Kin Lane, API Evangelist at API Evangelist LLC
Well, making money. I just quit my job and I'm living off my savings. I have a number of partners who I'm talking with to sponsor my work, but I'll need to keep more of my business running. There are sources of money like venture capital I could chase, but honestly I've seen this lead to a [00:09:00] real API space that we all experience today.
I'll be avoiding getting loans or accepting venture capital, and I'm going to focus on building out my partner network first, and then landing the clients I need for my contract services. To make, make the ends meet. I'm confident I can do it, but I'd like to use this platform and these API conversations to help bring attention to the wider API space, but also to potentially sell my services.
I wouldn't say making money is a priority for me, but making sure my API evangelist works, uh, work is sustainable. This round is a priority for me.
Pat Patterson, Chief Technical Evangelist at Backblaze
It's really explaining the new features that we are releasing. So, again, that's coding, that's part of it. But also there is technical writing, writing articles, presenting webinars. It's bringing that together because this job, as you know, is way more than just sitting and writing sample code. There's a Venn diagram of people who really understand a particular technology and then people who would be comfortable standing up in front of 500 hungry developers and explaining it, and that intersection is quite narrow. That's what I'm always doing. It's like balancing: I could go deep and write code and have a lot of fun, but if I do that for too long, I'm not actually communicating it, sending it out there. People forget who you are if you go dark for too long. On the other hand, if you're out on the road at conferences and networking and glad-handing, you get out of touch with what's happening in the technology. So, all the time I'm balancing those two sides in order to do my job for the company. I'm not like a sales guy with an ARR target, but the intention of hiring an evangelist is they have a positive effect on your revenue.
