Selling developer tools differs from selling other products; developers prefer demonstrations over lengthy sales decks, so focus on showing rather than telling.

Bottom Up sales start with the user, focusing on building a self-serve product that can be adopted without direct interaction with the company. This approach works well for startups that solve pain points for individuals or small teams, as products need to be easy to adopt and can spread virally within an organization.

Top Down sales work well for products that help executives achieve strategic goals, but they can be expensive to implement and require significant support.

Startups typically use a top-down sales motion to sell expensive products to executives at large companies and a Bottoms Up motion to acquire individual users, which can lead to sales to those executives.

Startups that sell using a Top Down approach often see better early retention metrics compared to those using Bottom Up sales.

A perfect example of Bottoms Up sales is Slack, which small teams could adopt independently, allowing it to spread virally within organizations before the sales team reached out.

AWS initially targeted startups to build relationships and gain traction, which later helped them penetrate the enterprise market, showcasing the effectiveness of a bottoms-up sales strategy.

When starting a dev tools company, it's crucial to have a founding team composed of developers, as they will be building a technical product for other developers.

Top Down sales begin with a decision maker high in an organization, focusing on identifying leads and validating their problems before navigating bureaucratic processes to secure contracts.