We help tech companies build engagement that actually works.

Stateshift is the go-to-market consultancy for products technical people choose. We bring the rigor of classic GTM - measured funnels, sequenced execution, real ROI - and pair it with the authenticity developers and technical buyers will actually trust. No sales theater. No vanity metrics. Just engagement that compounds into adoption, retention, and revenue.

Book a Blind Spot Call

the problem

Traditional GTM is repelling the people you most need to win.

Developers and technical buyers can spot inauthentic positioning in three seconds. The slick copy. The manufactured urgency. The "demo-worthy" onboarding. It all signals one thing: you don't actually understand them. So they leave - and the GTM playbook your CMO swears by quietly burns through your runway while competitors who get it eat your lunch.

There are four causes for this:

Your messaging smells like marketing

You hired a copywriter who's never written a pull request. The result reads like a brochure, not a product technical people would respect. Your audience clocks the inauthenticity instantly and tunes out for good.

Your onboarding is technically correct and emotionally hollow

Users get through setup but never reach the moment that turns trial into trust. There's no "aha." No human pull. No reason to come back tomorrow. You're acquiring attention, not building dependency.

Your dashboards are lying to you

Signups instead of activated users. Page views instead of meaningful engagement. Event registrations instead of outcomes. The metrics feel safe because they're easy...and they're hiding the fact that nothing's actually working.

Your work is out of sequence

You're launching a community before defining the audience. Producing content before onboarding converts. Standing up an ambassador program before you've earned credibility. Each move is smart in isolation. Together, in the wrong order, they burn your team out and your budget down.

There are four causes for this:

Developers don’t trust your messaging.

Your messaging, onboarding, and overall presence make it clear that you don’t truly understand how developers think.

The language feels like marketing, not engineering. The tone feels promotional, not practical. You’re trying to talk to developers instead of with them...and it shows.

Your product isn’t sticky enough

Developers try your product once, but they don’t come back. They get value during onboarding, but the habit never forms.
‍
There’s no emotional or functional pull to keep them engaged. You might be gaining attention, but you’re not creating attachment.

You are measuring the wrong things

Your dashboards are full of metrics that look good 
in a report but tell you nothing about real progress and 
the ROI of your work.

You’re tracking surface-level indicators...signups, impressions,
or social stats...while missing what actually drives adoption, engagement, and revenue. You can’t prove DevRel ROI when you’re tracking vanity metrics instead of real outcomes.

Your work is scattered

You have good ideas, but they’re out of sequence.

You’re creating content before defining the audience, launching programs before building trust, or chasing new initiatives before the old ones have taken root.

The result is scattered effort, inconsistent progress,
 and frustration across the team.

The Cost of Getting It Wrong

You don't just stall. You become invisible in the rooms where decisions get made.

When these mistakes compound, your competitors capture the mindshare you're leaving on the table...while you keep paying for activity that looks productive but doesn't move the needle.

Slower Revenue Growth

Adoption stalls, expansion shrinks, and the targets your investors expect get further out of reach.

Wasted Budget

Money goes to content, events, and community...none of which connects to trials, activation, or revenue. Leadership starts asking hard questions.

Missed Market Momentum

Competitors that execute with clarity capture the credibility, the mindshare, and the deals first. You play catch-up from behind.

Quiet, Compounding Churn

Users who never reached the "aha" don't complain. They just leave. By the time the dashboard catches up, they're already gone.

Internal Friction

Marketing, DevRel, community, product, and engineering each chase their own metrics. Nobody owns the funnel. Every initiative takes twice as long.

Brand Erosion

People who tried you once don't think of you again. You disappear from the conversations where decisions get made.

HOW we help

We've fixed this hundreds of times. We'll fix it for you too.

We've spent 27+ years building engagement engines for technical companies - from early-stage startups to GitHub, the Linux Foundation, and more.

We don't deliver a strategy deck and disappear. We embed with your team and install three things that turn scattered effort into a compounding GTM engine.

We decode your audience.

We map your real personas - economic buyer, internal champion, technical user - and rebuild your positioning, messaging, and content in a voice they actually trust. No more copy that resonates with no one. No more onboarding that talks past the people you need to convert.

We instrument what matters.

We define the 3–5 metrics that actually move your business, build the dashboards to track them, and review them with you weekly. You'll always know what's working, what to cut, and how to defend your investment to leadership with real numbers, not vanity metrics.

We install an engine that compounds.

We sequence your priorities so each initiative builds on the last. We install repeatable frameworks your team can run independently. And we coach you through the iteration loop - measure, hypothesize, ship, learn - until the engine runs without us.

Trusted by teams at GitHub, Adobe, Okta, and the Linux Foundation

HOW stateshift works

A simple workflow, fine-tuned to you and your team

Our approach isn't theoretical...it's a repeatable process built from working with 250+ companies across every stage. Every step is data-driven, hands-on, and refined in real time. We don't deliver a strategy deck and disappear. We embed with your team until the system runs without us.

Continue scrolling to see our process

Select an example client:

AUDIT & DIAGNOSE

We start here

We first capture the full picture of your company - positioning, onboarding, messaging, and engagement - to find what’s blocking growth and how to help you stand out from the crowd.

HERE’S HOW WE DID IT with

Primary goal is enabling open source maintainers to have more secure repos. There was an educational gap in place.

Blueprinting

We first capture the full picture of your company - positioning, onboarding, messaging, and engagement - to find what’s blocking growth and how to help you stand out from the crowd.

HERE’S HOW WE DID IT with

Optimizing repo securing workflow Optimize channel engagement (E.g. blog, social) Build broader growth

Coach & Execute

We first capture the full picture of your company - positioning, onboarding, messaging, and engagement - to find what’s blocking growth and how to help you stand out from the crowd.

HERE’S HOW WE DID IT with

Primary goal is enabling open source maintainers to have more secure repos. There was an educational gap in place.

Systematize In Your Company

We first capture the full picture of your company - positioning, onboarding, messaging, and engagement - to find what’s blocking growth and how to help you stand out from the crowd.

HERE’S HOW WE DID IT with

Primary goal is enabling open source maintainers to have more secure repos. There was an educational gap in place.

Iteration Flywheel

Measure to Optimize

We first capture the full picture of your company - positioning, onboarding, messaging, and engagement - to find what’s blocking growth and how to help you stand out from the crowd.

HERE’S HOW WE DID IT with

Primary goal is enabling open source maintainers to have more secure repos. There was an educational gap in place.

Execute

We first capture the full picture of your company - positioning, onboarding, messaging, and engagement - to find what’s blocking growth and how to help you stand out from the crowd.

HERE’S HOW WE DID IT with

Primary goal is enabling open source maintainers to have more secure repos. There was an educational gap in place.

AUDIT & DIAGNOSE

We first capture the full picture of your company - positioning, onboarding, messaging, and engagement - to find what’s blocking growth and how to help you stand out from the crowd.

HERE’S HOW WE DID IT with

Primary goal is enabling open source maintainers to have more secure repos. There was an educational gap in place.

Blueprinting

We first capture the full picture of your company - positioning, onboarding, messaging, and engagement - to find what’s blocking growth and how to help you stand out from the crowd.

HERE’S HOW WE DID IT with

Optimizing repo securing workflow Optimize channel engagement (E.g. blog, social) Build broader growth

Coach & Execute

We first capture the full picture of your company - positioning, onboarding, messaging, and engagement - to find what’s blocking growth and how to help you stand out from the crowd.

HERE’S HOW WE DID IT with

Optimizing repo securing workflow Optimize channel engagement (E.g. blog, social) Build broader growth

Measure to Optimize

We first capture the full picture of your company - positioning, onboarding, messaging, and engagement - to find what’s blocking growth and how to help you stand out from the crowd.

HERE’S HOW WE DID IT with

Evaluated usage of the existing doc. Limited engagement. Discussed creating an interactive flow.

Iteration Flywheel

Systematize In Your Company

We first capture the full picture of your company - positioning, onboarding, messaging, and engagement - to find what’s blocking growth and how to help you stand out from the crowd.

HERE’S HOW WE DID IT with

Interactive flow was launched and became the de-facto way to secure repos.

Execute

We first capture the full picture of your company - positioning, onboarding, messaging, and engagement - to find what’s blocking growth and how to help you stand out from the crowd.
‍

HERE’S HOW WE DID IT with

Recommended structure for the flow. The team over mockups and we provided hands-on feedback to guide further iteration.

THE RESULTS

The proof shows up in three places.

When clients run the system, they stop guessing and start operating. Adoption gets faster, revenue gets attributable, and teams get aligned. Here's what that looks like.

Activation gets faster. Momentum compounds.

Accelerated adoption.
‍Users and developers reach their "aha" moment faster because onboarding, messaging, and resources are tuned for time-to-value...not for completeness.
‍

Compounding momentum.
‍Instead of one-off campaigns that spike and fade, you build a repeatable engine where each initiative feeds the next. Growth stops being a hero project.

Jim Zemlin

Executive Director, Linux Foundation

“Jono Bacon’s experience, approach, and candor is critical for harnessing engagement and communities.”

Conversion rises. Wasted spend drops.

Higher conversion and retention.
‍When every stage of the funnel is optimized — first visit, first meaningful action, paid conversion - more users become customers, and they stay longer.

Reduced wasted spend.
‍You stop investing in channels you can't measure. Every dollar ties back to a metric your leadership trusts. Budget conversations get easier, not harder.
‍

Kevin Scott

CTO, Microsoft

"Jono Bacon provides timely insight into what makes us tick as humans, and how to build richer, stronger technology engagement together."

Alignment replaces friction. Execution replaces meetings.

Aligned focus.
‍Marketing, DevRel, community, product, and leadership share the same goals, metrics, and priorities. The team stops debating ownership and starts shipping.

Faster execution.
‍Our frameworks give your team a starting point for every initiative - onboarding, content, events, community - so nobody wastes a week figuring out how to begin.

Nat Friedman

CEO, GitHub

“If you want to tap into the power that communities can bring to businesses and teams, there is no greater expert than Jono Bacon.”

AUDIT & DIAGNOSE

We start here

We first capture the full picture of your company - positioning, onboarding, messaging, and engagement - to find what’s blocking growth and how to help you stand out from the crowd.

HERE’S HOW WE DID IT with

Primary goal was to build a new community, but needed to differentiate in the market.

Blueprinting

We first capture the full picture of your company - positioning, onboarding, messaging, and engagement - to find what’s blocking growth and how to help you stand out from the crowd.

HERE’S HOW WE DID IT with

Brand positioning and messaging → Identify community platform → Early adopter launch → Broader launch

Coach & Execute

We first capture the full picture of your company - positioning, onboarding, messaging, and engagement - to find what’s blocking growth and how to help you stand out from the crowd.

HERE’S HOW WE DID IT with

Primary goal was to build a new community, but needed to differentiate in the market.

Systematize In Your Company

We first capture the full picture of your company - positioning, onboarding, messaging, and engagement - to find what’s blocking growth and how to help you stand out from the crowd.

HERE’S HOW WE DID IT with

Primary goal was to build a new community, but needed to differentiate in the market.

Iteration Flywheel

Measure to Optimize

We first capture the full picture of your company - positioning, onboarding, messaging, and engagement - to find what’s blocking growth and how to help you stand out from the crowd.

HERE’S HOW WE DID IT with

Primary goal was to build a new community, but needed to differentiate in the market.

Execute

We first capture the full picture of your company - positioning, onboarding, messaging, and engagement - to find what’s blocking growth and how to help you stand out from the crowd.

HERE’S HOW WE DID IT with

Primary goal was to build a new community, but needed to differentiate in the market.

AUDIT & DIAGNOSE

We first capture the full picture of your company - positioning, onboarding, messaging, and engagement - to find what’s blocking growth and how to help you stand out from the crowd.

HERE’S HOW WE DID IT with

Primary goal was to build a new community, but needed to differentiate in the market.

Blueprinting

We first capture the full picture of your company - positioning, onboarding, messaging, and engagement - to find what’s blocking growth and how to help you stand out from the crowd.

HERE’S HOW WE DID IT with

Brand positioning and messaging → Identify community platform → Early adopter launch → Broader launch

Coach & Execute

We first capture the full picture of your company - positioning, onboarding, messaging, and engagement - to find what’s blocking growth and how to help you stand out from the crowd.

HERE’S HOW WE DID IT with

Started with brand positioning, created a strawman doc and iterated.

Measure to Optimize

We first capture the full picture of your company - positioning, onboarding, messaging, and engagement - to find what’s blocking growth and how to help you stand out from the crowd.

HERE’S HOW WE DID IT with

Direct calls with target companies netted key results. Doubled membership in short period of time.

Iteration Flywheel

Systematize In Your Company

We first capture the full picture of your company - positioning, onboarding, messaging, and engagement - to find what’s blocking growth and how to help you stand out from the crowd.

HERE’S HOW WE DID IT with

We capture what works into reusable frameworks your team can apply long after our engagement ends.

Execute

We first capture the full picture of your company - positioning, onboarding, messaging, and engagement - to find what’s blocking growth and how to help you stand out from the crowd.
‍

HERE’S HOW WE DID IT with

Initial community launch had small number of members. Focus was promotion inside existing channels.

THE RESULTS

The proof shows up in three places.

When clients run the system, they stop guessing and start operating. Adoption gets faster, revenue gets attributable, and teams get aligned. Here's what that looks like.

Activation gets faster. Momentum compounds.

Accelerated adoption.
‍Users and developers reach their "aha" moment faster because onboarding, messaging, and resources are tuned for time-to-value...not for completeness.
‍

Compounding momentum.
‍Instead of one-off campaigns that spike and fade, you build a repeatable engine where each initiative feeds the next. Growth stops being a hero project.

Jim Zemlin

Executive Director, Linux Foundation

“Jono Bacon’s experience, approach, and candor is critical for harnessing engagement and communities.”

Conversion rises. Wasted spend drops.

Higher conversion and retention.
‍When every stage of the funnel is optimized — first visit, first meaningful action, paid conversion - more users become customers, and they stay longer.

Reduced wasted spend.
‍You stop investing in channels you can't measure. Every dollar ties back to a metric your leadership trusts. Budget conversations get easier, not harder.
‍

Kevin Scott

CTO, Microsoft

"Jono Bacon provides timely insight into what makes us tick as humans, and how to build richer, stronger technology engagement together."

Alignment replaces friction. Execution replaces meetings.

Aligned focus.
‍Marketing, DevRel, community, product, and leadership share the same goals, metrics, and priorities. The team stops debating ownership and starts shipping.

Faster execution.
‍Our frameworks give your team a starting point for every initiative - onboarding, content, events, community - so nobody wastes a week figuring out how to begin.

Nat Friedman

CEO, GitHub

“If you want to tap into the power that communities can bring to businesses and teams, there is no greater expert than Jono Bacon.”

AUDIT & DIAGNOSE

We start here

We first capture the full picture of your company - positioning, onboarding, messaging, and engagement - to find what’s blocking growth and how to help you stand out from the crowd.

HERE’S HOW WE DID IT with

Multiple Communities of Practice existed across Bentley but engagement varied and collaboration between groups was limited.

Blueprinting

We first capture the full picture of your company - positioning, onboarding, messaging, and engagement - to find what’s blocking growth and how to help you stand out from the crowd.

HERE’S HOW WE DID IT with

Define engagement model for Communities of Practice Design cross-community collaboration events Create repeatable structure for CoP leaders

Coach & Execute

We first capture the full picture of your company - positioning, onboarding, messaging, and engagement - to find what’s blocking growth and how to help you stand out from the crowd.

HERE’S HOW WE DID IT with

Multiple Communities of Practice existed across Bentley but engagement varied and collaboration between groups was limited.

Systematize In Your Company

We first capture the full picture of your company - positioning, onboarding, messaging, and engagement - to find what’s blocking growth and how to help you stand out from the crowd.

HERE’S HOW WE DID IT with

Multiple Communities of Practice existed across Bentley but engagement varied and collaboration between groups was limited.

Iteration Flywheel

Measure to Optimize

We first capture the full picture of your company - positioning, onboarding, messaging, and engagement - to find what’s blocking growth and how to help you stand out from the crowd.

HERE’S HOW WE DID IT with

Multiple Communities of Practice existed across Bentley but engagement varied and collaboration between groups was limited.

Execute

We first capture the full picture of your company - positioning, onboarding, messaging, and engagement - to find what’s blocking growth and how to help you stand out from the crowd.

HERE’S HOW WE DID IT with

Multiple Communities of Practice existed across Bentley but engagement varied and collaboration between groups was limited.

AUDIT & DIAGNOSE

We first capture the full picture of your company - positioning, onboarding, messaging, and engagement - to find what’s blocking growth and how to help you stand out from the crowd.

HERE’S HOW WE DID IT with

Multiple Communities of Practice existed across Bentley but engagement varied and collaboration between groups was limited.

Blueprinting

We first capture the full picture of your company - positioning, onboarding, messaging, and engagement - to find what’s blocking growth and how to help you stand out from the crowd.

HERE’S HOW WE DID IT with

Define engagement model for Communities of Practice Design cross-community collaboration events Create repeatable structure for CoP leaders

Coach & Execute

We first capture the full picture of your company - positioning, onboarding, messaging, and engagement - to find what’s blocking growth and how to help you stand out from the crowd.

HERE’S HOW WE DID IT with

Worked with CoP leaders to design and test interactive community events and participation formats.

Measure to Optimize

We first capture the full picture of your company - positioning, onboarding, messaging, and engagement - to find what’s blocking growth and how to help you stand out from the crowd.

HERE’S HOW WE DID IT with

Events generated strong engagement and positive feedback. Leaders began coordinating more closely across Communities of Practice.

Iteration Flywheel

Systematize In Your Company

We first capture the full picture of your company - positioning, onboarding, messaging, and engagement - to find what’s blocking growth and how to help you stand out from the crowd.

HERE’S HOW WE DID IT with

Event formats and collaboration patterns documented so leaders can repeat and expand them across Communities of Practice.

Execute

We first capture the full picture of your company - positioning, onboarding, messaging, and engagement - to find what’s blocking growth and how to help you stand out from the crowd.
‍

HERE’S HOW WE DID IT with

Launched interactive internal events including a company-wide scavenger hunt designed to drive participation and cross-team collaboration.

THE RESULTS

The proof shows up in three places.

When clients run the system, they stop guessing and start operating. Adoption gets faster, revenue gets attributable, and teams get aligned. Here's what that looks like.

Activation gets faster. Momentum compounds.

Accelerated adoption.
‍Users and developers reach their "aha" moment faster because onboarding, messaging, and resources are tuned for time-to-value...not for completeness.
‍

Compounding momentum.
‍Instead of one-off campaigns that spike and fade, you build a repeatable engine where each initiative feeds the next. Growth stops being a hero project.

Jim Zemlin

Executive Director, Linux Foundation

“Jono Bacon’s experience, approach, and candor is critical for harnessing engagement and communities.”

Conversion rises. Wasted spend drops.

Higher conversion and retention.
‍When every stage of the funnel is optimized — first visit, first meaningful action, paid conversion - more users become customers, and they stay longer.

Reduced wasted spend.
‍You stop investing in channels you can't measure. Every dollar ties back to a metric your leadership trusts. Budget conversations get easier, not harder.
‍

Kevin Scott

CTO, Microsoft

"Jono Bacon provides timely insight into what makes us tick as humans, and how to build richer, stronger technology engagement together."

Alignment replaces friction. Execution replaces meetings.

Aligned focus.
‍Marketing, DevRel, community, product, and leadership share the same goals, metrics, and priorities. The team stops debating ownership and starts shipping.

Faster execution.
‍Our frameworks give your team a starting point for every initiative - onboarding, content, events, community - so nobody wastes a week figuring out how to begin.

Nat Friedman

CEO, GitHub

“If you want to tap into the power that communities can bring to businesses and teams, there is no greater expert than Jono Bacon.”

What are the results

The results are undeniable

When companies work with us, they stop guessing and start operating from a proven growth model.
By combining deep audience insight, measurable execution, and hands-on coaching, we drive results across every layer of your business...from accelerating adoption and revenue to aligning teams around a shared, repeatable way of working.

Faster developer growth

Accelerated Developer Adoption
Clearer onboarding and messaging increase activation rates and shorten time-to-value.
‍

Compounding Momentum
A repeatable devrel operating model replaces one-off campaigns with continuous, measurable growth.

“Jono Bacon’s experience, approach, and candoris critical for harnessing engagement and communities..”

Increased leadgen and revenue

Higher Conversion and Retention 
Improved engagement directly drives product usage, renewals, and expansion deals.

Reduced Wasted Spend 
Focused sequencing and clear metrics ensure every investment ties to ROI.
‍

"If you want to tap into the power that communities can bring to businesses and teams, there is no greater expert than Jono Bacon."

A leaner, more efficent team

Aligned Focus 
‍Teams share the same goals, metrics, and priorities, eliminating misalignment and churn.
‍

Faster Execution 
Frameworks and coaching remove bottlenecks, turning ideas into action  at startup speed.

"Jono is the worldwide expert in community interaction. We’revery happy to have him advising us."

what our clients say:

Client testimonials

Don’t trust us, here’s what our customers have to say:

Phillip van der Merwe

VP Business Development

Launching our first developer tool, we knew creating a community around the product would be important, but we lacked experience. Stateshift gave us the tools to prioritize our objectives and the support to execute on them.

Alex Sherstinsky

Senior Machine Learning and Data Products Engineer

Stateshift has been like an executive coach to me with a force multiplier: the other members of the cohort under the expert guidance of Jono Bacon and with on-point support by Mindy Faieta. The wealth of practical knowledge there is like a candy store of experiments to try.

Nicole Heusman

Director of Marketing and Community Outreach

Community-building is increasingly a core component of a strong marketing/advocacy plan, whether for commercial product or open source project, and Stateshift is a prerequisite for success.

Revital Barletz

Head of Community

Stateshift has been immensely valuable to me, providing me with a plethora of great ideas and an excellent framework for engaging with my community right from the outset.

Noelis Soto

Community Lead

Stateshift has been an invaluable resource to me, as we build out our community. Jono’s coaching and trainings have helped us hone our community strategy and advanced our community advocacy skills. Connecting and learning from other community leaders in the group has been an added bonus!

Kunal Nawale

Founder and CEO

We are an early-stage startup, and Stateshift has been instrumental in helping us get results, not just with our community, but also with content, events, messaging, on-boarding, and more. Highly recommended.

Kris Ledel

Head of Developer Relations

I highly recommend Jono Bacon's Stateshift for anyone looking to develop community building and leadership skills. The accelerator offers a well-structured framework and workflow, engaging coaching style, and valuable real-life case studies.

Tim Bradbury

Community Manager

With a focus on a range of topics including community engagement, measuring success, and demonstrating value, being part of Stateshift has helped my colleagues and I to take the pulse of our community and drive forward improvements in engagement and value.

Julien Moutte

Chief Technology Officer

Stateshift had an enormous impact with our internal communities of practice initiative by not just providing clear strategic guidance, but also pragmatic, practical support at a tactical level too. This helped us to significantly speed up time to results and exceed expectations.

Sam Hatoum

Founder and CEO

The team at Stateshift have been invaluable at both a strategic and tactical level in how we iterated on our company vision.

Katie Brown

Co-Founder

We've been working with Stateshift and they've helped us get clear on the right metrics to measure against our goals, not vanity stuff, and put the key pieces in place to start building out our community properly. Clear communication, responsive, no fluff, and creative solutions to problems we're facing. Definitely recommend!

Shahar Erez

Founder

Stateshift provided a deep level of both insight and guidance that has been invaluable at Arato. The team felt truly invested in what we are doing, just like a real team extension.

Caoimhe Murphy

Co-Founder

Stateshift has been invaluable across a range of areas, not just in helping us strategically, but rolling their sleeves up and helping us with execution and delivery too.

Addo Smajic

Co-Founder

Stateshift brings serious expertise. But what really sets them apart is that they don’t stop at advice; they get in the trenches with us and help implement it. That hands-on support let us turn insights into real progress fast.

Stefano Maffulli

Executive Director

Stateshift's coaching and frameworks helped us accelerate our changes and get immediate results. We got access to large amounts of knowledge and a valuable network of peers to tap into.

Diptanu Gon Choudhury

CEO

As a founder, choosing the right path is always complex, and Stateshift have been hugely helpful in taking the high levels of complexity in our business, simplifying it, and providing clarity on next steps and delivering results.

Jason Briggs

President

Stateshift brings a rare mix of discipline, candor, and hard-won open-source expertise. They’ve built and led real communities—so their advice isn’t theoretical, it’s lived. They ask the questions that cut through noise, help us define what progress actually looks like. No fluff. Just clarity and momentum.

Taylor Dolezal

Head of Ecosystem

Joining Stateshift has been a transformative experience. It has led to numerous innovative ideas and helped formulate how to build a roadmap around creating meaningful connections within my community. The interactive live sessions with Jono and our passionate community have been a highlight.

Peter Bell

Founder

I’ve been building tech communities for almost 15 years and I continue to learn new things every time I work with Jono. He’s amazing. The value and engagement in Stateshift is phenomenal. Run, don’t walk to join.

Miranda Carter

Product Manager

Stateshift has given me the tools to strengthen our company's community strategy and the confidence to deliver those plans since they are backed by Stateshift's expertise. I highly recommend joining: it forces provides you with actionable next steps to grow.

Ryan Djurovich

Founder and CEO

As a startup, how you spend your time is everything. Stateshift constantly delivers an outsized return on our time. They've helped us refine our positioning, messaging, website and social media presence at a blazing pace, and helped us to sequence and prioritise work to ensure we are focused on what matters most.

Phillip van der Merwe

VP Business Development

Launching our first developer tool, we knew creating a community around the product would be important, but we lacked experience. Stateshift gave us the tools to prioritize our objectives and the support to execute on them.

Alex Sherstinsky

Senior Machine Learning and Data Products Engineer

Stateshift has been like an executive coach to me with a force multiplier: the other members of the cohort under the expert guidance of Jono Bacon and with on-point support by Mindy Faieta. The wealth of practical knowledge there is like a candy store of experiments to try.

Nicole Heusman

Director of Marketing and Community Outreach

Community-building is increasingly a core component of a strong marketing/advocacy plan, whether for commercial product or open source project, and Stateshift is a prerequisite for success.

Revital Barletz

Head of Community

Stateshift has been immensely valuable to me, providing me with a plethora of great ideas and an excellent framework for engaging with my community right from the outset.

Noelis Soto

Community Lead

Stateshift has been an invaluable resource to me, as we build out our community. Jono’s coaching and trainings have helped us hone our community strategy and advanced our community advocacy skills. Connecting and learning from other community leaders in the group has been an added bonus!

Kunal Nawale

Founder and CEO

We are an early-stage startup, and Stateshift has been instrumental in helping us get results, not just with our community, but also with content, events, messaging, on-boarding, and more. Highly recommended.

Kris Ledel

Head of Developer Relations

I highly recommend Jono Bacon's Stateshift for anyone looking to develop community building and leadership skills. The accelerator offers a well-structured framework and workflow, engaging coaching style, and valuable real-life case studies.

Tim Bradbury

Community Manager

With a focus on a range of topics including community engagement, measuring success, and demonstrating value, being part of Stateshift has helped my colleagues and I to take the pulse of our community and drive forward improvements in engagement and value.

Julien Moutte

Chief Technology Officer

Stateshift had an enormous impact with our internal communities of practice initiative by not just providing clear strategic guidance, but also pragmatic, practical support at a tactical level too. This helped us to significantly speed up time to results and exceed expectations.

Sam Hatoum

Founder and CEO

The team at Stateshift have been invaluable at both a strategic and tactical level in how we iterated on our company vision.

Katie Brown

Co-Founder

We've been working with Stateshift and they've helped us get clear on the right metrics to measure against our goals, not vanity stuff, and put the key pieces in place to start building out our community properly. Clear communication, responsive, no fluff, and creative solutions to problems we're facing. Definitely recommend!

Shahar Erez

Founder

Stateshift provided a deep level of both insight and guidance that has been invaluable at Arato. The team felt truly invested in what we are doing, just like a real team extension.

Caoimhe Murphy

Co-Founder

Stateshift has been invaluable across a range of areas, not just in helping us strategically, but rolling their sleeves up and helping us with execution and delivery too.

Addo Smajic

Co-Founder

Stateshift brings serious expertise. But what really sets them apart is that they don’t stop at advice; they get in the trenches with us and help implement it. That hands-on support let us turn insights into real progress fast.

Stefano Maffulli

Executive Director

Stateshift's coaching and frameworks helped us accelerate our changes and get immediate results. We got access to large amounts of knowledge and a valuable network of peers to tap into.

Diptanu Gon Choudhury

CEO

As a founder, choosing the right path is always complex, and Stateshift have been hugely helpful in taking the high levels of complexity in our business, simplifying it, and providing clarity on next steps and delivering results.

Jason Briggs

President

Stateshift brings a rare mix of discipline, candor, and hard-won open-source expertise. They’ve built and led real communities—so their advice isn’t theoretical, it’s lived. They ask the questions that cut through noise, help us define what progress actually looks like. No fluff. Just clarity and momentum.

Taylor Dolezal

Head of Ecosystem

Joining Stateshift has been a transformative experience. It has led to numerous innovative ideas and helped formulate how to build a roadmap around creating meaningful connections within my community. The interactive live sessions with Jono and our passionate community have been a highlight.

Peter Bell

Founder

I’ve been building tech communities for almost 15 years and I continue to learn new things every time I work with Jono. He’s amazing. The value and engagement in Stateshift is phenomenal. Run, don’t walk to join.

Miranda Carter

Product Manager

Stateshift has given me the tools to strengthen our company's community strategy and the confidence to deliver those plans since they are backed by Stateshift's expertise. I highly recommend joining: it forces provides you with actionable next steps to grow.

Ryan Djurovich

Founder and CEO

As a startup, how you spend your time is everything. Stateshift constantly delivers an outsized return on our time. They've helped us refine our positioning, messaging, website and social media presence at a blazing pace, and helped us to sequence and prioritise work to ensure we are focused on what matters most.

Caoimhe Murphy

Co-Founder

Stateshift has been invaluable across a range of areas, not just in helping us strategically, but rolling their sleeves up and helping us with execution and delivery too.

Miranda Carter

Product Manager

Stateshift has given me the tools to strengthen our company's community strategy and the confidence to deliver those plans since they are backed by Stateshift's expertise. I highly recommend joining: it forces provides you with actionable next steps to grow.

Taylor Dolezal

Head of Ecosystem

Joining Stateshift has been a transformative experience. It has led to numerous innovative ideas and helped formulate how to build a roadmap around creating meaningful connections within my community. The interactive live sessions with Jono and our passionate community have been a highlight.

Peter Bell

Founder

I’ve been building tech communities for almost 15 years and I continue to learn new things every time I work with Jono. He’s amazing. The value and engagement in Stateshift is phenomenal. Run, don’t walk to join.

Tim Bradbury

Community Manager

With a focus on a range of topics including community engagement, measuring success, and demonstrating value, being part of Stateshift has helped my colleagues and I to take the pulse of our community and drive forward improvements in engagement and value.

Kris Ledel

Head of Developer Relations

I highly recommend Jono Bacon's Stateshift for anyone looking to develop community building and leadership skills. The accelerator offers a well-structured framework and workflow, engaging coaching style, and valuable real-life case studies.

Kunal Nawale

Founder and CEO

We are an early-stage startup, and Stateshift has been instrumental in helping us get results, not just with our community, but also with content, events, messaging, on-boarding, and more. Highly recommended.

Noelis Soto

Community Lead

Stateshift has been an invaluable resource to me, as we build out our community. Jono’s coaching and trainings have helped us hone our community strategy and advanced our community advocacy skills. Connecting and learning from other community leaders in the group has been an added bonus!

Revital Barletz

Head of Community

Stateshift has been immensely valuable to me, providing me with a plethora of great ideas and an excellent framework for engaging with my community right from the outset.

Nicole Heusman

Director of Marketing and Community Outreach

Community-building is increasingly a core component of a strong marketing/advocacy plan, whether for commercial product or open source project, and Stateshift is a prerequisite for success.

Alex Sherstinsky

Senior Machine Learning and Data Products Engineer

Stateshift has been like an executive coach to me with a force multiplier: the other members of the cohort under the expert guidance of Jono Bacon and with on-point support by Mindy Faieta. The wealth of practical knowledge there is like a candy store of experiments to try.

Phillip van der Merwe

VP Business Development

Launching our first developer tool, we knew creating a community around the product would be important, but we lacked experience. Stateshift gave us the tools to prioritize our objectives and the support to execute on them.

Stefano Maffulli

Executive Director

Stateshift's coaching and frameworks helped us accelerate our changes and get immediate results. We got access to large amounts of knowledge and a valuable network of peers to tap into.

Jason Briggs

President

Stateshift brings a rare mix of discipline, candor, and hard-won open-source expertise. They’ve built and led real communities—so their advice isn’t theoretical, it’s lived. They ask the questions that cut through noise, help us define what progress actually looks like. No fluff. Just clarity and momentum.

Diptanu Gon Choudhury

CEO

As a founder, choosing the right path is always complex, and Stateshift have been hugely helpful in taking the high levels of complexity in our business, simplifying it, and providing clarity on next steps and delivering results.

Sam Hatoum

Founder and CEO

The team at Stateshift have been invaluable at both a strategic and tactical level in how we iterated on our company vision.

Ryan Djurovich

Founder and CEO

As a startup, how you spend your time is everything. Stateshift constantly delivers an outsized return on our time. They've helped us refine our positioning, messaging, website and social media presence at a blazing pace, and helped us to sequence and prioritise work to ensure we are focused on what matters most.

Shahar Erez

Founder

Stateshift provided a deep level of both insight and guidance that has been invaluable at Arato. The team felt truly invested in what we are doing, just like a real team extension.

Julien Moutte

Chief Technology Officer

Stateshift had an enormous impact with our internal communities of practice initiative by not just providing clear strategic guidance, but also pragmatic, practical support at a tactical level too. This helped us to significantly speed up time to results and exceed expectations.

Katie Brown

Co-Founder

We've been working with Stateshift and they've helped us get clear on the right metrics to measure against our goals, not vanity stuff, and put the key pieces in place to start building out our community properly. Clear communication, responsive, no fluff, and creative solutions to problems we're facing. Definitely recommend!

Addo Smajic

Co-Founder

Stateshift brings serious expertise. But what really sets them apart is that they don’t stop at advice; they get in the trenches with us and help implement it. That hands-on support let us turn insights into real progress fast.

See All the Results

Let’s work!

Ready to do GTM the way technical buyers actually respond to?

We embed with your team to align marketing, DevRel, community, product, and engineering around shared metrics and a clear growth system...not just hand over a strategy deck.

This isn't a vendor relationship...it is a partnership. We only work with teams who want a co-pilot in the trenches, not a consultant on the sidelines.

We only work with 20 companies at a time, so every engagement gets the depth, speed, and senior-level attention that drives real results.

We’re a great fit if:

You're a funded tech company (venture-backed or bootstrapped with runway) with a product in market

You have at least one person focused on devrel, marketing, or community who can execute on what we build together

You're coachable and data-driven - you want to measure reality, even when the numbers aren't flattering

You’re in a US-friendly timezone
(e.g. USA, Europe, Israel)

Book a Call

"Jono Bacon provides timely insight into what makes us tick as humans, and how to build richer, stronger technology engagement together."

Kevin Scott,
CTO, Microsoft

“Jono Bacon’s experience, approach, and candor is critical for harnessing engagement and communities.”

Jim Zemlin,
Executive Director, Linux Foundation

“If you want to tap into the power that communities can bring to businesses and teams, there is no greater expert than Jono Bacon.”

Nat Friedman,
CEO, GitHub