1. Always put the user first in all of our marketing. We are a developer-first company and this should permeate every interaction the user has with our brand. Practically speaking, this means no dark patterns or privacy violations.
2. Invest in community. Foster a community that developers want to be part of. Educate and be helpful. Do not sell. Always ask “What’s in it for me” (WIIFM) for our community when constructing community programs.
3. Make content developers would want to read. Focus on writing interesting content. For SEO, write content you wish you would’ve found on search: no keyword stuffing. Try not to write content that’s too specific to Warp: generalize it to be relevant to folks who don’t care about Warp.
4. Growth loops over linear channels. Growth loops are compounding acquisition channels where one cohort of users can bring about the next cohort of users. Linear channels provide spikes in traffic but don’t sustain over time. We should prioritize building growth loops over building linear channels.
5. Long-term growth over short-term growth. Prioritize programs that lead to the most growth in the long run. Invest in owned content and SEO: even if they do not give us signups as quickly as paid growth, they will give us signups consistently in the long term.
6. Build a brand. A strong brand is a moat and can help us develop loyalty and trust in our company over time. Make sure that all content is on brand before publishing.
7. When it comes to paid growth, prioritize learning over scaling. We view paid growth as a tactic for learning rather than signup maximization. Paid growth is not sustainable pre-revenue. Yet, it is one of the quickest ways to iterate on our audience, messaging, and tactics.
8. Look for impact over process. We value contributions by impact. We celebrate projects that move the needle in terms of results. Process matters too, but only in scaling out proven impact.
9. Be data-driven but pragmatic. Our strategy is informed by data. We prioritize projects and programs based on the estimated impact-to-effort ratio. We run experiments to test out hypotheses. However, be reasonable: if we have high conviction we should go ahead.
10. Never neglect Distribution. At the tail end of a content-related project, it is easy to lose momentum and do a cursory effort at distributing the content. But distribution is the most important step in the process: if your content isn't seen, its value diminishes, no matter how high its quality.