AAARRRP: A Developer Relations Strategy Framework.

AAARRRP is Phil Leggetter’s adaptation of Dave McClure’s Pirate Metrics (AARRR), expanded specifically for developer relations work. It first appeared on leggetter.co.uk in 2016 and has since become one of the two or three most widely adopted strategic frameworks in the field, alongside the Orbit Model and the Four Pillars.

What the acronym stands for

AAARRRP represents seven distinct business goals a DevRel team can serve:

Letter	Goal	Definition
Awareness	Users become aware of the product.
Acquisition	Users sign up for the product.
Activation	Users successfully use the product.
Retention	Users keep using the product, often with growing depth.
Referral	Users tell other developers about the product.
Revenue	Users perform monetising behaviour.
Product	Users (with DevRel’s help) shape what the product becomes.

Two letters distinguish AAARRRP from the original AARRR:

• Awareness is added in front because developer audiences are highly fragmented; you cannot acquire developers who do not know you exist, and “awareness” needs to be tracked independently of “acquisition.”
• Product is added at the end to acknowledge that DevRel does not merely promote an existing product — it actively shapes the product through feedback, beta testing, contributor relationships, and direct participation in the roadmap.

Funnel or loop?

AAARRRP can be modelled either way:

Funnel form:
  Awareness → Acquisition → Activation → Retention → Referral → Revenue → Product

Loop form:
  Awareness → Acquisition → Activation → Retention
                                            ↓
                              Product   ←   Referral / Revenue
                                ↓
                              (back to product features → Awareness)

Most early-stage companies use the funnel form; mature platforms run AAARRRP as a flywheel.

Mapping activities to goals

The framework’s practical power is that it forces a DevRel team to map every activity to one or more goals. A weekly Twitch stream might serve Awareness and Referral; a quarterly hands-on workshop might serve Activation and Retention; an ambassador program might serve Referral, Product, and Awareness simultaneously.

Leggetter introduced two analytical tools:

• Goal Alignment — count how many of the seven goals an activity serves. Activities that score 1 or 2 are tactical; activities that score 4+ are strategic.
• Goal Weighting — for each activity, assign a primary, secondary, and tertiary goal. Force the team to prioritise.

An illustrative example matrix (the team should produce its own):

Activity	Awareness	Acquisition	Activation	Retention	Referral	Revenue	Product
Quickstart docs	–	–	●●●	●	–	–	–
Conference keynote	●●●	●	–	–	●●	–	–
Sample app on GitHub	●●	–	●●●	–	●	–	●
Discord office hours	–	–	●●	●●●	–	–	●●
Ambassador program	●	–	–	●●	●●●	–	●●
Customer reference content	●●	●	–	–	●●●	●●	–
Product feedback survey	–	–	–	–	–	–	●●●

When prioritising next quarter’s work, the team can:

• Identify the most under-served goal and add activities that serve it.
• Identify activities that serve too few goals and cut or redesign them.
• Map activities to the business’s current strategic priorities (e.g. “this year we need Acquisition more than Retention”).

Choosing where to invest based on company stage

Company stage	Most-needed goals	Typical activity emphasis
Pre-PMF, early access	Product, Awareness	Beta programs, deep customer interviews, founder-led evangelism
Public launch / early commercial	Awareness, Acquisition	Big launch content, conference launches, paid distribution, AMAs
Growth (PLG)	Activation, Retention	Quickstart and onboarding work, sample apps, embedded community help
Scale	Referral, Revenue	Ambassador and customer-advocate programs, customer-success content, partner-channel work
Mature category leader	Product, Retention	Power-user programs, advisory boards, large-scale conferences and certification

The framework does not say one goal is more important than another. It says: be deliberate about which goals you serve, in what order, with what mix of activity.

How AAARRRP relates to other frameworks

• Orbit Model. AAARRRP is a goals framework; Orbit is a community-membership framework. They compose: Awareness/Acquisition are observable through new Explorer-orbit members; Retention through Participant-to-Contributor movement; Referral through Advocate behaviour. See ./orbit-model.md.
• Four Pillars (Lewko & Parton). Four Pillars defines the functions (Education, Marketing, Success, Programs); AAARRRP defines the goals those functions serve. See ./four-pillars.md.
• Pirate Metrics (AARRR). The original. AAARRRP keeps the funnel logic and adds developer-specific stages.
• DevRel Capability Maturity Model. Where AAARRRP tells you what to do, the maturity model tells you how organised your function is in doing it. See ./maturity-model.md.

Common misuses

• “AAARRRP says we should do everything.” No. It says be deliberate about which goals you serve. A team that tries to serve all seven equally will be mediocre at all seven.
• “Every activity must score on every goal.” No. Single-goal activities are fine; they just need to be clearly the right single goal for that quarter.
• “AAARRRP is a measurement framework.” Partial. It is a strategy framework that surfaces the goals; you still need a measurement framework (instrumenting onboarding funnels, defining DQLs, tracking community contributions) to know whether you are progressing. See ../04-metrics/metrics-overview.md.

Primary sources

• Phil Leggetter, “AAARRRP: A Developer Relations Strategy Framework,” leggetter.co.uk, 2016 (and ongoing updates).
• Phil Leggetter, “Introducing AAARRRP” talk, DevRelCon (multiple editions).
• Dave McClure, “Startup Metrics for Pirates: AARRR!” 500 Startups, 2007.

See also

• ./orbit-model.md
• ./four-pillars.md
• ./maturity-model.md
• ../04-metrics/metrics-overview.md