‘In our world, you’re punished quickly if you exaggerate. We weren’t looking for marketing… we were looking for credibility.’
NLnet Labs develops open source software that forms the backbone of the internet.
Infrastructure at global scale. Trusted by the very Big Tech names you’d rather keep at a distance.
And yet:
They were invisible in their own market.
They were seen as a ‘nerd club’, not as an authority.
They were used to creating technical marketing — that never truly resonated.
They suspected that 90% of the market used their products.
And: they felt exposed. With 16 developers on payroll, growth had to be structural. Not a string of lucky breaks.
‘I can keep 16 people employed, but we need to onboard new paying customers..’
When their older software product OpenDNSSEC reached end-of-life, the question was not: ‘What shall we build next?’
But: “ What should we do differently to build a build that changes the world, the community and our commercial position in the market?”
The request
How do we build commercial stability without commercial noise?
How do you stay true to your values and still become top of mind with critical decision-makers, in a market where people may only meet once a year — but remember everything?
‘In our world, you’re punished quickly if you exaggerate.
We weren’t looking for marketing — we were looking for credibility.’
— Benno, Operations Director, NLnet Labs
We didn’t start with a campaign or with content. What we did do:
Conversations with customers and buyers
Analysis of latent frustrations, blind spots, and growth barriers
Repositioning the brand based on truth
Only then came the translation:
A shared brand narrative, directly pulled from internal and external research
A strategy that built thought leadership, community and shifted the standard - because we amplified the biggest trigger of the target audience: hero ops
A structured, strategic product launch strategy
Rewritten sales and marketing assets
Redesign of the full sales process
The approach
Internally
Team members recognised themselves in the new positioning.
Even the most critical developers had no feedback on the marketing assets.
Support and pride replaced the sense of ‘having to market’.
Externally
The research report was downloaded 200 times within their niche community.
Ideal customers sent messages, posted comments, and shared praise.
Two international speaking invitations came in.
Funding was offered, based on their renewed positioning.
Ideal clients publicly endorsed them and the new ‘pioneering’ content on Mastodon
Results
We worked bottom-up
We started at insights from customers and true bottlenecks, after which we looked at brand and tactics. Not the other way around.
We didn’t solve problems that didn’t exist.
We amplified the energy already present (community, seminars).There was leadership with mandate.
No group think. No endless alignment. Tension wasn’t smoothed away.Everyone played to their strengths.
Strategic director, copywriter, designer. Team as sounding board.We thought in years, not weeks.
The product launch was not the end goal. Becoming top of mind for the future was.
Why it worked
This is not the story of a product launch.
It’s the story of an organisation coming of age. NLnet Labs took a stand and decided to build a narrative. Which results in them being asked, heard, and taken seriously at the highest level.
NLnet Labs proved:
That IT and tech can communicate with maturity, without compromise.
That marketing doesn’t have to be noise.
That you don’t need a megaphone when your story is sharp.
That thought leadership can be claimed fast.