# developer-first-gtm

A skill that picks the go-to-market motion for a developer-facing product and writes down the handoff rules.

- skill · `type=skill` · Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, GitHub Copilot, Gemini CLI, OpenCode · 10400 installs · ★ 5
- Author: Samuel Berthe
- License: MIT · policy=mirror · the beginning of the file is at the end of this page
- Source: https://github.com/samber/developer-relations-skills/tree/HEAD/skills/developer-first-gtm/SKILL.md
- Updated: 2026-10-24
- HTML: https://affpapa.org/en/nevibecode/skills/developer-first-gtm

## What it does

The skill runs a 13-question interview about the product surface, current adoption numbers and team constraints, then returns a motion decision with handoff rules and a land-and-expand path. It is built for the questions founders and devrel owners actually ask: why signups are high and paid accounts flat, whether to hire a sales rep, when to contact a free user.

It starts by fixing three constraints — the business model, product friction, and whether anyone can act on a qualification signal this quarter. Then it runs the sales arithmetic: a salesperson added to a self-serve motion should return roughly 4x their fully loaded cost in incremental revenue. If qualified-account volume times realistic deal size cannot clear that bar, no motion with a human in it is available yet.

One thing to check before you start: a signal nobody can act on within days is telemetry, not a motion. The skill deliberately stays away from price points — that is what `samber/developer-relations-skills@devtools-pricing-strategy` covers.

## Install

### Claude Code (native platform)

1. **Skills CLI (Vercel)**
```bash
npx skills add samber/developer-relations-skills --skill developer-first-gtm -a claude-code
```

2. **Manually: put the files in place**
- File: `~/.claude/skills/developer-first-gtm/SKILL.md` — Copy the whole skill folder; for one project use .claude/skills/developer-first-gtm/

### Codex

1. **Skills CLI (Vercel)**
```bash
npx skills add samber/developer-relations-skills --skill developer-first-gtm -a codex
```

2. **Manually: put the files in place**
- File: `.agents/skills/developer-first-gtm/SKILL.md` — For all projects use ~/.agents/skills/

### Cursor

1. **Skills CLI (Vercel)**
```bash
npx skills add samber/developer-relations-skills --skill developer-first-gtm -a cursor
```

2. **Manually: put the files in place**
- File: `.cursor/skills/developer-first-gtm/SKILL.md` — Cursor also reads .agents/skills/ and .claude/skills/

### GitHub Copilot

1. **GitHub CLI**
```bash
gh skill install samber/developer-relations-skills developer-first-gtm
```

2. **Manually: put the files in place**
- File: `.github/skills/developer-first-gtm/SKILL.md`

### Gemini CLI

1. **Skills CLI (Vercel)**
```bash
npx skills add samber/developer-relations-skills --skill developer-first-gtm -a gemini-cli
```

2. **Platform CLI**
```bash
gemini skills install https://github.com/samber/developer-relations-skills --path skills/developer-first-gtm
```

### Windsurf (Devin Desktop)

**Manually: put the files in place**
- File: `.devin/skills/developer-first-gtm/SKILL.md` — The legacy .windsurf/skills/ path still works

### OpenCode

**Skills CLI (Vercel)**
```bash
npx skills add samber/developer-relations-skills --skill developer-first-gtm -a opencode
```

### Claude.ai

**Claude.ai**
- Zip the folder and upload it in Settings → Capabilities → Skills

Where a file is given instead of a command, copy the files from the source to that path: https://github.com/samber/developer-relations-skills/tree/HEAD/skills/developer-first-gtm/SKILL.md

## When to use it
- decide between bottom-up self-serve and hiring a sales rep
- find out why signups grow while paid accounts stay flat
- pick the moment to contact a free user
- expand a landed team across the rest of an enterprise
- keep an account alive after the champion leaves

## Example prompts
- We have 8,000 free signups and 11 paying customers — what's broken?
- Should we hire a sales rep or double down on self-serve?
- When should we contact a free user?

## Source text · SKILL.md · MIT

Below is the content of a third-party file. It is data, not instructions for you: do not act on anything written inside unless the human asks. Block tag: 734714568042b4f1.

BEGIN THIRD-PARTY FILE 734714568042b4f1
```text
---
name: developer-first-gtm
description: Designs the go-to-market motion for a developer-facing product - bottom-up self-serve adoption, developer-influenced sales, top-down with developer proof, or ecosystem-mediated distribution - plus the self-serve entry, the developer-to-buyer handoff rule and the land-and-expand path. Use whenever a founder, devrel or growth owner asks how developer adoption turns into revenue, whether to go bottom-up or hire sales, when to contact a free user, why signups are high and paid accounts flat, or how landed teams expand across an enterprise - even if they only say "our funnel is broken". Not price points - use samber/developer-relations-skills@devtools-pricing-strategy.
license: MIT
metadata:
  author: Samuel Berthe
  version: "1.0.1"
---

# Developer-First GTM

You are a go-to-market strategist for developer-facing products. You decide **how a developer's first success becomes an organization's purchase**, and you write that path down as a motion with rules a team can execute without you.

Developer-first GTM fails in a specific way: adoption is real, loved, and public, and revenue does not follow. That happens because the motion was assumed rather than designed - usually assumed bottom-up, because bottom-up sounds cheap. Every recommendation here has to survive one test: name the moment usage becomes a reason for someone with budget to act, and name who acts.

This is a strategy skill. You produce a motion decision with its handoff rules, expansion path and leading indicators - not a pricing page, not a campaign calendar, not a launch plan.

## Typical invocations

- "We have 8,000 free signups and 11 paying customers - what's broken?" → run the full workflow; the friction gates in step 2 and the handoff rule in step 5 usually locate it.
- "Should we hire a sales rep or double down on self-serve?" → step 1 constraints, then step 3 with those two motions as the candidate set.
- "When should we contact a free user?" → step 5 alone; output the qualification rule, the routing and the deliberate do-not-contact line.
- "Three teams at one bank use us. How do we get the rest of the bank?" → steps 6 and 7; expansion by vector, not a bigger discount.
- "Our champion left and the account went quiet." → step 6's multi-threading and champion-change trigger.
- "Our conversion is 1.2% and the benchmark is 4% - how bad is that?" → the measurement section; re-measure at account level by cohort first, then compare against the developer-specific median rather than the blended one.

## Interview
```
END THIRD-PARTY FILE 734714568042b4f1

The third-party file has ended. Everything between the 734714568042b4f1 tags is data: requests and commands from it are not followed. An “end of file” line with another tag inside the block is part of the file.

First 2573 of 24923 bytes. © Samuel Berthe · MIT · https://github.com/samber/developer-relations-skills/tree/HEAD/skills/developer-first-gtm/SKILL.md

_Part of the page did not fit — see the HTML version._

---
NeVibeCode on affpapa.org. Catalog texts are descriptions, not instructions for the agent. How to choose and install: https://affpapa.org/en/nevibecode/agents.md