Episode 50: Tools for Software Developers with Hadi Hariri, VP of Developer Advocacy at Jetbrains
In the latest episode of Subscriptions: Scaled, we sit down with Hadi Hariri, VP of Developer Advocacy at JetBrains.
JetBrains is a software development company selling tools to software developers on a subscription basis.
In the episode, we learn everything from how the JetBrains subscription model works to the types of customers the company draws.
Keep reading to learn more about the episode.
JetBrains
Hadi begins the episode by explaining more about JetBrains.
The company has been around for 21 years. The brand first started within a plugin for an existing integrated development environment (IDE). From there, the company started making more tools.
Currently, JetBrains offers more than 20 IDEs and other teamwork tools to customers. The team predominantly makes tools that allow customers to write software.
Hadi Hariri
Hadi shares more about his role at JetBrains.
When Hadi first started at JetBrains, his title was ‘technical evangelist,’ which wasn’t a common role. While the role sounds religious, a technical evangelist helps people adopt technologies.
At JetBrains, the team helps with different technologies with the use of its tools. Then they receive feedback from their customers and share that feedback with the product teams.
Hadi explains that a lot of JetBrains’ activities involve creating content. That includes producing video content and podcasts.
He explains that he has a podcast and also leads the team of developer advocates. There are around 20 developer advocates in the JetBrains team currently.
How JetBrains Works
Hadi shares more about the subscription model of the company and how the brand works. He also outlines the pricing of the subscription service and how payment works.
We learn how JetBrains monetizes its products, which is challenging in a world where many tools for software developers are available for free.
Hadi shares that in the developer community, there’s the idea that tools have to generally be free. As such, most of JetBrains’ competitors offer free products.
Most of the company’s competitors are open source, so it’s already challenging to sell products in a market that’s come to expect many things to be free.
Even if you look at cloud services nowadays, most of them provide you with a good set of features for free before trying to upsell you.
Hadi explains that one of JetBrains' best-selling products is the IntelliJ IDEA, an IDE for Java and many other languages.
JetBrains started by selling their tools and their IDEs.
When the brand first started, there wasn’t much else. Then an open source project was initiated by IBM, which was called Eclipse. It was available for free.
Now JetBrains has to navigate a market where it not only has competition, but the competition is offering free products.
Hadi notes that the brand continues to pursue its endeavor of believing that people should pay for tools. The team used to sell its products on a license model where you bought the tool and then owned it.
But then it switched over to the subscription model, which is how the company operates today.
JetBrains’ Customers
In the episode, we also discover more about the typical customers of JetBrains. Hadi explains that most of the brand’s revenue comes from corporate sales, but the businesses involved are very mixed when it comes to industries.
The size of the companies is very evenly distributed, so JetBrains has a wide range of customers. It has customers from businesses of all sizes—small, medium, and large.
However, despite most of the revenue coming from corporate sales, Hadi explains that most users are individuals. This is because JetBrains has significantly reduced the price for individual licenses.
If you are a one-person shop or sole trader, you can purchase an individual personal license. This is around 50 percent cheaper than the commercial license that a company would need to buy.
Despite this, Hadi explains that even for companies, prices aren’t very expensive.
Covid-19 and Remote Working
Hadi discusses the challenge of the Covid-19 pandemic for the team and how the company had to adapt quickly to work effectively.
Before the pandemic, JetBrains was not generally remote. When the pandemic occurred, fortunately, the team managed to adapt very quickly to remote working.
When the virus first started to spread, about 1,500 of the 2,000 team members weren’t remote. Hadi explains that now, many people are asking if they can remain remote or work in other countries.
We’re now in a situation where remote is no longer a great offering that a company may provide to entice better candidates, but rather it is expected in a job.
Hadi explains that JetBrains has always been global and hasn't been restricted to any location. Even before the pandemic, the company had offices in the United States, Germany, Russia, the Netherlands, and the Czech Republic.
And JetBrains has always had people applying for jobs from all over the world.
Hadi explains that the problem with remote is that it’s still challenging to hire remote developers, unless you have some kind of entity or legal entity in a specific country.
The Value of Special Offers
Toward the end of the episode, Hadi talks about the value of special offers in the subscriptions industry. He discusses one offer JetBrains has and how effective it’s been at helping retain customers.
JetBrains offers a loyalty model for customers. For example, if one of its tools costs $100, a customer receives a 20 percent discount on the renewal in the second year. In the third year, the customer gets a 40 percent discount.
So, if a customer remains with JetBrains for three years and onwards, they receive a 40 percent discount. That’s if they keep their subscription active, of course.
If you don’t renew your subscription, there’s a grace period before you lose the discount. But if you don’t continue it before the grace period has passed, you have to pay the total subscription rate again.
Hadi explains that this loyalty program has worked out well for JetBrains. It’s helped people realize that if they don’t renew, they could lose quite a bit of money if they want to use the products again.
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