How to Successfully Market an API
How to Successfully Market an API
Fine-Tuning Developer Relations & Platform Advocacy
About the Book
In the widening API sphere, marketing an API business involves knowing your customer intimately, and fine-tuning your developer support channels to help users excell. From evangelism, advocacy, to community building - the job of promoting a developer-centric program (and doing it tastefully), now needs its own strategy.
This eBook is structured into four parts. We first we walk through a Planning stage with tips on starting your program, understanding your target consumer, market research, and more using the API canvas model to position your agile API business. Next, we discuss Developer Relations with tips on onboarding and quality developer experience when it comes to overall API design as well as documentation and developer portal resources. Next, we cover tips on Promotion, outlining API discovery techniques and relevant press resources that will help spread awareness of your product, as well as ideas for creating evergreen content for blog publishing that informs and engages API users. Our last section on Advocacy defines the roles of program evangelists, tips on holding your own developer conferences, as well as case studies into failures and successes companies have had with public API programs in recent years.
If you are a project manager assigned to marketing an API, here is your bible.
About the Contributors

Editor in Chief @ Nordic APIs
Bill Doerrfeld is a technologist and writer interested in disruptive software and projecting technology of the future. He is especially devoted to tracking the API economy, and is the Editor in Chief for Nordic APIs, a blog and knowledge base devoted to helping API (Application Programming Interface) providers refine their platforms. Follow him on Twitter, Linkedin, or reach out via email. Visit doerrfeld.io for more.

API Specialist
Chris Wood is an API specialist from the UK. His main interests are API management, Python and working on cool and interesting stuff. Connect with Chris on Twitter.

Jarkko Moilanen is a long term open source community activist, creator of the APIOps concept and founder of the API-Suomi community. Jarkko is one of the leading API economy evangelists (APItalist) in Finland. Nowadays designing and leading strategy implementation in education and cloud services at Ministry of Education and Culture. Also acting as one of the X-Road Ambassadors in Finland and Joint X-Road community midwife.

Blogger @ Nordic APIs
Kristopher Sandoval is a web developer, author, and artist based out of Northern California with over six years of experience in Information Technology and Network Administration. He writes for Nordic APIs and blogs on his site, A New Sincerity.

Host and Producer of the public speaking podcast Time to Shine. Oscar has spent more than three years as a Product Manager in the software industry. Either onstage or on blogs he advocates making technical presentations and product demos that engage and inspire.

Chief Architect, Oxygis
Vassili van der Mersch is a technology entrepreneur and freelance programmer from Belgium. He is the founder of Sevendays, the Chief Architect at an Internet of Things company called Oxygis and formerly a manager at Accenture, where he worked as a technology consultant for 10 years. Throughout his career in consulting, he has worked on a variety of API backends for large organizations in government and financial services.
Table of Contents
-
- Preface
-
Part One: Planning
-
Building from the Ground Up: Tips for Starting Your API Program
- Clarify Your Needs
- Get Buy In (From Everyone)
- Aim for a Public MVP
- Act on Feedback
- Build your Practice
- Final Thoughts
-
Define Your Target Developer Audience
- Why Create a Developer “Persona”?
- The Developer Brain
- But Plenty of Other People Are Interested in APIs, Too!
- Expanding our Portal: Developer End User Evangelism
- Varying Industry Backgrounds
- Location & Demographics
- API Use Cases
- Technology Preferences
- Lessen The Corporate Branding
- Developer Experience
- Build it And They Will _____
- Understand Your Audience
-
Developer Experience is a Key Ingredient of Quality APIs
- API Model Canvas – offspring of Lean Canvas
- Developers are the Rockstars of the API Economy
- Addressing the Entire API Model Canvas
- Case Study: National Library of Finland
- MVP for next step
- Gain speed and make it fun
- Final Thoughts
-
Building from the Ground Up: Tips for Starting Your API Program
-
Part Two: Developer Relations
-
Ingredients That Make Up a Superb Developer Center
- Getting Started Guide
- Authentication Guide
- API Documentation
- Testing Environment
- Developer Resources
- Support Channels
- Platform Policy
- Cater Your Home Presence to Non-Developers Too
- Final Thoughts
-
Crafting Excellent API Code Tutorials that Decrease On-boarding Time
- Setting the Context
- Exploring the Details
- Creating an Application
- Final Thoughts
-
What is the Difference Between an API and an SDK?
- Define: API
- Define: SDK
- Squares and Rectangles
- Examples
- Apples and Oranges
-
Developer Resources: SDKs, Libraries, Auto Generation Tools
- What Are Helper Libraries?
- Why Not Just Let Them REST?
- Data Problem
- Programming Language Trends
- Discover What Languages Your Consumers are Using
- Who Should we Model?
- HTTP is Language Agnostic
- 5 Tips for Helper Library Design
- Last Line of API Code: Your API is Never Really Finished
-
A Human’s Guide to Drafting API Platform Policy
- Key Themes
- Defining Responsibilities
- Setting Expectations
- Describing Good Behaviors
- Final Thoughts
-
Creating A Brand Guide for Your API Program
- Platform Strategy Dictates Brand Requirements
- Brand Guide Components
- Formatting Your Design Guide
- The Effect of Zero or Poor Branding Guidelines
- Final Thoughts
- Examples of API Branding Guides in the Wild:
-
Ingredients That Make Up a Superb Developer Center
-
Part Three: Promotion
-
Perfecting Your API Release
- What do I release?
- Time Your Release
- Widen Your Potential Audience
- Have the Right Monetization plan
- Have a Demo
- Have Awesome Branding
-
Tips to Make Your API More Discoverable
- SEO Approach: Optimization of API Homepages
- Service Discovery Automation
- Cheat Sheet of 10+ API Directories to Submit Your API to
-
Important Press Networks and Developer Channels in the API Space
- Press Release Distribution
- API-Specific Blogs, Thought Leaders, and Digests
- General Tech & Developer News
- Nordic Tech Press/News
- Social Bookmarking
- API Events
- The Everpresent Commentator
-
Utilizing Product Hunt to Launch Your API
- Alpha, Closed Beta, Open Beta, or Full Release?
- Preparing for a Release
- Offering Exclusive Deals: The Gold Star
- Actually Submitting a Profile on Product Hunt
- The Launch: Introduce Yourself, Play Nice, Get the Word Out
- The Unanticipated Launch
- The Return on Investment
- The Internet’s Watercooler is Product Hunt
- Resources
-
Perfecting Your API Release
-
Part Four: Advocacy
-
Day in the Life of an API Developer Evangelist
- 8 Important Job Roles of a Software Evangelist
- What does an Evangelist do each day?
- Evangelism vs Advocacy
- Q&A Section
- Conclusion
- Interviewees:
-
How to Offer Unparalleled Developer Support
- The Importance of Developer Outreach
- Email and Social Media
- Event Hosting and Attendance
- Documentation and Knowledge Bases
- Conclusion
-
Accumulating Feedback: 4 Questions API Providers Need to Ask Their Users
- Why Feedback is Important
- What Do You Expect From This API?
- What Is Your Greatest Frustration with the API?
- Why Did You Choose Our API?
- If You Could Change Our API, How Would You?
- Methods to Use for Accumulating Feedback
- Think As a User
-
How to Hold a Killer First Hackathon or Developer Conference
- Types of Get-Togethers
- What is a Hackathon?
- What is a Developer Conference?
- What’s the Difference?
- How to Host an Event
-
What Makes an API Demo Unforgettable?
- 1: Describe the API, in a few words.
- 2: Convince we all share the same values of the API
- 3: Impress with how great and easy your API is
- 4: Interact with the audience
- 5: Live coding mastery
- 6: A theater-like script
- Preparation for potential technical flaws
- Conclusion
-
Case Study: Twitter’s 10 Year Struggle with Developer Relations
- 2006 - 2010: The early days
- 2010 - 2012: OAuthcalypse, competing with third party apps and other perceived betrayals
- 2012 - 2013: Token limits and open war on traditional clients
- 2013 - Present: Post-IPO controversies
- Wooing back developers
- New releases and optimism going forward
- Other social networks
-
Day in the Life of an API Developer Evangelist
-
Review
- TL;DR Checklist
- Endnotes
Authors have earned$9,883,643writing, publishing and selling on Leanpub, earning 80% royalties while saving up to 25 million pounds of CO2 and up to 46,000 trees.
Learn more about writing on Leanpub
The Leanpub 45-day 100% Happiness Guarantee
Within 45 days of purchase you can get a 100% refund on any Leanpub purchase, in two clicks.
See full terms
Free Updates. DRM Free.
If you buy a Leanpub book, you get free updates for as long as the author updates the book! Many authors use Leanpub to publish their books in-progress, while they are writing them. All readers get free updates, regardless of when they bought the book or how much they paid (including free).
Most Leanpub books are available in PDF (for computers), EPUB (for phones and tablets) and MOBI (for Kindle). The formats that a book includes are shown at the top right corner of this page.
Finally, Leanpub books don't have any DRM copy-protection nonsense, so you can easily read them on any supported device.
Learn more about Leanpub's ebook formats and where to read them
Top Books
C++ Best Practices
Jason TurnerLevel up your C++, get the tools working for you, eliminate common problems, and move on to more exciting things!
OpenIntro Statistics
David Diez, Christopher Barr, Mine Cetinkaya-Rundel, and OpenIntroA complete foundation for Statistics, also serving as a foundation for Data Science.
Leanpub revenue supports OpenIntro (US-based nonprofit) so we can provide free desk copies to teachers interested in using OpenIntro Statistics in the classroom and expand the project to support free textbooks in other subjects.
More resources: openintro.org.
Functional Design and Architecture
Alexander GraninSoftware Design in Functional Programming, Design Patterns and Practices, Methodologies and Application Architectures. How to build real software in Haskell with less efforts and low risks. The first complete source of knowledge.
R Programming for Data Science
Roger D. PengThis book brings the fundamentals of R programming to you, using the same material developed as part of the industry-leading Johns Hopkins Data Science Specialization. The skills taught in this book will lay the foundation for you to begin your journey learning data science. Printed copies of this book are available through Lulu.
C++20
Rainer GrimmC++20 is the next big C++ standard after C++11. As C++11 did it, C++20 changes the way we program modern C++. This change is, in particular, due to the big four of C++20: ranges, coroutines, concepts, and modules.
I am a Software Engineer and I am in Charge
Alexis Monville and Michael DoyleI am a Software Engineer and I am in Charge is a real-world, practical book that helps you increase your impact and satisfaction at work no matter who you work with.
In the book, we will follow Sandrine, a fictional character who learns to think in a new way enabling her to take a different course of action.
Atomic Kotlin
Bruce Eckel and Svetlana IsakovaFor both beginning and experienced programmers! From the author of the multi-award-winning Thinking in C++ and Thinking in Java together with a member of the Kotlin language team comes a book that breaks the concepts into small, easy-to-digest "atoms," along with exercises supported by hints and solutions directly inside IntelliJ IDEA!
Invest In Digital Health - The Medical Futurist's Guide
Dr. Bertalan MeskoArtificial Intelligence and Digital Health are booming. In this book, we explain why now it's a good time to invest in Digital Health and give recommendations on where to invest by looking at the top 24 technological trends we find the most promising.
The Hundred-Page Machine Learning Book
Andriy BurkovEverything you really need to know in Machine Learning in a hundred pages.
Mastering STM32
Carmine NovielloWith more than 600 microcontrollers, STM32 is probably the most complete ARM Cortex-M platform on the market. This book aims to be the first guide around that introduces the reader to this exciting MCU portfolio from ST Microelectronics and its official CubeHAL.
Top Bundles
- #1
Software Architecture for Developers: Volumes 1 & 2 - Technical leadership and communication
2 Books
"Software Architecture for Developers" is a practical and pragmatic guide to modern, lightweight software architecture, specifically aimed at developers. You'll learn:The essence of software architecture.Why the software architecture role should include coding, coaching and collaboration.The things that you really need to think about before... - #2
CCIE Service Provider Ultimate Study Bundle
2 Books
Piotr Jablonski, Lukasz Bromirski, and Nick Russo have joined forces to deliver the only CCIE Service Provider training resource you'll ever need. This bundle contains a detailed and challenging collection of workbook labs, plus an extensively detailed technical reference guide. All of us have earned the CCIE Service Provider certification... - #3
The Future of Digital Health
6 Books
We put together the most popular books from The Medical Futurist to provide a clear picture about the major trends shaping the future of medicine and healthcare. Digital health technologies, artificial intelligence, the future of 20 medical specialties, big pharma, data privacy and how technology giants such as Amazon or Google want to conquer... - #4
Cisco CCNA 200-301 Complet
4 Books
Ce lot comprend les quatre volumes du guide préparation à l'examen de certification Cisco CCNA 200-301. - #5
CCDE Practical Studies (All labs)
3 Books
CCDE lab - #6
"The C++ Standard Library" and "Concurrency with Modern C++"
2 Books
Get my books "The C++ Standard Library" and "Concurrency with Modern C++" in a bundle. The first book gives you the details you should know about the C++ standard library; the second one dives deeper into concurrency with modern C++. In sum, you get more than 600 pages full of modern C++ and about 250 source files presenting the standard library... - #7
Modern Management Made Easy
3 Books
Read all three Modern Management Made Easy books. Learn to manage yourself, lead and serve others, and lead the organization. - #8
Linux Administration Complet
4 Books
Ce lot comprend les quatre volumes du Guide Linux Administration :Linux Administration, Volume 1, Administration fondamentale : Guide pratique de préparation aux examens de certification LPIC 1, Linux Essentials, RHCSA et LFCS. Administration fondamentale. Introduction à Linux. Le Shell. Traitement du texte. Arborescence de fichiers. Sécurité... - #9
Programming with Ease
3 Books
Alle drei Bände der Serie Programming with Ease in einem Paket. Darin findest du alles, was ich dir zu den wichtigsten Phasen der Softwareentwicklung im Hinblick auf Clean Code Development für langfristig hohe Produktivität sagen kann.Im Band Slicing findest du die Anforderungsanalyse im Rahmen eines iterativ-inkrementellen Vorgehensmodells aus... - #10
Vagrant Ansible
2 Books
Unveil the power of Ansible and Vagrant with this bundle at a special price. You'll have everything you need to get started with Vagrant - learn the basics and how to create your virtual development environments, using Ansible as provisioner! About Vagrant Cookbook Vagrant Cookbook is a complete guide to get started with Vagrant and create your...