The API is dead, long live the VPI!
How to not make APIs successful? By limiting APIs to expose interfaces to applications. Yes, you heard it right. Let’s forget for one moment what the acronym API stands for. It’s not about a programming interface of an application, no it’s not. Actually, an API is an interface to a value proposition! Period.
If I learned one lesson as technical lead of the API program of Swisscom, the biggest Swiss telco provider, and as lean startup practitioner, then it’s this: The API is dead, long live the VPI! VPI stands for Value Proposition Interface.
Ultimately, the API is only about the interface to the value proposition, not to the application.
From Inside-Out to Outside-In
Let me share a real story. Some of my colleagues developed a technically sound Customers API. You guess right: the Customers API provides information about customers of the Swiss telco provider. It offers full names, addresses, and subscription info.
But honestly, how many companies might be interested to know who are the customers of a Swiss telco and why should they care about their mobile subscriptions? To summarize, the Customers API has not much value for other companies.
