Developing The Future: Tezos Developer Advocacy And Why It Matters With Claude Barde

In the ongoing quest to grow the Tezos ecosystem, there are many factors at play. Whether it’s increasing throughput, keeping transactions secure, or attracting new users to Tezos, those working to bring Tezos to the forefront of the Web 3.0/blockchain conversation have much to consider.

Helping Tezos claim its rightful place at the blockchain table is a laudable goal and one which many of the brightest minds in this rapidly-evolving space are currently focusing their considerable collective energies on. In the case of Developer Advocate Claude Barde, that focus has an even more specific aim: to bring developers (and their projects) to the Tezos ecosystem.

Claude and the rest of Trilitech’s “Developer Success Team” have hit the ground running, actively working to spread the Tezos message to the world of blockchain development. Claude’s efforts to onboard new developers and projects to the Tezos ecosystem, support them as they find their feet, and provide ongoing guidance throughout their Tezos journeys have not gone unnoticed and are already beginning to have an impact on the growth of Tezos and its ecosystem.

When presented with the opportunity to sit down with Claude to learn about the progress he and the Trilitech team have made thus far, their plans moving forward, and why he’s decided to drive headlong into this particular challenge, I immediately jumped at it.

To hear Claude tell it, developer advocacy might just be one of the most crucial piece of the Tezos adoption puzzle addressed in earnest yet.

“We bring something to developers. We bring tools, advice, explanations. We try to help them in their journey on Tezos. When they start building on Tezos we are here to guide them. They may have questions about smart contracts, about applications, etc. Those are the kinds of questions we are here to help them answer. We work with developers to onboard them and support them as much as possible.”

There’s no question that developers bringing their projects into a blockchain ecosystem like that of Tezos might require some guidance to do so. For Claude and his team, however, the real goal in supporting such developers is something much more lasting — something that will drive the Tezos ecosystem forward in a much more sustainable way.

"It’s very important, because we want to retain these developers. We want them to continue building on Tezos. In general, when you are a developer, you don’t just develop an app and then put it out in the wild and then that’s it. It’s an ongoing process. You’re going to maintain the app for a long time. You’re going to improve it. You’re going to create new features. It’s not just one time help that you need. That’s the kind of relationship that we want to foster with developers, so that once they’ve started building on Tezos they want to stay and they want to continue building on Tezos. We have to help them along the way from the start and on an ongoing basis as they continue building. "

As a blockchain developer himself, Claude Barde has important insights into what developers need to succeed here in the Tezos ecosystem and the Trilitech developer success team is already taking active steps to provide exactly that, which is something Claude spoke about during his recent appearance on TezTalks Live.

"There are two main things that developers need when they come and start building on Tezos. The first one is documentation. That’s why we’re very focused on improving the documentation that we have at the moment. A lot of developers hear about Tezos and they think it might be good to build on our blockchain, and the first thing that they look for is documentation, so we have to make sure that our documentation is good, accurate, and interesting to read.

The second thing that developers need is tooling. We need to make sure that developers have the right tooling when they come to Tezos so that they can have a great experience. We want all the tools they need to be ready so that they can use them right away. That has been a bit of a pain point in the past, and that’s something that we want to fix."

Claude knows, however, that it’s not enough just to provide solutions to the hurdles developers face when building out their projects on Tezos. There’s a marketing aspect to all of this that simply can’t be overlooked — after all, what good is the best developer experience in the game if nobody knows about it? To that end, Claude produces content targeted directly at the blockchain development community — the “Conversations With Claude” video series being just one example.

Honing the Tezos message - not just for developers, but for all those curious about this second-to-none blockchain— is a priority of crucial importance to the ongoing health of the Tezos ecosystem and community. The question that remains is; what exactly is that message going to be? Luckily for those of us actively involved with advocating Tezos to the masses, Claude has some insights into what that message might sound like.

“I’m not a marketing professional, but I think Tezos’ message in general is that we’re different in a good way. We do things differently on Tezos, and that’s actually a good thing. We try to explain, not only to developers, but also to users and brands and anybody else who might be interested in Tezos, that yeah, sure, maybe it seems easier for you to build on an EVM blockchain, but on Tezos the technology is better and you’ll have people here who are happy to to help you along in your journey to realizing your vision. We’re fully decentralized, transactions happen quickly, and we have a lot of things that other blockchains don’t have.”

As increasing numbers of companies, brands, artists, and visionaries begin to explore the enormous potential blockchain technology and Web 3.0 have to offer, Developer advocacy will be (and already is!) an extremely important task here in the Tezos ecosystem. And, with engaging, pleasant folks like Claude Barde and the Trilitech Developer Success team standing at the door to welcome developers into Tezos and guide them along throughout their journeys, the Tezos ecosystem appears to be ahead of the curve in this crucial arena as well.