APIs: A Strategy Guide

Chapter 11. Epilogue: Just the Beginning

Steven Covey, in his widely read book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, recommends to begin with the end in mind. With a topic like APIs, a technology that can be transformative in so many ways to businesses of all sizes, keeping the end in mind can be a huge challenge. There might be one end to keep in mind, or a dozen.

Like many other technical endeavors, an API is not a one-size-fits-all solution. It is imperative for you to understand your business goals, the key audiences for the API, and your key metrics before you start. Our sincere hope is now that you have made it through this book it will be significantly easier to imagine what APIs can do to help your business.

The API world is still in its infancy. The pioneering tech companies in Silicon Valley have paved the way, showing us what works and what doesn’t. Standing on the shoulders of those giants, we have a chance to see a new future for our businesses, with opportunities to expand them in ways not previously available to us. It is vital to remember that the API economies you create will work in many different ways. What Google or Amazon does in public will be different from what your organization may do in private. APIs will expose business assets in both cases and make them available through applications, but how that will happen will be quite different. We hope that you now are able to understand how APIs work in many different contexts so you can better understand ...