1.
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How to make your API Platform
Easy for Developers to Adopt

2.
Confidential and Proprietary. © 2020 Moesif, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Who am I?
● Co-founder and CEO of Moesif,
the leading user-centric API
analytics platform
● Focus on API platform strategy,
KPIs, growth, devrel
● I love IPAs!
derric@moesif.com

3.
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Getting developers to adopt a platform is hard
No Single Developer Persona
Developers are skeptical
Don’t enjoy integration-only work
Have higher priority tasks
Not invented here syndrome (NIHS)
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5
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2

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No single developer persona
1000’s of languages &
frameworks
Different roles create
title ambiguity
Different education/
experience levels
Different channels used to
discover new tools

5.
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Like traditional enterprise sales, many
stakeholders influencing developers
Legal and
security
Project
Roadmap
Decision makers
and leadership

6.
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To know where the obstacles are, start with
your Developer Funnel
Initial
Visit
First Hello
World
First Working
App
30%
6 hours
50%
2 hours
20%
13 hours
Sign Up

7.
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What to measure?
A developer could stay in a single stage for days. You should
track both:
Conversion rate
for each step
Time to reach
next step

8.
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Example funnel: Clearly mapping out product
usage and value creation, not just page
views

9.
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Lack of docs/simple onboarding slows
TTFHW
Ambiguous or lengthy
onboarding
No framework for their
environment
Lack of updated
documentation

10.
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To drive initial sign up, focus on education
and really, really authentic content
A robust content strategy is cornerstone for self-service adoption, but focus on a
few high quality pieces and long-tail keywords
Case Studies
DocsWebinar
EBooksPodcasts
Blog

11.
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Sandbox stage:
Get developers to their first hello world
TTFHW (Time to First Hello World)
is the time a new developer takes to:
Sign up
Make 1st API requests
showing ease of use
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Accelerate TTFHW by reducing onboarding
friction
Clear, small number of
onboarding steps
Personalized onboarding
for their SDK/use case
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2

13.
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APIs are complex. Guide them to hello world

14.
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Production stage:
Get them to ship a working app
TTFWA (Time to First Working App)
or TTFPA (Time to First Paid App)
is the time a new developer takes
to ship a working solution that
demonstrates value.

15.
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Internal stakeholders slow TTFWA
Legal and
compliance risk
Project
priorities
Functional &
performance
testing

16.
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Reduce TTFWA by empowering developers
Clear support for
GDPR/CCPA
API Audit/Debug Logs
Tools to assist
integration testing
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17.
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Keep feeding content that’s relevant for their
stage and intention
Pre-Integration
Test/Sandbox
Production
Demonstrate potential value through
valuable use cases and handle concerns on
security/performance.
Drive developer to integrate with/test your
platform. Focus on single value prop and ease
of use.
At this point you’re driving a conversion or
upsell. Show why you via case studies,
comparison guides, ROI analysis.

18.
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Sell through developers to other roles
Developer who
signed up
VP of Engineering/CTO
Business Teams
Leadership

19.
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Once onboarded, build relationships
Defined API KPIs
Cohesive Developer Relations Management stack1
2

20.
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Don’t break their stuff. Handle deprecation
gracefully
Leverage in-app notifications
You’re using an outdated SDK

21.
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If there was one takeaway:
Focus on value from the API, not sign ups

22.
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Derric Gilling
derric@moesif.com
A P I A n a l y t i c s