Drupal the API Docs: why we became a developer portal company

For many, documentation is an ugly word, and documentation portals are not perceived to be as sexy as media, sports, government or global not-for-profit websites. Documentation also doesn't get the massive budgets that marketing sites can commandeer. But for us, that is a feature and not a bug. We love documentation projects...

It is hard to build a developer portal: You need to advise your customers on a whole range of topics: publishing workflows, community management, API specification standards, developer evangelism, technical writing, etc. To my knowledge no other agency has chosen to invest in all the knowledge that it requires to deliver a developer portal project. As a result other agencies will need a lot more money and time to investigate and develop a solid project. That is why undifferentiated agencies can't compete with us.

So far, the Drupal community is split along geographical markets: local shops serve local customers. As a result most companies are undifferentiated, and interreplaceable. I think this is a missed opportunity for our businesses and for the community.

This talk is a specialisation showcase, with examples from our own business. Through it I will explain: 

• Why we decided to turn our generalist Drupal consultancy into a developer portal agency.
• Why we chose documentation
• How we are executing our specialisation strategy.

I will talk about how we are using content leadership to differentiate from generalist consultancies, and how we are turning blogpost series like our Developer portals best practices report into white papers for our market niche using Leanpub. As a bonus I will also show a sneak preview of the Drupal 8 open source documentation distribution we are working on.

Audience: You should attend this session if:

• You are looking for a way to differentiate your business
• You are working on a developer portal or API documentation site
• You want to help the Drupal market grow

This will be a strategy session. Basic knowledge about the Drupal market and business strategy are a plus, but anybody who is interested in the subject should be able to follow the presentation.

Key lessons:

• Everything you (n)ever wanted to know about developer & documentation portals
• Why Drupal companies should stop competing in geographical markets, and instead target a market niche
• How to choose a niche for your business
• Lots of additional material to help you get started