[ams6110]

Very few customers care anything at all about technology issues such as whether a SaaS product is built with RoR, ASP, PHP, Python, or whatever. They just care whether it solves their problem at a price that is a good value.

Unless you are specifically targeting some niche market of software engineers, the underlying technology just doesn't enter into the discussion. Basecamp was built for project managers.

[jiggy2011]

I mean for early exposure. If you have the attention of a bunch of developers because you are leading a popular project then they are more likely to check out your new product than if it was just launched by some random company.

If you do a good job impressing them, they will help spread the word.

[jasonfried]

The early exposure we got was from our audience on our blog, Signal vs. Noise. They were web design shops like us (that's what we did before we morphed into a product company). These were customers that were like us - small shops that needed a better way to collaborate, communicate, and present with their clients.