engineers from Accenture, Philips Hue, and Pearson at I Love APIs 2015

1. 1
If You Build APIs, Will Developers Come?
Kevin Kohut, Accenture
Kevin Toms, Philips Hue
Allen Rodgers, Pearson

2. Accenture
2
Kevin Kohut
Global API Enablement
Lead, Accenture

3. About Kevin (https://api.apifirst.net/signatures/kevin)
{
“name” : ”Kevin Kohut”,
“role” : ”Global API Enablement Lead”,
“company” : ”Accenture”,
“title” : ”Senior Manager”,
“email” : ”kevin.kohut@accenture.com”,
“phone” : ”818 915-6678”,
“tagline” : “Digital transformation through API Enablement”
}

4. Developers Don’t Care!
• About your business model
• How you make money
• How awesome or complete your backend services are
• Whether your services are written in Java, Node, Python, PHP, Ruby, C#
– Well, they may *SAY* that they care, but they really don’t!
And Don’t Want:
• To be hassled with complex registration procedures just to start playing with your APIs
• To have to learn your business processes in order to know how to use your APIs
• To have more than one bookmark related your APIs
• To deal with marketing hype, pushy sales reps, and 30-page EULAs
4©2015 Apigee. All Rights Reserved.

5. What Developers Want
5©2015 Apigee. All Rights Reserved.
API
Strategy
Easy
discovery of
what your
APIs do
RESTful APIs
that adhere to
standards
Usable
examples that
illustrate real
use cases
Simple
monetization
model

6. The Tale of Two Menus
6©2015 Apigee. All Rights Reserved.
Here is what we have to offer… Tell us what you want…

7. Philips Hue
7

8. IF YOU BUILD APIS...
KEVIN TOMS, DEVELOPER EVANGELIST, PHILIPS HUE

9. So you have APIs..
Will developers come and use them?
The question is...

10. What is in it for developers?
What is THEIR motivation to use YOUR APIs
Why should they?

11. Philips Hue--
We have fun on our side. Playing with colored light
But we also started right away with a developer
business model =
Developers can make, and sell Hue apps on the App
stores $$$$

12. Business Model
No business model for devs, no motivation to invest
their time and money into using your API
Assuming you have a business model for developers,
the question is..

13. Where are they?
How can you find, and grow the number of
developers?
Developer marketing/ outreach is important
But support them well too
Good documentation online
Maintain it
Provide tools that help
Respond to questions etc

14. Philips Hue--
Our API is easy to use that helps
We launched it with an easy to use iOS SDK to create
apps, and added Android later
We made good API documentation with a step-by-
step easy start
We maintain the information and respond to
developers

15. Hackathons – special case
We have lights, good for hackathons, visual
We learned by doing
We developed hackathon developer kits, portable
home Hue system 
Many hackathon benefits, but great for direct
communication with devs, and testing the tools you
provide

16. Hackathons – Dev kit

17. Re-cap
Make sure there is a business model for the
developers
Outreach to find them PLUS
Back that up with
Good documentation
Good support
Concern for their success

18. Concern for their success
Developers are your allies, they make your product
more interesting
Don’t just provide the API and leave them to it, assist
them
Help them to make money too..

19. Philips Hue--
We don’t compete. We have big company resources
to make apps, but we don’t
Except for the Hue App that is supplied with the
system
And in that app, support for our developers
-The More Apps for Hue menu item

20. Philips Hue--
More Apps
for Hue
(click goes to
App Store buy
Listing)

21. Some final thoughts
Be Real-Think of yourselves as collaborating with
developers, you may be bigger but you are not better
Be Respectful -Respect the developers. You control
your API and therefore the market, but never get
arrogant
Don’t compete -Don’t put out products that compete
with your developers, just because you have the
resources to do so

22. Some final thoughts
Be Responsive - Help developers to sell the apps that
they create using your APIs. (You control your market)
Be Honest - When you make mistakes, admit it. You
are not expected to be perfect by developers,
mistakes can hurt them businesses, they want to
know that they matter to you.

23. Questions…
Kevin Toms
kevin.toms@philips.com
developers.meethue.com
@philipshuedev
For details about Philips Hue Lights
www.meethue.com

24. Pearson
24

25. Field of Dreams
Allen Rodgers
Director, Pearson API Program
25

26. About Us
Welcome to Pearson. We have a simple mission: to help people
make more of their lives through learning
worlds largest education
company1
with 40,000 employees2
More than 70 countries3

27. 27

28. Presentation Title runs here l 00/00/0028
Get it right?
28
• 2
8

29. Presentation Title runs here l 00/00/0029
Let the user tell us!
29
• 2
9

30. ?
Agenda
30©2015 Apigee. All Rights Reserved.
Current
State
Why Come
Real
Question
s
Why Stay AnecdoteDoes and
Don’ts
?

31. Current State
31

32. How ARE We defining
Success, and exploring
exploring Opportunities
300 Active Partners
1
30 + Apps
2
300 + Integrations
3
Successful! But…
4
The Program Today

33. Clients mobile, partners Integrate

34. ?
Questions
34

35. WHY should They
come Why should they stay
Why should they

36. ?
WHY should They come
36

37. value is everything
the amount of money that something is worth : the price or cost of something:
something that can be bought for a low or fair price: usefulness or importance
The amount of
money that
something is worth
: the price or cost
of something
Something that
can be bought for
a low or fair price
Usefulness or
importance

38. Audien
ce is
key
Internal
Private
partner
open
Value is
differentiated

39. • Consistency
• Reuse
• Time to Market
Internal Private
• Device
• Channels
Partner
• Integration
(leverage client’s
base, enhance
functionality)
• Client -
differentiation
Open
• Cheaper
• Faster
• Ecosystem
• Sum of Parts
the amount of money that something is worth : the price or cost of something: something that
can be bought for a low or fair price: usefulness or importance
Value by Audience

40. 10%
10%
75%
5%
Internal1
Private2
Partner3
Open4
Audience
by type
Division by Audience

41. ?
Why should they stay
41

42. Value quality
Why should they stay

43. Not lipstick on a pig, think
like a developer
Simplicity
1
Intuitive
2
Compliant
3
Shallow
4
quality apis
MUST WORK
5

44. APIs are a product,
must be treated as such
Easy Access
1
Great Documentation
2
Active Community
3
Phenomenal Support
4
quality Service
Reward
5

45. Do’s and Don'ts
45

46. DO
API first, Mobile second,
Web third1
Do your homework
(Who, What, How)2
Start “small” in terms of
functionalities (you can
always add but you can
never remove)
3
Provide a compelling
value proposition to
drive adoption and
grow your API
ecosystem
4
Quality, quality, Quality
Remain flexible to evolve
with the needs of your
user base
5
DON’T
API as a “side project”
1
Neglect developers
2
Bad documentation (or
inexistent)3
Bad sample
code/examples (or
inexistent)4
No or unclear Terms &
Conditions5

47. Value is the only guarantee

48. Thank you