Hey, I'm Patrick Woods 👋
I'm a founder, brand strategist, and writer based in San Francisco. I work on the systems that shape how software spreads — APIs and MCP, developer platforms, and the ecosystems that grow around them, focusing on the structures that allow technical tools to be discovered, adopted, and built upon by others.
I was founder and CEO of Orbit, which Josh Dzielak and I launched in 2019 to provide CRM-style tooling for community and DevRel teams. We built cool stuff with great people, raised around $20M from a16z, Coatue, Heavybit + more, and exited to Postman (where currently lead growth for the API Network) in 2022. Before that I ran a branding practice for dev and infra tools called Initial Commit. I've spent time in customer success leadership for dev tools companies, led account strategy for an ad agency, and worked in various areas of marketing.
Work
Check on my work history on LinkedIn.
Selected Writing
- How to Drive Business Growth By Fostering Your Community
- Community ≠ Marketing: Why We Need Go-to-Community, Not Just Go-to-Market
- So, You Want a Community: 3 Considerations with Orbit
- What I learned raising money as a first-time founder
- A Simple Technique for Better B2B Headlines
- A How to Conduct a Competitive Analysis
Archive
Posts from 2012–2019 on startups, brand strategy, and messaging. Browse the archive.
Podcasts
- Early Approaches to Community & Content with Mux, Apollo GraphQL, and Camunda
- Developer Love — a podcast I hosted in 2020–2021 focused on the secret to building things developers love, featuring DHH, Tim O'Reilly, swyx, and more.
Projects
Born during my time working in advertising and later expanded into a book, the Brand Strategy Canvas is a framework for making abstract brand ideas concrete and actionable. In addition to the book, you can use it as a Claude Plugin that will guide you through the process.
- Read the book
- Try the plugin (still pretty beta)
APIGTM was a 1-day hybrid event focused on driving API adoption in the age of AI. We produced a half-day livestream (1k+ live viewers) as well as a community meetup during SF Tech Week. I conceived of and led the project, as well as co-hosted the livestream.
A framework for measuring the value created by communities. Josh Dzielak drove most of this (and hand-coded the d3 site!), but I think I helped along the way. This concept was the foundation for what would become Orbit the company.
This was one of my favorite things we launched at Orbit: a print journal about the art and science of community building.
- Check it out (credit to our designer Jarod)
- The Product Hunt launch page
I made a simple site that displays the current daily reading from Reality SF's daily BREAD Readings journal.