The adoption of developer tools has changed, a lot. It hasn't been led by ads, or private forums. It’s been led by creators that code, the ones teaching, sharing, and influencing what tools developers choose to adopt and why. I wrote a deep dive on Creator-Led Growth for Devtools. What it is, why it matters, and how to put it into practice. Including some examples of CLG by Devtools like @clerk @neondatabase and @snyksec Here’s our @plugdotdev playbook for CLG: plug.dev/companyblog

Y'ALL MUST HAVE FORGOT . . . Creators That Code! AI made technical content and instant answers abundant. Developers still rely on experienced people to test, interpret and explain what actually works. The first blog I wrote for Plug.Dev was about those people: Creators That Code. They’re the independent creators, engineers, founders, DevRel practitioners, educators and community experts helping developers learn, build and even influence decisions. Some have large audiences. Others contribute through open-source projects, inside companies or technical communities. What connects them is technical credibility, useful creation, novel insights and the ability to help that work reach others. Three years into building Plug, they feel more important than ever. Here's the blog post: lnkd.in/e73T7_CS

Random fact: I built Plug.Dev from a small village, located in the mountains of a national park, one hour north of Madrid, Spain. ⛰️ Yes, my Spanish is horrendous. No, I don’t have co-founders, advisors or investors. We’re a small bootstrapped business working with devtools like Vercel, Supabase, Databricks, OpenRouter, n8n and more, helping them reach developers. Some days, the contrast feels . . . surreal!?! And I’m here, hiding away in the mountains, shouting at the dog to stop chasing a horse one minute, jumping on calls with CMOs/CEOs from devtool unicorns the next. Crazy little life, kinda cool right? Yep, that’s the post. 🤷‍♂️

Soooooo, Plug.Dev is three years old 🎂 Most people don't know this. . but I started Plug with about €7k in my bank account. The first thing we built was a profile where technical creators could show their work and receive bookings. There was no company side and no revenue and I hadn’t set out to build an agency. After years of building developer communities, I wanted to make something useful for the people teaching and supporting developers. I shared with a few creators I knew for feedback, then creators began sharing Plug with each other. The first 50ish creators signed up to our platform before we had a single devtool customer. And when that first customer came, it was from a creator referral. There was no formal referral program or incentive. Someone we’d built for trusted us enough to put our name forward. More introductions followed, first from creators and then from companies. Three years on, our team works with some of the world’s leading devtools. We’ve built a lot more than that first profile, but creators remain at the centre of Plug. We call them Creators That Code, and the approach we’ve built around them Creator-Led Growth for Devtools. I’m grateful to the creators who got us started, the devtool customers who trusted us early on and the Plug team currently building what comes next. Thanks folks ❤️ ✌

After 10+ years running developer events, hackathons, and conferences in London and Dublin (infosec+AI), I noticed a pattern that seems obvious in hindsight. Companies used developer communities as distribution channels. The ones that succeeded leaned on educational content and entertainment to capture mindshare. The relationship worked when both sides got value. That realization eventually became @plugdotdev . I wrote a short blog about our why👇 plug.dev/blog/ourwhy

We’ve added a new section to the site: how Plug.Dev works. It’s a clear breakdown of our model, how we run creator programs, who we represent, how shortlists are built, and how we work across accounts and our broader creator database. 📷 plug.dev/howitworks We’ve also launched a new creator showcase with incredible support from the creator community📷 📷 plug.dev/showcase

We’re opening up the Plug.Dev Influencer Playbook for Devtools 🤓 Dev Influencers, especially on YouTube, aren’t just about awareness. When you partner the right way, they can drive full-funnel developer marketing: from awareness through to conversion and retention via educational content that transitions to Devtool advocacy. Everyday, the @plugdotdev team works with world class Devtools like Supabase, Clerk, and Snyk to run influencer campaigns. We’ve seen what works, what flops, and what scales. The playbook we've put together breaks down what we’ve learned, and how to grow from one-off campaign hits into compounding programs. Inside includes: • How to scale from one-off campaigns to compounding programs • Which content formats drive full-funnel, from buzz to long-tail education • How influencers teach, build trust, and drive product adoption, not just views The Dev Influencer Playbook: plug.dev/blog/influencer-pla… Hit me up with any questions or feedback, happy reading! 👋

Gm

Product devs..👋 We're hiring ✨

This month, Plug.Dev turns two 🎉 What started as a simple idea has grown into the default creator partner platform for Devtools like Clerk, Browserbase, Neon, and Snyk. ✨ 2025 has been an inflection point: - More than doubled revenue vs 2024 - Doubled again between Jan–Aug - On track to more than double before year’s end New customers are adding recurring revenue and profit margins are rising. Clear validation that our model of platform + community + expert + AI is scaling. We’re now a core team of six. Added a Head of Ops, refining business & program ops. Invested more in our AI ops. Brought on a Senior Engineer for scaling the platform & building the next category of GTM features. Two years in, the lesson is clear: coders adopt tools through creators, communities & trusted content, not just traditional marketing motions. Plug exists to make that shift scalable, helping devtools turn creator partnerships into long-term programs rather than one-off experiments. Plug was built with and for the creator community and our growth has been a byproduct of their trust. Without outbound sales, referral programs, or traditional marketing, most of our momentum has come through word of mouth in the creator ecosystem. Today, Plug is home to the largest community of Creators That Code, with hundreds of dev influencers across YouTube, X, and beyond. They’ve shaped how we work, fueled our customer growth, and continue to be at the heart of everything we do. That’s why we published the Creators That Code blog (plug.dev/creatorblog), to put a name and framework around the movement they’ve driven. We were, are, and will continue to be creator-led. I’m proud of what we’ve built in just two years, grateful for the team behind it, appreciative for the support from the creator community and even more excited for what’s ahead @plugdotdev 🚀 Learn more about the Plug.Dev team: plug.dev/aboutus 🤗

Around 3 years ago, I ran the first @posthog dev influencer campaign, it was an experiment... aaand it flopped. I missed the ICP, picked the wrong creators, and chose content formats that didn’t fit. With no rules in place, the whole thing felt more like ads than education, and worst of all, not enough content even made it live. Thanks for letting me be your guinea pig, @posthog (@james406 + Charles) 🙏 Sorry it was sh*t, but I learned a lot. That failed campaign contributed to the foundation for Plug.Dev What I realized wasn’t just that creators mattered... it was how broken the process was. Back then, I was cold DM-ing creators, stuck in endless back-and-forth comms, chasing invoices and payments one by one, throwing UTMs in email threads, and drafting legal contracts manually. It was messy, slow, and not scalable. Fast forward to today: we now run creator programs for the world’s leading DevTool brands... now with a platform that fixes all those pain points and a specialist team to support scaling programs: ICP-matched creators, streamlined outreach and bookings, one invoice for everything, built-in UTMs and analytics, and contracts handled from the start. That early flop showed me exactly what was broken, and those learnings helped inform priorities whilst building Plug.dev ... so yeah, cheers posthog 🦔🙏

Bootstrapped to $136M 📈 incredible!