Making work matter

A lot of developers today start their days by looking at the list of issues and bug fixes and thinking about which ones to tackle first. Often, the code they end up writing or modifying has little or no significance to how customers use the product and features. DevRev's bold, yet simple vision to bring the developers closer to the customers is one of those groundbreaking ideas we feel will affect every single company in the future.

Technology decisions are moving from a Return on Investment model to the Rise of the Individual, the new “ROI” model. DevRev addresses the fundamental question of how to empower and elevate the future individual developer — to become truly business-focused — as conscious entrepreneurs who connect their work to revenue, end users, and markets.

Dheeraj and I spent a whole decade building a new category that brought such delight to Nutanix customers, and eventually to its shareholders who participated in the massive business model shift to subscription. I am looking forward to this empty canvas of DevRev, in how it canonicalizes yet another business model: PLG.

They say software is eating the world. I feel software without the yin-yang of AI and design will have very little impact in improving broken customer relationships. And without the developers, we can’t keep throwing enough managers and dashboards at the problem of customer churn. We need to bring creators out of the back office.

The key to value creation in business (as in everything else) is empathy. DevRev’s transformative approach leverages data, design, and AI to apply this insight where it matters most: towards eliminating the social distance between makers and users. It is a business model that situates the core drivers of value — developers & revenue generating customers — at the center of everything, not just in rhetoric, but in practice.

I believe that talent is global and not confined to a specific city or region. I believe that talent is diverse across every dimension that defines us as humans. I believe the best leaders are able to bring together global, diverse teams and inspire them to become a team that’s greater than the sum of the parts, and to do their best work. DevRev is one such place that brings all of these together and I am incredibly excited to be part of this journey.

Designing something that genuinely changes peoples' lives in meaningful ways requires having a deep empathy for users. Combine this with data and the ability to communicate with your end users in real time, and now you have a compelling product and customer experience. This is the core of DevRev thinking.

Product-Led Growth (PLG) will be the de facto business model for SaaS this decade. DevRev shows the way of how to build a delightful product that is inherently “internet-led” from the get-go. It shines light on a whole new process of building and driving customer experiences.

Business model. Business model. That’s what I learned from the Nutanix transition, and burn the midnight oil on at Clumio. There was on-prem and now there’s the cloud. For Clumio to be a next-generation company, I look forward to how my developers lean in on all things PLG.

Engineers and developers are constantly seeking meaningful connections to users of their products. It is my strong belief that to build more effective solutions, critical need exists for mechanisms that break silos between creators and the users. I look forward to DevRev’s maker-consumer APIs and social experiences in how they bring these passionate, connected creators closer to their users.

PLG has taught us how developers and code are at the center of customer experience. Seeing developers in action — in the way they operate, support, and grow our customer base — is immensely satisfying. I look forward to the bold vision of DevRev and its APIs in helping our makers become true merchants of SaaS.

DevRev goes way beyond enabling the PLG era. DevRev is a game-changer for the startup world. It doubles developers' learning velocity by creating a direct lightning channel to the customers, enabling faster product iterations. I'm excited to see DevRev democratizing customer access for makers and building a much-needed CRM with innovation at its centerpiece.

During my time building Braze, a key to our success was we emphasized on closely listening to customers in order to find product-market fit. DevRev allows companies to unlock and organize PMF insights (sales,support,product integration) while managing customers allows PMs and developers to adapt the product quickly. DevRev was a no-brainer investment considering it's exceptional founders and this complex problem they're solving.

My years as a software engineer revealed that as companies expand, they tend to add more and more human and software layers between customers and developers. Each of these layers can cause delays, mistakes, and a loss of information, frustrating both developers and customers. DevRev offers a groundbreaking solution to these problems by bringing everyone involved with the product onto a single platform, resulting in improved cost, time, and personnel efficiencies.

In the beginning one could guess the time of the day….then someone built a watch. The same will be said about DevRev in the context of Product Development. Providing a true telemetry of the customer’s needs, usage and issues directly into the hands of the developers is a concept that immediately resonated with us, and we felt compelled to be part of this game-changing journey.