I spent years thinking that good marketing comes from sitting in a conference room and being clever. Years wasted. Great marketing to devs comes from talking to devs.

Creating a technical advisory board is your single best action as a dev startup founder. But it is not what you think it is.

TAB members are potential users and customers of your product.

This is NOT a group of senior technical people who will advise you on building your product. Those people are essential and can give you early critical credibility and advice. But they are not sufficient.

Users interact with your product. Customers pay for your product. But, often, they are not the same.

In your TAB, you need representatives of every persona your product touches. Devs and dev leaders, CTOs, VPEs. If required, SREs, QA, and InfoSec. You need several from each persona.

Recruit them from people you know and people you don't.

Find candidates on LinkedIn. Reach out to them directly—no email blasts. Tell them you are founding a startup to attack your problem, and ask them if they would consider joining your TAB.

Most people will ignore you. That's OK.

The people for whom your problem is a real painful problem will respond.

What does joining a TAB mean? It means you and your TAB member will have a 30-minute call every month for six months. Compensate your TAB members with stickers, mugs, or t-shirts.

How many TAB members do you need? You need several from each persona. I have never seen more than 50. But two is not enough.

Over the next few days I will discuss the TAB in detail.