Engineering Management
A Step-by-Step Guide to Launching an API Product
How to refine and validate an API product idea, design and build the prototype, successfully launch and grow it.
Aspiring startup founders often think of building a web or a mobile app. However, launching such products requires lots of efforts and collaboration from people with various skill sets: engineering, infrastructure, design, PR, marketing, sales, product management, support, analytics, industry expertise, etc. If you are bootstrapping, it is not easy to find co-founders with required skills. If you are working with investors — finding talent is still time-consuming and expensive.
Unlike web and mobile apps, API products require less effort to build, launch, and maintain. APIs have well-defined use cases, so less customer support is required. API products don’t need complicated UIs, so don’t require much design and front-end development. API customers are technical and curious people, so marketing and PR efforts can be more focused, efficient, and less costly. A team of 2–4 people can deliver an API prototype into the hands of potential customers in a few weeks or months.
This guide is a walkthrough for the process of developing a new API product. It is based on a…
