APIs All the Way Down

Building good SaaS and APIs is really hard. Snappr is dealing with huge volumes of big files and thousands of unique client workflows and brand guidelines and quirks. Its DNA is as a marketplace company; success in one doesn’t guarantee success in the other.

something essential about software economics: the complementary good to any given software product is a lot more software! This is part of the mystery of Docusign, i.e. why do they have so many employees? And why doesn't someone else just make a cheaper replacement? You can build a cheaper replacement pretty quickly—the service I use, Dropbox Sign,... See more

When an industry, technology, or product area feels mature and "settled" (like online payments in 2009 with PayPal and many others, or email clients today), it doesn't mean that its a bad space to build something new. In fact, such inertia or perceived product maturity may be signs of a huge opportunity. In these cases, you should build from the id... See more

Companies today are developing APIs as an afterthought instead of treating them as a driver of business value. APIs are built, managed, and distributed using a mix of siloed tools for designing, testing, documenting, and distributing them, each used by separate teams across the API lifecycle. While each tool does the job it was meant to do, working

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