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Give more than you take

Of all the ideas I’ve stood for at ngrok by building brand through developer education, the closest to my heart is that you must give more than you take.

Taking means not respecting your audience’s time by failing to drive to the solution as quickly and honestly as possible. And, far more nefariously, it happens when you give the audience only the understanding they need to solve the problem with your solution. You educate as though their problem exists in isolation and you know the only way out.

Instead, you must offer people understanding and curiosities they can walk away with that go far beyond your product.

To do that right, not just once but for the long haul, is both extraordinarily difficult and rewarding.

What a little internet made clear

I’ve been championing this idea at ngrok for nearly two years, but a recent project has redrawn the why and how very clearly for me. The little internet is a physical network, using Raspberry Pis and Ethernet cables, that will someday behave exactly like the real internet.

But little.

So far, I’ve learned about tshark, Ethernet frames, unicast and broadcast networks, ARP, DHCP, and so much more. But that’s not the point of the project.

The point is to examine the intricate connections between these systems and how, despite their separate concerns, they work in near-instantaneous concert. I’m doing it for the sheer joy of seeing into, and then much more deeply understanding, not just the protocols and processes, but the shadows between the systems I took for granted.

Because I’ve peered into these darknesses, I can now do things I didn’t believe possible before. I can log onto the Wi-Fi at Crave, my favorite coffeeshop, turn on tshark -P -i en0 -f "arp", and watch dozens of devices persistently shout into the network about where they live and the other devices they’re looking for.

Now, when I think about creating content around this project, it’s primarily to share this joy of discovery through experience. That’s the whole idea.

Someone ought to read or watch something I make and find new understanding of how processes relate to one another. They ought to know how to make better, more independent decisions about the things they build because of it.

How the idea works day to day

At ngrok, I try to constantly evaluate the content we’re making against a loose framework of questions.

As we ideate and pick new topics:

As we outline or work on early drafts, they escalate in specificity:

And as we near publication, they become more about us:

These questions help us create more durable learning. We hope they’ll see ngrok as an option, understand that we put the same care into our products that we put into our content, and try us. But it’s far more important they become a power user of solving their problem than a champion of ngrok.

A fun (but hard) bar to jump every day

This way of thinking comes with headwinds. It’s hard to get right and incredibly easy to let slip. Through other organizations I’ve worked at and conversations with friends in similar places, I’ve found that leadership often finds this work deeply unsustainable and believes you should focus on generating demand and pipeline.

I disagree. Obviously.

Getting it right means leading by example, hiring people with skills to give in ways you can’t, and then being abnormally transparent with your organization about what you’re doing and why.

Giving more than you take makes your creations far more relevant to a far larger cohort. Whether you’re trying to shift perception or generate demand, why would you not pick the option that is not only more ambitious, creatively and intellectually, but could also resonate with far more people? Why would you not pick the option that shows you are a company filled with people who also think deeply about systems, who build with intention, who never stop letting curiosity pull them into new places?

Then you can help people see into the shadows between the systems all around them. Take joy in the process of discovery. Give people new keenness to build their own systems with newfound confidence.

Then you can give it all away.