You hired three developer advocates. Gave them t-shirts and conference budgets. Sent them to speak at meetups.
Six months later: They're exhausted, you've reached maybe 5,000 developers, and leadership is asking about ROI.
That's not evangelism at scale. That's expensive theater.
The "More DevRel Headcount" Trap
What most companies think: More advocates = more reach.
Math reality: One advocate speaks at 20 events/year, reaches ~2,000 developers in person.
Want to reach 100,000 developers? You'd need 50 advocates at $150K+ each. That's $7.5M+ in payroll.
AWS's insight from scaling to millions of developers:
Evangelism doesn't scale through headcount. It scales through systems.
Stripe's Evangelism Pyramid
Stripe doesn't rely on their 12 advocates to reach 2M+ developers. They built a pyramid:
Tier 1: Core Team (12 full-time advocates)
- Role: Create frameworks, flagship content, marquee events
- Reach: Direct impact on 10K developers/year
- Time investment: 100% dedicated
Tier 2: Champions Program (200 external developers)
- Role: Speak at local events, create content, answer questions
- Reach: Each champion touches 500 developers/year = 100K total
- Time investment: 5-10 hours/month per champion
Tier 3: Product Engineers (500 engineers)
- Role: Write technical blogs, contribute to docs, engage on GitHub
- Reach: Collective 200K+ through authentic technical content
- Time investment: 10% of time allocated to developer content
Tier 4: Community Amplification (Infinite)
- Role: Developers sharing experiences, building on platform
- Reach: Millions through social proof and organic sharing
- Time investment: Happens naturally with good product
The multiplication: 12 advocates directly create content that 200 champions amplify to millions.
Not 12 people doing everything. 12 people enabling thousands.
Google Cloud's Content Multiplication System
Google Cloud Developer Relations produces 100+ technical assets per month with 30-person team.
How? They treat content like product development.
The assembly line:
Research phase (Developer Insights team):
- What are developers struggling with?
- What questions appear repeatedly?
- What competitors are doing well?
- What emerging technologies need coverage?
Content creation (Advocates + Engineers):
- Blog posts (2-3 per week)
- Video tutorials (1-2 per week)
- Code samples (continuous)
- Conference talks (20+ per month)
- Podcast appearances (5-10 per month)
Amplification (Community + Marketing):
- Repurpose conference talk into blog post
- Turn blog post into YouTube video
- Extract video into Twitter thread
- Package code samples into GitHub repo
- Feature community implementations
One conference talk becomes 15 pieces of content across 6 channels.
That's how you scale.
AWS's Regional Advocate Model
AWS evangelism challenge: Reach developers in 190 countries, dozens of languages.
Old approach: Fly US-based advocates around the world (expensive, exhausting).
New approach: Regional developer advocate teams.
The structure:
Global team (Seattle):
- 20 principal advocates
- Set strategy, create flagship content
- Support regional teams
- Own major launches and events (re:Invent, summits)
Regional teams (15 regions):
- 2-5 advocates per major region
- Local language content
- Regional events and meetups
- Partner with local communities
- Adapt global content to local context
The economics:
- Regional advocates cost 30-50% less than Seattle-based
- 5x higher event ROI (no international travel)
- Content resonates better (cultural context)
- Time zones align with local developers
AWS India example:
- 5 local advocates
- 50+ local events per year
- Hindi/English content
- 200K+ developer reach annually
- Cost: ~$500K vs. $2M+ for US team flying in
Twilio's "Teach the Teachers" Approach
Twilio realized they'd never have enough advocates to teach millions of developers.
So they taught educators instead.
The program:
Target audience: University professors, coding bootcamp instructors, online course creators
What Twilio provides:
- Free curriculum materials
- API credits for students
- Guest lecture opportunities
- Certification for instructors
- Direct support from Twilio engineers
What educators do:
- Integrate Twilio into courses
- Teach thousands of students
- Create course materials (that Twilio can share)
- Build institutional relationships
The multiplication:
- Twilio invests in 200 educators
- Each educator teaches 100-500 students/year
- Result: 20K-100K developers trained annually
- Many become Twilio users professionally
Cost per trained developer: ~$50 vs. $500+ for direct evangelism.
MongoDB's Conference Strategy Evolution
2015: MongoDB sent advocates to every conference possible
- 100+ conferences per year
- Exhausted advocates
- Inconsistent quality
- Unclear ROI
2019: MongoDB implemented tiered conference strategy
Tier 1: Own Events (MongoDB World, Local):
- Full control of message
- Deep engagement with attendees
- Biggest ROI for developer activation
- Investment: $5M+ annually
Tier 2: Major Industry Events (AWS re:Invent, Google I/O, Microsoft Build):
- Massive reach
- Sponsor + speak
- Competitive presence required
- Investment: $2M+ annually
Tier 3: Strategic Community Events (Local meetups, specific tech communities):
- Champions speak (not core team)
- Authentic community presence
- Lower cost, high trust
- Investment: $500K in Champion support
Tier 4: Skip:
- Events with low developer density
- Poor ROI conferences
- Conflicting events (pick one, not both)
The result:
- 50% reduction in advocate travel
- 3x increase in developer engagement
- Better work-life balance for team
- Clear measurement per event tier
Content Types That Scale
Not all content provides equal reach.
Hashicorp's content ROI analysis (2022 data):
High ROI content:
Written tutorials:
- Creation time: 8-12 hours
- Lifetime views: 50K-200K
- Cost per view: $0.05-0.20
Video courses:
- Creation time: 40-60 hours
- Lifetime views: 100K-500K
- Cost per view: $0.10-0.40
Conference talks (recorded):
- Creation time: 20-30 hours
- Lifetime views: 10K-100K
- Cost per view: $0.30-3.00
Code examples/repos:
- Creation time: 10-20 hours
- Lifetime uses: 5K-50K
- High conversion to platform users
Low ROI content:
One-off webinars (not recorded):
- Creation time: 10-15 hours
- Live attendees: 100-500
- Cost per attendee: $30-150
- No long-tail value
Generic blog posts:
- Creation time: 4-6 hours
- Views: 1K-5K
- Quickly outdated
- Low engagement
The strategic shift: Create less ephemeral content, more evergreen assets.
Measuring Evangelism Impact
"We spoke at 50 conferences" isn't a success metric.
Stripe's evangelism dashboard:
Awareness metrics:
- Developers reached (estimated)
- Content views/engagement
- Social media mentions
- Event attendance
Engagement metrics:
- Documentation page views from evangelism content
- API key signups attributed to evangelism
- Community questions answered
- GitHub repo stars/forks
Activation metrics:
- Developers making first API call
- Time from awareness to activation
- Integration completion rates
- Active developers 30/60/90 days
Business metrics:
- Revenue from evangelism-influenced deals
- Customer acquisition cost (CAC) comparison
- Platform adoption in evangelized segments
- Partner recruitment through evangelism
The question leadership actually cares about:
"What percentage of new developers come through evangelism vs. paid acquisition?"
Stripe 2023: ~40% of new developer signups influenced by content/evangelism programs.
CAC: $120 (evangelism) vs. $450 (paid ads).
The Champion Enablement Playbook
How Twilio enables 250 Champions to do the work of 50 full-time advocates:
Monthly enablement:
- New product updates and talking points
- Shareable content templates
- Code samples and demos
- Upcoming event opportunities
Quarterly training:
- Product deep-dives
- Presentation skills workshops
- Content creation best practices
- Access to product team Q&A
Annual events:
- Champions Summit (in-person gathering)
- Recognition and awards
- Roadmap previews
- Networking with product teams
Ongoing support:
- Private Slack channel
- Weekly office hours
- Content review and feedback
- Speaker coaching
Benefits Champions receive:
- $500-1000/month in platform credits
- Early access to features
- Direct connection to product teams
- Speaking opportunities
- Swag and recognition
- Travel sponsorship for major events
ROI per Champion:
- Annual investment: ~$8K (credits + support + events)
- Value created: ~$50K (speaking, content, support deflection)
- Payback period: 2-3 months
When to Build vs. Buy Evangelism
Building internal evangelism team:
Pros:
- Deep product knowledge
- Aligned with company strategy
- Long-term investment
- Authentic representation
Cons:
- Expensive ($150K+ per advocate)
- Takes time to scale
- Burnout risk
- Limited diversity of perspective
Agency/contractor evangelism:
Pros:
- Faster scaling
- Specialized expertise
- Flexible capacity
- Diverse backgrounds
Cons:
- Less product intimacy
- Quality variability
- Coordination overhead
- Can feel inauthentic
The hybrid model (what works):
Core team (5-10 internal advocates):
- Own strategy and flagship programs
- Deep product experts
- Train and enable external voices
Champion network (50-200 external developers):
- Authentic practitioner voice
- Geographic and use-case diversity
- Scalable reach
Agency support (as needed):
- Content production bandwidth
- Event logistics
- Specialized skills (video, design)
Salesforce model: 15 internal advocates + 300 MVPs + agency support = millions of developers reached.
The Weekly Evangelism Operating Rhythm
What Google Cloud's DevRel team does every week:
Monday: Planning sync
- Review last week's metrics
- Upcoming events and deadlines
- Content prioritization
- Blocker resolution
Tuesday-Thursday: Creation and delivery
- Content production
- Event speaking
- Community engagement
- Partner collaboration
Friday: Amplification and learning
- Share weekly content across channels
- Retrospective on events/launches
- Community feedback review
- Next week prep
Monthly:
- All-hands with product teams
- Content strategy review
- Champion enablement session
- Metrics deep-dive with leadership
Quarterly:
- Strategy planning
- Budget review
- Champion program assessment
- Major event planning
The 6-Month Evangelism Launch Plan
How to go from zero to functioning evangelism program:
Month 1-2: Foundation
- Hire/assign 2-3 core advocates
- Define evangelism goals and metrics
- Audit existing content and identify gaps
- Build initial content roadmap
- Set up tracking and attribution
Month 3-4: Initial activation
- Launch 10 pieces of foundational content
- Speak at 5-10 events
- Identify 10-20 potential Champions
- Start developer newsletter
- Create GitHub presence
Month 5-6: Scale systems
- Launch Champion program (recruit first 25)
- Implement content multiplication system
- Establish evangelism metrics dashboard
- Plan first major community event
- Document evangelism playbooks
Success indicator at 6 months:
- 10K developers reached through content
- 25 active Champions
- 20+ content assets created
- 5-10% of signups attributed to evangelism
Then scale from there.
Don't Scale by Hiring. Scale by Enabling.
Three developer advocates can't reach a million developers by themselves.
But three advocates can enable 200 champions who reach a million developers through multiplied content, regional presence, and community amplification.
That's evangelism at scale.
Build the system, not just the team.