NOTE This is not an official proposal. A form of this was submitted to Elixir Core but was dismissed, for the most part. They represent learnings from over 200 interviews from current and former Elixir devs working at all stage of company. The conclusions and recommendations are ones I made independantly in the Fall of 2024.

Elixir Marketing Strategy

This repository contains the comprehensive Elixir adoption and marketing strategy.

Documents

• proposal.md - Full detailed proposal document

Presentation

The strategy is also available as a slide deck presentation.

Viewing the Slides

The slides are located in the slides/ directory:

• slides/elixir-adoption-strategy.md - Marp markdown source
• slides/elixir-adoption-strategy.html - Generated HTML presentation

To view the HTML presentation, open slides/elixir-adoption-strategy.html in your browser.

Running the Slide Deck

Several npm scripts are available to work with the slides:

# Generate HTML slides
npm run slides

# Watch mode (auto-regenerate on changes)
npm run slides:watch

# Generate PDF
npm run slides:pdf

# Generate PowerPoint (PPTX)
npm run slides:pptx

# Start local server to view slides
npm run slides:server

Requirements

The slides use Marp for presentation generation. The required dependencies are already configured in package.json.

To install dependencies:

npm install

Note: For PDF and PPTX generation, you need a compatible browser (Chrome, Edge, or Firefox) installed.

Overview

The strategy proposes establishing an Elixir Adoption Group - a volunteer-run, advisory body to coordinate comprehensive adoption initiatives including:

• External conference outreach to competitive technology spaces
• Elixir Champions program for community speakers
• ElixirConf optimization and growth
• Educational workshops and corporate outreach
• Retention analysis and library ecosystem development
• Meetup revival and tech influencer coordination
• Case studies and competitive analysis
• Annual community survey and metrics

Core Principle: The Adoption Group operates with advisory authority only. All participation is voluntary, and project owners maintain full autonomy.

Key Goals

1. Expand Elixir's reach beyond its current echo chamber
2. Develop aspirational messaging that resonates emotionally
3. Improve presentation and optics to compete for attention
4. Build systematic pathways for adoption and retention
5. Win at least one FAANG or Fortune 500 company within 5 years