Founder stories
Community growth platform that helps DevRel and community teams track, measure, and grow developer communities.
How Patrick acquired customers
Tools used to build Orbit
Patrick Woods created the Orbit Model for developer relations, then built Orbit to help teams manage communities - raising $22M in the process.
I'd spent years in developer relations and customer success at companies like Keen IO and Figure Eight. I saw the same problem everywhere: community managers had no good tools.
Before building software, I created the Orbit Model - a framework for thinking about community that goes beyond sales funnels. It focuses on relationships, not just conversions.
We focused specifically on DevRel and developer communities initially. These teams needed to track contributions across GitHub, Discord, Twitter, and more. Spreadsheets weren't cutting it.
We raised over $22M from investors who believed in the community-first future. The funding came because we weren't just building a tool - we were defining a category.
Our growth has been entirely community-led. The people using Orbit talk about Orbit. They're our marketing team.
Create the framework before building the software
Focus on an underserved niche first (DevRel)
Your users can be your best marketing team
Category creation takes patience but creates lasting moats
Inspired by Patrick's journey? Generate a business idea in the Marketing space using AI and real founder data.
Patrick achieved 3 milestones on the path to $100K ARR
$20,000
$240,000
The journey, decisions, and context behind this milestone
See the complete breakdown: launch strategy, validation methods, startup costs, expert analysis, replication playbook, and more actionable insights.
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