TTV in DevTools vs. MarTech: A Comparison

Not all PLG motions are the same. If you apply "Consumer Best Practices" to a Developer Tool, you will fail. If you apply "Developer Logic" to a Marketing Tool, you will fail.

Let's look at the tale of two industries: DevTools vs MarTech.

1. DevTools (e.g., Vercel, Supabase, Stripe)

• The User: A Developer.
• The Psychology: "I don't want to talk to you. I want to read the docs and paste code."
• Patience Level: Zero for UI click-ops. High for debugging code.
• The "Aha!" Moment: The moment code runs in their terminal.
• TTV Driver: Documentation and CLI speed.

The Killer Friction:

• Requiring a credit card (Devs hate this).
• Forcing a "Sales Demo" (Devs will quit immediately).
• Bad error messages.

Tivalio Insight: DevTools TTV is measured in minutes.

• Stripe: 5 mins to first charge.
• Vercel: 2 mins to deploy git push. If they don't see "Hello World" in 10 minutes, they assume your tool is broken.

2. MarTech (e.g., HubSpot, Mailchimp, Canva)

• The User: A Marketer or Designer.
• The Psychology: "I want this to look beautiful and professional."
• Patience Level: Moderate. They are willing to configure settings if the UI is friendly.
• The "Aha!" Moment: Seeing a preview of their campaign/design.
• TTV Driver: Inspiration, Templates, and Visual Editors.

The Killer Friction:

• Confusing navigation (where is the "Send" button?).
• Lack of Templates (Don't give them a blank page).

Tivalio Insight: MarTech TTV is often multi-session.

• Session 1: Explore templates (Inspiration).
• Session 2: Upload Contacts (Work).
• Session 3: Send Campaign (Value).

Conclusion: Know Your Tribe

Don't optimize TTV in a vacuum.

• If you are building for Devs: Focus on your SDK, your Docs, and your API keys. UI is secondary.
• If you are building for Marketers: Focus on your Templates, your Wizards, and your Visual previews. Code is scary.

Measure TTV according to the expectations of your persona.