There is a ritual you see in tech every few quarters. A company announces a shiny new startup program, a montage of happy founders rolls across the landing page, and the press release promises community, credits, and a path to scale. Six months later the page is stale, the inbox auto reply is on, and founders swap stories about how they never heard back. I have lived both sides of that movie. The truth is simple. The programs that work are built around what founders really need on the week they join, not around what a company hopes to get a year from now.
I learned this the honest way. Founders do not remember your slogan. They remember the first person who actually solved something for them. Maybe it was a quick architecture sketch that made their bill stop spiking. Maybe it was a warm introduction that led to a pilot. Maybe it was a review that spared them a security headache later. If a program becomes known for those moments, the rest takes care of itself. Applications show up. Good companies stick around. Executives pay attention because real customers and real product wins follow.
The first hard choice is focus. It is tempting to say yes to everyone. You can feel generous while you dilute the experience. A program with a pulse picks a lane and says it out loud. Early stage software companies building on your core strengths. AI tools that will face compliance reviews in their first enterprise sale. Data products that need predictable performance under load. Pick the lane and then shape everything around it. The intake questions. The mentors you recruit. The sessions you host. The way you describe success. When you do that, founders know whether they belong in the room within a minute, and you avoid the slow mess of case by case exceptions.
Once you have a lane, you earn trust with speed and clarity. Most founders apply during a sprint that already feels like a cliff. They need a fast yes or no and they need to know exactly what yes means. The best welcome note I have seen had three links, a short checklist, and a real name to reply to. Credits were activated in a few clicks. The first working session was easy to book. Expectations were clear. No mystery. No games. The message beneath the message was simple. We value your time and we intend to help.
Help looks different when it is grounded in the work. I love a good keynote as much as anyone, but the sessions that change outcomes feel like a design workout. You start with the founder’s context in plain English. You walk a system diagram together and name the sharp edges. You talk about cost in specific numbers and you draw a quick picture of a safer path. You close with three actions that fit the next two weeks. No twelve step plan. No vague encouragement. Just the next right moves. Founders leave those meetings lighter because they can see the path. Your product teams benefit too because the friction shows up in writing where it can be fixed.
Developer relations lives at the center of that loop. Documentation, examples, and tiny tools are not marketing afterthoughts. They are how busy teams adopt a platform without begging for help. I have watched a single well written guide reduce support tickets for months. I have watched a short video unlock a feature that looked complex on paper. Most of all, I have watched DevRel become the sensor that catches repeated pain early and routes it to the right owners. When that loop is healthy, a program stops guessing. It learns.
Partnerships matter, but only when they make a founder’s next meeting easier. Free software is nice. Coordinated support and shared troubleshooting save actual days. The best partner calls I have joined felt like a small task force. Everyone in the room wanted the same outcome and knew which parts they owned. There is no need to chase a wall of logos. A handful of partners who show up with you will create more value than a long perks page that nobody uses.
Metrics can be dry or they can tell a story. I like a small set that maps to a founder’s journey and to the company’s learning curve. How fast did we decide on applications. How soon did a new team hit its first value moment. What changed in product usage after we met. Where did founder feedback lead to a real improvement. Who graduated and what did that unlock for them. Numbers invite discipline. Stories make the numbers sticky. Executives remember the quote from a founder who shaved half their costs and then brought a larger workload the next month.
The people you hire shape the culture more than any policy. Programs thrive when the team loves founders and loves process in equal measure. That mix sounds rare until you interview for it. Ask candidates to run a quick architecture review on a made up stack. Watch how they clarify the problem, pace the discussion, and land on practical advice. Ask them to rewrite an onboarding email in half the words without losing meaning. You learn quickly who can coach, who can communicate, and who will follow through.
There is a quiet piece that matters more than it gets credit for. Legal. When terms are short and predictable, founders lean in. When terms sprawl, they stall. You do not have to water down risk. You do have to ship templates that match your purpose. Clear credit policies. Straightforward data handling. Normal logo use. A friendly mutual NDA that unlocks the hard conversations. The goal is trust without friction.
Programs drift toward events because events feel productive. You can fill a room and leave with good photos. There is a place for it. Nothing replaces real community. The trap is calendar theater that consumes energy and produces nothing concrete. My rule of thumb is simple. If an event does not lead to at least one working session or one concrete improvement for participants, rethink it. Small cohort meetups with a focused theme often beat big stages. Office hours with the right expert often beat panels. Founders are not hungry for more content. They are hungry for help with the next block in the road.
What about budget. Spend where value is obvious. Credits are a lever, but only when founders know how to use them wisely. People matter because they do the work. Tools that keep applications moving and connect your notes to product and sales are worth it. Travel is worth it when a relationship needs a real visit. Cut anything that does not serve the founder or improve the way your company learns. Keep a small pool for experiments so you can try new formats twice before you keep or kill them.
If you want a simple test for whether your program is on track, look at your inbox on a random Tuesday. Are there new applications that fit your lane. Are there quick questions from founders who know you will answer. Are there requests from product managers who want to debrief a call because they heard something important. Are there notes from partners who want to join the next review because they saw the last one help. A healthy program has this hum in the background. It does not rely on bursts of attention. It earns momentum by being useful week after week.
Founders are generous with praise when you treat their time with respect. They are just as quick to warn others if you waste it. The bar is not impossible. Reply fast. Be specific. Show your work. Write things down. Close the loop. Share the lessons inside your company so your teams can decide with real context. It is not glamorous, but it builds a reputation that marketing cannot buy.
If you are starting from zero, do not wait for perfect. Recruit a small cohort you already know. Run a few working sessions. Write down what you learned. Fix one rough edge in your product or your docs. Share a short note with your leadership team about the impact you saw. Momentum starts small and grows in public. Before long, you will see the difference between a program that exists on a page and a program that founders talk about in rooms where you are not present.
That is the mark you want. A founder you helped last quarter tells another founder to apply because something real happened for them. A partner you worked with once offers to co host because the call felt like a team effort rather than a pitch. A product leader asks for your notes because they trust your view of what customers struggle with today. None of this requires fireworks. It requires people who care, a focus that holds, and a posture that starts with service.
Build that, and your startup program will not just look good at launch. It will keep helping founders, it will keep teaching your company, and it will keep earning its place.