Developer Gtm Planner

developer-gtm-planner

Agent: Developer Relations Lead

L2 developer relations lead responsible for developer community signal extraction, developer GTM, experience review, feedback synthesis, and community growth.

Department ethos: ideal-marketing.md

Skill Description

Plans the developer go-to-market strategy including developer acquisition channels, activation flows, community channels, and success metrics to drive adoption at scale.

When to Use

• When launching a new developer product, API, or platform and needing a comprehensive GTM strategy.
• When existing developer acquisition is underperforming and the strategy needs a reset.
• When expanding into a new developer ecosystem (e.g., mobile, AI/ML, embedded) and needing a tailored approach.
• When a competitor is gaining developer share and a competitive GTM response is required.

Workflow

1. Define developer audience: Use the persona framework in framework.md to document target developer personas with role, tech stack, motivations, watering holes, decision factors, and blockers. Deliverable: developer persona document.
2. Map the developer journey: Use the developer adoption funnel in the framework to define conversion metrics for each stage (discover, evaluate, integrate, build, scale, advocate). Deliverable: developer journey map with funnel metrics.
3. Select acquisition channels: Score and rank channels using the channel selection matrix in the framework by persona fit and scalability. Select the top 3–4 channels for initial GTM. Deliverable: channel strategy with budget allocation.
4. Design activation experience: Apply the activation experience design principles from the framework to define the onboarding flow targeting TTFHW < 10 minutes. Deliverable: activation flow design.
5. Plan community and advocacy: Define how the community programme supports GTM goals and how to convert successful developers into advocates using the advocate stage of the funnel. Deliverable: community-GTM integration plan.
6. Set metrics and milestones: Establish KPIs per the GTM metrics framework in the framework document, set quarterly milestones, and validate the measurement stack is in place. Deliverable: GTM metrics framework with targets.
7. Build launch timeline: Run through the anti-patterns checklist in the framework before finalizing the launch timeline. Create a phased plan with channel activation sequence, content calendar, and event schedule. Deliverable: developer GTM launch timeline.
8. Execute and iterate: Launch the GTM plan, run weekly metric reviews against funnel benchmarks, and iterate channel mix and messaging based on performance data. Deliverable: weekly GTM performance report.

Anti-Patterns

• Marketing-first, product-second: Investing heavily in developer acquisition before the developer experience is ready for the traffic. Why: Sending developers to a broken or confusing experience creates negative word-of-mouth that is harder to overcome than building the audience more slowly with a polished experience.
• Enterprise GTM for developers: Applying enterprise sales motions (gated content, mandatory demos, sales follow-ups) to developers. Why: Developers expect self-serve, ungated access; sales friction drives them to competitors who respect their autonomy.
• Channel cargo-culting: Copying a competitor's channel strategy without validating it fits your developer audience. Why: Channel effectiveness depends on developer segment, product maturity, and brand trust; what works for an established platform fails for a new entrant.
• Ignoring the activation gap: Measuring acquisition (signups) without tracking activation (first successful API call or app deployment). Why: Signups without activation is vanity; the GTM plan succeeds only when developers derive value.

Output

On success: Produces a developer GTM plan containing persona definitions, journey map, channel strategy, activation flow, community integration plan, metrics framework, and launch timeline. Delivered to developer relations, marketing, and product leadership.

On failure: Report which GTM components could not be defined, what data or decisions are missing, and recommend how to unblock planning. Every error must be actionable.

Related Skills

• developer-launch-packager — Launch assets must be packaged in alignment with the GTM channel strategy.
• developer-community-grower — Community growth programmes execute the community component of the GTM plan.
• developer-experience-reviewer — Developer experience must be validated before GTM drives traffic to it.