How to build a modern developer funnel with hands-on labs

Welcome to Instruqt HOT STARTS 🔥, blazing-fast webcasts under 30 minutes, built for software GTM teams ready to scale developer adoption, drive technical enablement, and prove ROI. Our first HOT START 🔥 episode was designed for marketers who sell to developers. Whether you're a product marketer, developer marketer, or demand gen leader, this session showed how to build a better funnel with hands-on product experiences that convert.

A fast intro to HOT START

We launched our new HOT START webcast series with a practical question: How do you move developers from a click to real product experience, then to conversion, without forcing them through a maze of forms and PDFs? Sean Lauer, VP of Marketing & Product at Instruqt, and Jeff Pistone, Senior Solutions Engineer at Instruqt, walked through the modern developer funnel and showed what changes when you put hands-on labs at the center. 

Why the traditional developer funnel breaks down

Most developer funnels are top heavy, form gated, and built around content that asks for attention instead of offering access. The result is low-intent leads and frustrated sales teams. Developers click “book a demo” out of curiosity, then bounce before they ever touch your product. Meanwhile, sales spends cycles on people who were never ready to talk. 

The expectation shift is clear. Developers want to get hands-on with your software. 

In our State of Developer Adoption 2025 report, hands-on, real-world environments ranked as the most effective way to drive awareness and adoption, ahead of documentation and certification. Only about one third of companies provide interactive labs today. 

That gap is a growth opportunity for teams that make access immediate and measure engagement instead of email opens. 

Meet the IQL: A better signal than a form fill

We introduced the Instruqt-Qualified Lead (IQL): A prospect who engaged with a real product experience. An IQL is stronger than a traditional MQL because it is rooted in usage, not pageviews. 

IQLs are created by capturing three categories of signals:

• Engage - Depth of exploration: Time in lab, repeat visits, challenges completed, and core feature clicks. 
• Signal - Buyer readiness indicators: Forms submitted, feedback given, friction points, and help requests. 
• Convert - Movement toward adoption: Invitations to teammates, pricing page visits, and trials started. 

When you look across these behaviors, you can prioritize accounts that fit your ICP and have already shown intent through action. 

What changes when you put hands-on first

‍Hands-on labs shorten the distance between curiosity and value. Instead of sending someone into a nurture sequence, you give them a safe, guided environment where they can learn by doing. That activity stream is gold for marketing and sales. Instruqt captures what track they started or completed, how much time they spent, and any feedback they left, then pipes this context into your CRM so sales can follow up with substance. 

Across the funnel, this looks like a simple new motion: Click → Lab → Real interaction → “Aha!” moment. That sequence outperforms passive content because it aligns with how developers prefer to evaluate. 

What we showed in the live demo

Jeff shared quick ways to stand up hands-on experiences and capture the right signals.

• Distribution without friction. Not every team has an LMS. With Invites, you can generate a shareable link or embed code and choose whether to gate access. It keeps the door open for learning while still letting you qualify interest. 

• Know what’s working. Instruqt metrics reveal which labs are taken, typical session length, completion rates, and the points where people get stuck. If someone spends 35 minutes on a 10-minute lab, that is a meaningful engagement signal that can trigger thoughtful outreach. 

• Spin up landing pages in minutes. Built-in Landing Pages help you host tracks for events and campaigns. You can match your brand, gate forms when needed, and lean on SEO options to index public pages or keep them private. Analytics roll up at the page level to show views, leads, and conversions. 

• Sync with the systems that run your revenue engine. Out-of-the-box Salesforce and HubSpot integrations can create or match leads and write hands-on activity back into the record. Your reps see track started and completed, time spent, score, and written feedback — real context for a better conversation. 

Customer stories: Proof that hands-on drives intent

SUSE scaled hands-on Kubernetes workshops for Rancher Prime and used the data to improve outreach. They grew Rancher Day participation from roughly 100 to more than 300 while capturing higher-quality leads for follow up. 

Diagrid needed visibility into who was adopting Dapr and a low-friction way to onboard. With Instruqt, they generated 500+ new developer leads in three months, averaged 13 minutes in the Dapr 101 track, and earned a 4.68/5 happiness score, all while syncing context straight into HubSpot for nurturing. 

These narratives are consistent with what we hear across our customer base: when you replace passive assets with guided, hands-on learning, you capture intent that is otherwise invisible. 

Turning your clicks into IQLs: A simple playbook

If you want to pilot an IQL motion this quarter, here is a practical starting point:

1. Pick one high-intent scenario. Choose a “Hello, World” or POV-style lab where success is visible in a few minutes. Tie completion to a clear insight your AE can reference later. (Use the Engage, Signal, Convert buckets to decide which behaviors matter most.) 

2. Publish a Landing Page. Brand it, add a one-sentence value proposition, and decide whether to index it for search or keep it private for your campaign. Capture the form fields you need, not everything you can get. Review the page-level analytics to see views, leads, and conversions. 

3. Distribute with Invites. Use a short link for email and a lightweight embed in your docs or community space. Gate with a form if you need contact data, or leave it open for speed when the audience is cold. 

4. Instrument the signals. Decide which actions count as Engage, Signal, and Convert for the track, then connect Salesforce or HubSpot so activity flows into the record. Confirm that notes show track started and completed, time spent, score, and feedback. 

5. Coach the handoff. Give your SDRs and AEs a short guide on how to reference lab behavior. “I saw you finished the Kubernetes challenge and asked about cluster policies. Want to try our advanced policy lab together?” That is a better opener than any generic follow-up.

6. Iterate from the metrics. Look at drop-off points and time-on-task. If a ten-minute lab consistently runs long, clarify instructions or add a hint. If everyone stalls at the same step, that might be an onboarding gap worth fixing in your product docs. 

‍Conclusion: Take the next step with Instruqt

Our first HOT START 🔥 episode proved that the future of developer funnels is hands-on. By shifting from passive content to interactive labs, you capture real engagement signals, qualify leads faster, and give your sales team the context they need to close with confidence.

Ready to see how this works with your own product? Book a demo and we’ll show you how to build IQL-powered funnels that convert.

Want to keep learning? Check out our Events & Webinars page for upcoming HOT START 🔥 sessions and other programs designed to help you scale developer adoption, drive enablement, and prove ROI.