciting? Oh, yeah. It was the AI of the early 2010s. Yeah. Absolutely was. And the iOS App Store and also the Android App Store were, like, where VCs were, like, mining for new companies, and everything was really exciting. So I had the opportunity. I was doing developer relations for Box, trying to get people to build with the API, which didn't really make sense because I'm not an engineer, but I was able to because the API was straightforward enough, so props to box. And, Aaron, one night, like, pulled me and my manager into a room. This is like we would work at 10 PM, and it was fun. What was my life back then? I don't know. And was, like, had this idea for this mobile ecosystem, and I got to go and build it with them. So it was really fun. I just literally was, like, scouring the app store and emailing cold emailing all of these people who are building these apps in the productivity and, like, sort of business space. And I just got them to integrate with Box, and then we would do these big marketing launches to sort of, like, blow out the excitement about our ecosystem, and it worked surprisingly well. We started and launched with, like, 10 apps, but we got a ton of press and then grew it to 50. Took on the Android App Store, grew another 15, then grew to, like, well over 200 apps and stopped counting. So it was like a very, very fun sort of crazy ecosystem journey. That there were also a lot of lessons learned too I can share as well, but that was the experience in Vox. Yeah. Going back to that, the very first, you know, set that you did that first ten, do you remember what the the kinda catalyst was for actually doing this? Like, what what did you see or what did Aaron see? Was it a thesis bet where people are already starting to use it? I I know platforms are kinda always the hot thing. Everyone wants to be a platform, so everyone wants to do it. But why did you know it was the right time to do it for Box? So platforms always were the hot thing, but I've worked with a lot of companies since then launching their ecosystems, like getting their platforms together. And it is a little more like playbookized at this point. They weren't as clearly there wasn't as clear of a playbook in 2011, I would say. Like, Microsoft and Apple had done it, but there wasn't anyone recently who had done a really cool ecosystem that everyone was sort of jealous of or or wanted to be like. So one, it was still a little bit novel. Like, I recently worked with launching an ecosystem for a pretty big company, and getting partners to deal like, to want to build to our platform was really hard. Like, everyone's been playing this build to my platform or I'll build to your platform game for the last decade, and people are a little tired of maintaining integrations. Back then, this was sort of new, and exciting. We also so that was one thing. 2, there was it was still some novelty to this whole effort. 2, we mobile was the Wild West at this point. So it's sort of like, I would say, AI is right now where, like, everyone's just scrambling to build to figure out where the little growth angle is going to be that's going to make them into a big company by building with this new technology. Mobile was that at this moment in time. So there was this question of, like, how are files gonna move on mobile, and how is mobile gonna play out? Maybe remember paper? It was like a really beautifully built note taking app. It was like the hottest thing. It took tons of money from big VCs. Like, they had this beautiful office in New York. They were a mobile app. They ended up, you know, selling to the New York Times. It didn't end up being a huge outcome, but everyone thought that, like, that was going to be the future. It's like you're building on iPads, and it was really, really cool. So there was also this this moment of hype around mobile and lots of opportunities, so people were very willing to work together. And then the last thing was we were totally explaining, like, lack issues on the, native operating systems. So there weren't secure ways to pass files between apps at that point on the operating systems, especially on Android. Our Android had, like, some weird protocol thing that they had. So I actually got a patent in my name when I was doing product, which is hilarious because, like, how did that happen? Along with the yeah. So it was really fun, and there was a lot of, like, greenfield for exploring how to take an API that was about moving files around securely and applying that to mobile, which then changed over time as the operating system kinda, like, got everything locked down. And I think you're gonna watch that play out a lot right now with, AI because there's it's the wild west, Like, even with the announcement that OpenAI made, I don't know when this will air, but this was, like, yesterday, November 6th. They're kind of, like, resetting the ecosystem repeatedly because they're bringing out so many new tools. And, like, as those tools change, it's going to really change the game for what apps can do. So it's kinda like the flashlight app on iOS where everyone had that app and then they added it natively and it changed. So that was part of the way things played out. That's a really interesting, comment about how how those things end up becoming in house kind of native to the platform. I was literally just talking with a friend at lunch today about how all of the AI work he's been doing in a startup for the last 6 months is, sort of no longer relevant given what opening has announced. But you just kinda keep moving the goalposts, and they're working on the next the next new thing around that. I have a set of so I've I have a wonderful mentor who's did a lot at Microsoft, and, we talk about this stuff a lot. And he one of the things he always says is when you're building with a platform like that, you have to always especially if you're, like, a smaller player working on top of them, you have to always be trying to see around corners. Because the assumption that we're all just friends and we're all just trying to only make each other's businesses grow is the wrong one. You have to like, if you're going to be a really cutting edge winning company built on top of a platform platform with an ecosystem like that, you kinda always have to be, like, seeing and trying to find out where they're going to cannibalize your business eventually and building ahead of it. And we thought a lot about this at Slack because we didn't want to offend our ecosystem at all, or, like, really destroy them. So we would do a lot to basically communicate in advance if we were going to add features, which we obviously did. Like, look at all the features Slack has now that would, sort of directly impact or compete with our ecosystem. And I think that just doing that, like, sort of one to one outreach or even group outreach was it did a lot to help the ecosystem stay healthy. Let's talk more about Slack. I think that's a great segue. Obviously, very different platform, different kind of type of developer, and, you know, different timing of the market and and industry. What was the, you know, marketing motion there? How how is that different or similar to Box? Can you talk about that? What maybe what drew people into building the Slack platform? Then we can talk about some of the specifics. Totally. So Box is interesting because if you looked at Box like Dropbox was in the space, and we were we were the enterprise option, but we were also more of a number 2. Like, we weren't the hottest kid on the block. Whereas Slack, we were the leader in the category. We were the thing that everyone wanted to use. People were like, we were growing, like, gangbusters when I joined. Again, I joined around 200 people and got to, like, watch a ton of growth for the company. I was, like, thinking and preparing for this podcast, and I hate to say it, but I think I could have been pretty bad at my job, and we would have done perfectly well and and succeeded. I think that my team was amazing, and I think we did a good job. So I think we hopefully had an impact on, like, making things even better at Slack. But there was just simply product market fit. So one of the biggest things I I observed, especially in developer marketing, is you can out market especially products that you're trying to bring to, in, like, a sales led world. And you can often out market things in a very consumer oriented world by, like, having influencers push stuff and things like that. But with developer products, there's just a different level of BS filter, I would say. I don't know if you feel that. Do you feel that in your world? I think developers have like a very, very refined sense of smell for when things are just a little bit off. And it's it's almost a sense that other non developers don't have. They don't even know that they're doing something wrong. Yeah. And I actually really love that about the developer audience. There's, like, more discernment there. So you it's pretty hard to beat product market fit. So Slack had product market fit. When I joined, we didn't have a third party developer API. So we had APIs that you as a customer could use for your own Slack. That was it. So it was insane because we were growing so fast. Developers wanted to build these third party apps to reach our big customer base and our very fast growing customer base, and they would have to ask customers individually for their API keys to get them an app, and they were doing it. So they were just, like, doing back flips on climbing over, like, really impossible to scale walls in order to get apps built. So we were just, like, as fast as we could shipping the API to work and then launched it. And we're basically managing growth, I would say, at Slack. And then a lot of the stuff I think we did well in terms of developer marketing was, I mean, one, we just had a really high bar for how we marketed and, like, the way we used words and what we would do. We were really equipped to do awesome events and, like, sort of just bring a craftsmanship to the work that was really fun that I think people resonated with. And then we also just did a very we have awesome BD team and developer relations team, and we really, like, knew our ecosystem. I still know the ecosystem pretty well. Like, get, you know, lots of work through that ecosystem well still. So I think there was also a lot of personal touch that we did that made a big difference in terms of how we worked with, the ecosystem overall. There's, like, a lot of basic tooling stuff I could talk about with, like, just opening up developer communications was a really big deal when I joined. We hadn't been saying anything. We just started sending a newsletter. We just started doing some really basic stuff, which made a big difference. So those are the highlights for me. I think a lot of it has to do with how you talk to developers, and that's, like, a lot of what I learned there and then had to teach the team, in terms of, like, you can't just cut the fluff, cut the marketing stuff, get to the meat, and get it across. Let's talk about that a little bit more because I think, you know, you're totally right that that product market fit that Slack had really propelled the company. My current definition of product market fit when I talk to other founders is is, is when you can just keep screwing everything up and yet keep succeeding. You know, it's just kinda you you you keep tripping over your shoelaces and yet you keep, like, scoring goal after goal, with your with your customers. So, you know, that and that's an amazing thing to have and a magical place to be. But there's so many companies that have had that and then screwed it up, or they've had a product and then tried to launch for developers and totally missed. You know, have it whether it's on tone of voice or the way they launch their platform or kind of how they connect. And and the benefit of a developer platform is huge, so everyone really tries it. What would you say are the things that companies should look out for? That's a great way to market our voice to developers and, maybe what should they stay away from or common pitfalls that you see the, you know, un indoctrinated, make as they as they try this. Okay. I think a lot of the reason why people run into I, like, work across so many different companies now that I get to see and then edit the work of a lot of different marketers or people who are thinking about working with developers. The I don't wanna sound too mean, but the first one I see is that you take someone who does, like, classic b to b marketing and then you plug them into developer marketing, and they're just using the language of b to b marketing with the developer audience. And this is, like, such basic marketing 101, but there's a understanding of who is your target user or, like, your persona. And part of being decent at developer marketing is understanding what developers will react to. So I'm getting into, like, fractional CMO right now. It's really fun, and I love working with our CTO at this company because we'll work on some stuff, and then he'll look at it and he'll be like, ugh. I hate this. Like, that's such an overstated claim. And developers, like we were saying, there's just this desire for things to be very honest and maybe even a little bit humble in the way they're stated because when you're building software, you are building, like, net new things, and there are things that are really impressive and cool. And then there's stuff that's pretty straightforward and basic. And it's easy as a marketer to be like, oh, I'm charged with trying to make people excited about this feature of the API. So I'm gonna go act like it's, like, so thrilling. And it's like, no. It's actually just basic and useful and just state it as that and stop trying to hype this thing up that's actually just normal. Like, if you're really building if you're building OpenAI, they're not even being very hype either. Like, that's really changing the world and how we think about things. If you're building an endpoint for a feature or, like, access management controls, that's a nice feature, and you should just stay in a straightforward way because it's not, like, so impressive and amazing. So taking 1, like, reducing the hype unless something's actually really cool. 2, watching out for just, like, regular business jargon and lingo. Like, I would just give it to an engineer on your team if you're trying to, like, practically do this and be like, what do you gag at? And just let them redline it. Just take someone who's a little bit, like, snoo snooty about stuff, and just, like, literally let them redline your blog or your website because they will take that language that just, like, feels fake to them and cut it down. Those are the 2 big things. I think the last one that is important here, and I think I learned this at Vox, which was really fun. There is a danger. It's really hard to find real technical marketers, obviously. Like, usually, people who go into marketing are not technical or technical people stay in technical roles. You occasionally can, but, like, you can't, you know, bet your farm on that. If you find a marketer who needs the market market technical things, they need to be able to sit down with the person who developed it, the engineer, the product person, whoever it is, and really understand how it works. Because the work of technical marketing or, like, marketing to developers is being able to explain how this thing works without having to, like, be extremely technical in the explanation. It's like distilling the hard thing into something simple is really important. And often, I think you you see I'll I'll work with people who don't really understand how the product works, and then the marketing is just very bad because it doesn't clearly communicate what's possible. So Let's talk about brand a little bit because you haven't touched on this, but I know it's a big thing. We've talked about it a bunch 101. And with developer products, you know, these these iconic products that developers are drawn or drawn towards, you know, like Stripe brand is such a huge part of it. How do you see that fitting in? Slack obviously had an amazing brand too instead of Box. How does it fit into kind of that, like, developer angle and the kind of platform building narrative? I have a funny and weird perspective on this one, so I guess I'll just let it rip. I really hope that for these types of companies, a lot of it is just determined by the founders. And I think I would actually point to that for WorkOS. I feel like you have a very strong perspective on, like, how the branch should look and feel, how the API should work, like, how your product should really work for people, and that impacts how it literally looks and feels. I would say at Slack, like, so much of that marketing brand is just Stewart or was Stewart. Like, it's hard to talk about Slack now because just, like, in your brains when you're listening to this rewind 3 or 4 years and then think about Slack then, like, that was just Stewart distilled. And he, like, really did get into those marketing choices. He was in all the brand conversations. He blocked brand stuff left, right, and center. I think when you look at Stripe, again, the Collisons are, like, notorious for being very careful about what gets out the door for that company's marketing. And I think that a lot of their brand, and I would say this for your product too, is actually predicated on the it's the product that is the brand. It's not just, like, the marketing stuff that is the brand. And I think there's something too. They have a good sense of, like, what aesthetic they wanna be getting across. They have a sense of, like, the palette and some of, like, the look and feel that's gonna come across in the actual, like, marketing brand stuff. But I actually think a lot of the brand experience that developers care about is literally the ease of use of the API or, like, the ease of use of the of the different products or, like, how great the examples are, in the SDK. I think that's a huge part and and a way more important part of the brand experience for developer products. And, hey, as a marketer, it's actually a little hard to control because I don't write the docs, but I can bother people to make sure that they're managed well and have good IA and have good examples and, like, are doing cutting edge things. So I think that actually the docs are one of your most important brand experiences, and I think a lot of this comes to your CEO or, like, the founder DNA and, like, the feel the founders wanna get across in the company. I have not seen a lot of marketers successfully, like, get around, CEOs who have strong feelings like that. And I do see a lot of companies that are kinda like meh and brand, and it's just because it just the leaders don't care that much. And you can build a successful company without doing that too. I mean, many folks many folks do. You just don't get that that the je ne sais quoi kinda like supercharged on top of it. You don't get the, like, sparkle. And I think the biggest piece to it is you want people to want to be hanging out with you. Like, I think the value of of that brand piece is, like, I look cool if I'm associated. Whereas, like, you don't look as cool with a company that doesn't that no one cares as much about. Not as aspirational. Sure. I mean, I I can definitely tell you at Workhorse. We it's not just me. We obsess around it across the whole company even down to, like, error messages being thrown by the API. Every single customer support message trying to make it on point. It's it's not just the gradients on your home page or the color of your logo. A disproportionate amount of it at Slack was the product and then the voice. I think that more of it was the voice than, like, the imagery or or the coloring schemes or anything. And that's a combination of Stewart and this woman, Anna Pickard, who is one of the most amazing voice and tone people or the most amazing person I've ever worked with on that front. She just has a real talent for this, and it was so hard. This is like a little inside Slack story. So hard to train marketers in Slack's voice and tone. It's it was almost impossible because people would always come in and be like, oh, Slack's voice and tone is so playful and fun, and then try to replicate it and then just sound really hokey and, like, lame. But Anna had this great she's British. I feel like there also was this element of it was a little, like, extra sophisticated. Like, one of our tone things was, we're not above a joke from English literature. Like, we would just throw in little random sophisticated tidbits. I'm actually sitting on a piece that I wanna publish that's like this overview of sort of what you're allowed to say and not say, as a Slack marketer, but it was so painful. We would have to put people through the ringer and then just realize, like, a lot of people couldn't write for the company because of that. I wanna switch gears a little bit and talk about what you've been doing since Slack, with Calyxt, which is, I think generally focused on helping companies that are building platforms navigate this, whether those are developer platforms or ecosystems or or just ways of working with other other companies. Let's start off maybe tell me about what being a platform means to you. How would you define that? Like, what is a platform? This is an interesting one. One of my favorite companies that I invested in when I was in venture. I printed this shirt that was a toaster, and it was like, I'm not a toaster. I'm a platform, was the caption of the shirt. Everyone says they're a platform. Everyone is not a platform. I if we're talking about what's interesting at Calyxt, I don't only work with ecosystem players anymore. I actually also just work with straight up developer products because there are a lot of them and there are not a lot of people who do marketing for them. So I work with both. I would say a platform, especially in terms of the ecosystem. I like Bill Gates' measure of a platform. I don't think I've worked with tons of platforms who have become that. His measure is, a platform it's a true platform. You've built a true platform product when the value of the things built on top of it in sum is greater than the platform itself. That's a pretty hard and high order, but I actually like that as the goal because it helps you understand that, like, you're trying to build something that's much greater than the core underlying product. And that the platform is going to take that core underlying product and, like, bring it to really new heights in terms of what's possible. So I'm really into that concept. And then when it comes to dev tools, I actually think it's totally cool to be a really useful tool, and you can make lots of money that way and have a really good business. And then if people extend it, awesome. Well, I wanna also ask about something you've written about, which is your go to market philosophy. You have this this approach to it, these, like, seven principles. Can you give us a quick summary of that? Like, what's what's across the seven principles, the seven points, and maybe a little bit of color around it? Like, what are your your favorite ones or what's not been you know, what what do people not usually adopt or recognize? Yeah. They're all over the place. The first one is that Bill Gates principle, like, the platform, everything built on top of it, and some is greater than the platform itself. The second is this concept of a flywheel. So basic. I've been at so many companies where I have to, like, teach people about how flywheels work, and I think that's getting more understood understood as people, like, listen to Lenny a lot and people like that. But, basically, a platform makes your core underlying product more useful to more users and therefore grows it. But this is you have to kinda, like, get the flywheel growing by yourself first and then it kicks and starts to do it itself as you grow. And there are so that's the second one. The third one, a lot of the work I do is, like, figuring out messaging and value of platforms. And as I've done that work, I've realized there are only actually 3 ecosystem value props, and 2 of them are nearly the same thing. The first value prop is you can make a lot of money with this platform or built or by building on top of it. 2nd one is you can get a lot of users, which usually translates to money. And the third one is this is really, really useful technology, that you can use and do brand new things or really important things with. So usually you're focusing on one of those three value props. The 4th is that developers are first class citizens. I've worked a lot of places where people just don't see the developer as an important user because the customer that's paying in, like, a b to b scenario is often the higher priority. But if you're really trying to build a great platform, you need to treat your developers well to keep them around and to make it sustainable. 3rd or 4th or 5th one, I think it's 5th, is that I've already mentioned this. Take care of, like, marketing lingo, like, synergy or, seamless, things like that. Like, just stop saying sort of classic b to b marketing words. Developers don't wanna hear it. The 6th one is that, like, ecosystems are really messy. The term ecosystem comes from, like, the outside kind of ecosystem where you have a pond and a bunch of stuff is, like, dying within the pond, and there are a bunch of animals and bacteria that are eating that, and then growing up and other things are gonna eat those. It's messy. It is important that, like, the growth is where is in the mess, and you do need to have people place to kinda safeguard that and make sure it's not too, like, inhospitable for people. So I think that's important. And then the last one is very basic. It's everyone wants to be the center of the wheel. Everyone wants to be the platform. Not everyone is. And that's okay. It's okay to say, like, this is not the moment for us to build an ecosystem. It's the moment for us to build a set of really useful integrations for our users, and that moment of tipping into becoming the core ecosystem could come in the future. But I've seen that kind of force before. And I think the ones that are, like, most important, the developers being first class citizens one, if your product is not a developer product, gets missed a lot. And you often, like, throw them bad APIs with bad documentation and, like, expect them to build stuff and that just simply won't work. Like, it will work for a minute and then it will fail. So, I think it's one of the most important ones. Last question for you before we wrap up. A lot of folks listening to this podcast are probably earlier in their journey, maybe just getting started, maybe haven't hired their 1st marketer yet even, you know, just early in that in that journey developing their platform or product or what have you. What advice would you give out to an early stage founder, maybe looking to build that initial go to market team or go to market motion? What would you say to them? I'm working with a really early stage marketing team right now. Sort of doing the part time CMO thing, and it's been very, very fun. Biggest I think the biggest stumbles I see people make is trying to say, oh, like, our marketing motion is going to be that thing that you're not doing at all right now, and then trying to hire someone. Like, let's say you don't actually have a lot of content going, but you're like, I think we need a content team. And then you hire this, like, stand alone content person who is disconnected from anything else you're already doing. That just doesn't work. The biggest thing I'd say is you if you're seeing some growth, if you're, like, getting users on the product, getting paying customers, you're doing some marketing. It's just a question of who's doing the marketing at the company who doesn't have the title and what are they doing? And I want you to find those people. It's often probably you, CEO, or the product person. Like, it's often one of those people. And write out what those jobs are, and then go build the job description around that by giving that to someone who's experienced and who's done it well. Because taking your existing motion that is working and then scaling that is going to grow you. But trying to, like, artificially place marketing into this thing is, like, a huge fail. You end up firing that team, and it's not fun. I have definitely heard that story time and time again. That's all the time we have for today. Cece, thanks again for joining us. This is really, really great. Thanks, Michael. Appreciate it. You just listened to crossing the enterprise chasm, a podcast about software startups and their journey moving upmarket to serving enterprise customers. Wanna learn more about becoming enterprise ready? The WorkOS blog is full of tons of articles and guides outlining best practices for adding features like single sign on, SCIM provisioning, and more to your app. Also, make sure to subscribe to this podcast so you're first to hear about new episodes with more founders and product leads of fast growing startups. I'm Michael Grenich, founder of WorkOS. Thanks so much for listening, and see you next time.