Tips to Cultivating a Successful API Program

[joxet11299]

Last week, we attended Apigee’s ‘I Love APIs’ conference at Fort Mason here in San Francisco. ‘I Love APIs’ is Apigee’s annual API (application programming interface) conference full of informative keynotes, workshops, and many opportunities to network with the API and developer community.

One of the most valuable sessions we attended focused on internal, partner, and developer programs. Leading the session was Michael Leppitsch, Head of Digital Transformation Strategies at Apigee. The panel consisted of Adam Fitzgerald, Amazon Web Services’ Developer Marketing Head, Matt Makai, Developer Evangelist for Twilio, Kay Lummitsch, Developer Evangelist for Swisscom, and Joe Rago, Senior Product Manager for Walgreens.

Below are some highlights from the talk, and some of the useful hungary phone number list tips they shared for creating and managing both a successful internal and external developer program:

1. Segment Your Developer Community: It’s important to segment your developer community, both internally and externally, to appeal to their different motivations and generate faith in the API. For external developers, trust is key. You want to build trust with external developers so they believe in the quality of your API and its ability to solve their problems and address their development needs. This can be achieved not only through quality support and collaborative development, but also in the general way in which your API is built. Internally you still want to treat your developers as if they were external partners. Cater to and appeal to their unique motivations in the same way. Events such as internal hackathons and API “kitchens” can help your internal developers buy into the program.

2. Build and Consume: When it comes to your internal API development, you want to ma