apidays LIVE Hong Kong 2021 - API Ecosystem & Data Interchange August 25 & 26, 2021 How to start a tech community Jenks Guo, Partner Solutions Lead at Linktree

1. How to start a tech community
Linktree, the only Link you’ll ever need

2. Who is Jenks Guo? 󰤅
Why am I listening to him? 󰤈
kickstarter.com
behance.com
shopify.com
ebay.com
paypal.com
mywebsite.com

3. Source: Statista and TNW (2019)
● Tech Author
● Developer Evangelist
● DevRel Australia Meetup Organiser
● Community Geek
Jenks Guo

4. What is Linktree?
🌲
kickstarter.com
behance.com
shopify.com
ebay.com
paypal.com
mywebsite.com

5. Number of people using social media platforms
Source: Statista and TNW (2019)
The internet has
become wildly
fragmented.

6. From anywhere, to everywhere.
Linktree is a tool that connects your audiences to your
entire online ecosystem.
Simplify - Remove clutter between click and conversion
and drive business outcomes.
Democratize - Enable anyone to have their own place
on the internet.
Unify - One unified hub for your most recent and
relevant content.
Discover - Encourage further discovery of all of your
priority initiatives.
linktr.ee/username

7. linktr.ee/selenagomez
linktr.ee/selenagomez

8. 14m+
Users
250+
Customer verticals
The Linktree audience
~30k
Avg. Daily sign ups
~500m
Unique visitors per month
30%
Users in the US
4.6k
Links created per hour

9. How to start a tech
community
🤔

10. Tech community differs…
󰳕󰠁

11. ● Harsh
● Short on time
● Anti-marketing
● Anti-sales
● Brings lots of values
● Join for issues/need help
● Can smell if the community is stale in seconds
● Want to up skill & become super humans
Dealing with Tech Community
Illustration by Myriam Wares
󰠁󰳕 Devs
● be honest
● be clear with your messages
● provide useful information (quick NOs are good too!)
● be authentic and create a loud voice
󰠀 Community Manager

12. Don’t create a tech
community, find one!
👏

13. It is not the case of “you build it, they will come:” It
needs to evolve from an existing user base.
Find the hard-core fans 🕺
And, 🦻 to them...

14. Xero
2.2 million users 70k dev community
Xero

15. Start in the right ways.
🏁🏎

16. Set a mission & vision 🚀
Photo by David Iskander
“Our mission is to ensure the Internet is a global
public resource, open and accessible to all.”
— Firefox developer forum’s mission
“An employee experience platform designed to help
people connect, focus, learn, and thrive at work.”
— Microsoft Tech Community purpose

17. Consistent gathering place & rituals 🍕
Photo by Des Récits
● Slack/Discord
● Community forum
● In-person events
● Meetups
● Roadshows
● Conferences
● Email newsletter
● Blog
● Video
● Webinars
● Streaming (twitch)

18. Governance & set expectations right 📏
Photo by Tim Gouw
● Community code of conduct
● Community guidelines
● Community principles
Governance exists because we want the community
to be engaging, a place to create good content, and a
safe place together.

19. Recognise ambassadors & champions 🍾
Auth0 ambassador program

20. Open source communities
🪛🥫

21. Set the ways of working ☎
Illustration by Myriam Wares
Explaining the basic things like:
● how they can communicate with the maintainers
● how often pull requests are reviewed
● whether there are mentors

22. Decide governance models 󰥡
Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters
It frustrates developers if they are not clear on how
decisions are made and why.
● Company Led
● Benevolent dictator
● Governing board

23. Keep your self out of lawsuits 󰥟
Illustration by Daniel Shaffer
Open source development does not attract more legal
issues, closed products have just as much.
● Permissive license
● Restrictive license

24. It is an long term investment
Photo by Brendan Steeves
It’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon...

25. Summary 📝

26. Tech community 󰠁󰳕
● Emerge from existing user base
● Different
● Start right:
○ Set values
○ Create rituals, code & guidelines
○ Embrace champions
○ Go with the flow
● Open source
○ WoW
○ Governance model
○ License
○ Long term investment

27. Thanks!