Is it true that only giants should invest in a DevRel team? The answer is becoming clearer than ever that it is "no".

And the reason for this is that smaller companies, startups, and medium-sized businesses, more than large corporations, need to connect with their user base and partner with them.

But, what exactly is DevRel?

Developer Relations (DevRel) is a mindset that aims to get developers to adopt a platform or technology and succeed in their professional lives or side projects.

To ensure the success of Developers with your product, you need:

• Existence of market fit
• Developers know how to use it
• Developers enjoy using it

So, if you have a ten-person startup, why should one of them be a DevRel expert? First and foremost, because you are most likely still developing your product and want to shape it to meet the demands of developers, you should have someone form relationships with that audience, solicit input, and influence your product roadmap. Aside from that, receiving feedback from the field and demonstrating market fit will help you** gain investor confidence**.

After you've established market fit and made your product stand out from the crowd, you'll want to make sure you give your developers an exceptional Developer Experience. So, in addition to the product's usability, it's critical to develop tools that help your Developer be more productive with your product - how-tos, tutorials, sample code, training, and so on. tutorials, sample code, training, and so on.

However, productivity isn't always enough to keep developers on board. They must also like using your product and be able to brag about their achievements to their peers. With that in mind, "Community" is another pillar DevRel provides that can help a Startup succeed.

Building a sustained and vibrant community can help developers form an emotional connection with you and provide the resources they need to succeed, such as a network of like-minded individuals who can help them unblock when they get stuck. When they become fans, they will tell the world how they feel about you and your product, and they will help you raise awareness among the developer community throughout the world.

In conclusion, DevRel can assist with the following high-level business objectives:

• Confirm Market fit
• Shape product roadmap
• Raise awareness and drive adoption of the product
• Decrease time-to-deployment/time-to-revenue (productivity)
• Expand your support efforts

Finally, DevRel stands for intensive relationship management and should not be viewed as a sprint but rather an endurance race. The successful build-up of Community and networking in the developer scene requires a long-term, sustainable strategy and a great deal of energy and repetition. Winning over depends on good ideas, suitable content, holistic support, and follow-through.