A presentation given by Marco Bassi, Group Engineering Manager, Spendesk, at our 2023 Platform Summit, October 17-18, 2023

1. Evolving from Start-up to
Scale-up with APIs
Marco Bassi
Engineering Manager
Spendesk Platform
Platform Summit - October 2023

2. What to expect
Learn what are the main
challenges behind building APIs
in established orgs.
Challenges
How to be successful
Get inspired by some potential
solutions to the most common
problems.
Steps
What have we used
Explore the tools Spendesk has
been using to release Public API
less than 6 mo.
Tools
Today’s Takeaways

3. Context

4. About Spendesk

5. More than 5000
customers trust us
across Europe
+200 000
users
Offices in
Paris, London, Berlin, Hamburg
& Madrid
+35
Nationalities
+600
Employees
It all started in Paris, 2016

6. spent through Spendesk platform
since we launched in 2016
+15B€
A Few Numbers
virtual cards generated
since launch
1.8M
invoices processed
since launch
11M
expense claims processed
since launch
1.5M
saved on average each month with
Spendesk per customer
4 Days
of customers feel more confident
in knowing where the money is
spent since using Spendesk
84%

7. API for own use
Built with the company’s own app in mind.
No external use.
Serve the customer
Provide services via mobile/web app.
No DevX
Developer experience is left to limited internal
resources. No investment on external guidelines.
From start-up…
API for customers and partners
Design and build APIs meant to be users by others
outside of the company.
Serve multiple users
Customers, Partners, and Internals.
…To scale-up
Robust DevX
A comprehensive DevX is defined both for internals
and externals.

8. Challenges

9. Change Of Mindset

10. Customer Value
Main Challenges
Do Not Break Stuff
Old vs New Company Alignment

11. developer.spendesk.com

12. (Potential) Steps to Success

13. Focus on few practical use cases
Prioritise data provisioning over data creation; cover user flows
end-to-end.
Start with a small team
3-4 people focused on the delivery objective. Do not forget
product!
To build a great product
Build next to the existing product
Do not reinvent the wheel; introduce an abstraction layer.
Gather customer feedback
Seek for early feedback from your customers; build the product
around their needs.
Few suggestions

14. Get your communication sorted out
Communicate, over-communicate, share and share and share.
Build examples for others to follow
Make it easy for other teams to build for the Public API.
To build a great organization
Go on tour within your org
Make sure the whole org is onboarded with what you’re building.
Foster adoption
Success is when adoption increases externally and internally.
Few suggestions

15. Tools & Tech

16. Tools
Stoplight by Smartbear
Node 20 + Typescript
(with native test runner)
Kubernetes Fastify Platformatic Client
Postman
Readme.com

17. High-Level Architecture
INTERNAL SERVICE
Internal Endpoint
CONTRACT
PUBLIC API
External Endpoint
PUBLIC API SPEC
EXTERNAL CLIENTS
APPLICATION
APPLICATION
APPLICATION

18. Benefits

19. Experiment, Innovate, Evolve
Tech
Processes and ways
of collaborating
Product flows

20. developer.spendesk.com