I grabbed coffee last year with an unusually blunt founder working on his first startup. He cut to the chase faster than most of the folks I talk to exploring developer relations for the first time.

“I have no idea what makes sense for spending on this stuff, Rob,” he admitted. “I’ve talked to ten different people running devrel programs today. Eight were not on the hook for a real number, one had a number so high I think he was lying and the other had a number so low I don’t think the company is serious about it.”

“How much should I be spending on this?”