I recently signed up for a hackathon. Part of the deal these days is that sponsors get to send promotional messages to the attendees. Fair enough. The only problem is, most of these messages are rubbish!

Here’s the verbatim message I received – there were no links other than to Twitter. See if you can work out what this startup does…

Just a quick heads up to let you know that we’ll be attending $conference 2017 – and we’re pretty excited about it! Hopefully you’ll be plugging in alongside us. Interested in using our APIs? Great – you’ll just need an account. We’d recommend signing up earlier rather than later to make sure you’re set up in time for the mayhem. Sign-up is simple and should only take about three minutes, but if you’ve got questions just get in touch on Twitter @StarlingDev or through the $conference Slack channel. See you there! From Team Starling

From this we can determine…

Starling’s sign up process is too long and complicated to easily do at a hackathon. They have an API. … Err… Starling is a type of bird? Are they Twitter related?

Most startups live in a bubble. They live and breathe their brand. No one else does. Most people haven’t heard of your disruptive attempt to shift the paradigm. Hell, even if you’re a company like Facebook – most developers won’t be intimately familiar with everything your API can offer.

Here’s a better way to write a note to developers:

Just a quick heads up to let you know that Starling Bank will be attending $conference 2017. We’re a financial institution with a difference – we provide a full set of banking APIs. Check balances, transfer money, manipulate Direct Debits – it’s all there! Interested in playing with our APIs? Great – sign up for an account. We recommend signing up before the hackathon as you will need to set up two-factor authentication and provide some ID (to help prevent fraud). If you’ve got questions just get in touch on Twitter @StarlingDev or dive in to our developer documentation. See you there! From Team Starling

Now we know…

What Starling does! Why it makes sense to sign up early. How to sign up. Where to find out more.

It’s important to remember that no one cares about your startup! You can’t assume every developer has read your press releases, or your CEO’s wisdom on LinkedIn.

When I met Starling’s developer relations team at the conference, I was impressed by how good they are. They knew their product intimately and were able to answer my esoteric questions about UK banking regulations. They deserve better promotional messages.