Mapping the Journey from 0 to 500,000

This week, exactly one year since we’ve joined the Avnet family, we crossed the 300,000-user mark, and by mid-2018, our community will exceed 500,000 IoT developers seeking opportunities to learn, create and build.

“In early 2014, we had very few users, no customers and $50,000 from one angel investor that was quickly diminishing. All was merely a dream.”

Since we’re great believers in open source and sharing, here’s what we’ve learned and the principles that led us then, and still guide us today:

#1 Don’t expect overnight magic. Plant seeds for long term yields.

#2 Make sure you have an audience. Learn about them. Serve them well.

#3 Stay consistent. Deliver good work with a predictable velocity.

• Build growth models: Design a product and a culture that thinks fast, executes for scale, and listens to feedback.

• Encourage experimentation programs: Hire people who love to invent and can execute their ideas. Avoid those who can’t do both.

• Create customer acquisition channels: Test and scale new customer acquisition channels by cultivating an industry voice and capabilities that are valuable and unique to your brand.

• Establish trusted relationships: You are accountable for your partners’ brands and your users’ content. You must create outlets that can showcase innovation and creative thinking while protecting against low quality, harmful, unethical, or illegal content.

• And most importantly, respect and delight your user base: Develop software, processes and culture that put your users’ interests ahead of everything else — even commercial interests. Do what’s right by the people who show up to play and better their lives with every minute they spend with you.

As we continue to add new members at a breakneck rate of 20,000+ each month, we’re poised to have an awesome 2018, our best year yet.

Thank you for traveling with us as we continue our journey.

The Hackster Team