For a public API, adoption is key. Finding the right developers can be resource-intensive. Few companies can afford to blanket the web and every conference in advertising. Even if you could, the results might not be nearly as good as the time-tested methods covered in this presentation. From grassroots to traditional, to be successful most providers will likely want to take multiple approaches to growing their APIs. A community approach can pay dividends if you have the resources. Yet some may take a sales- or partnership-based approach. Almost everyone should be creating the right kind of content that speaks to developers. And the open source approach is highly scalable when done authentically.

1. 65OR
Adam DuVander
API
adoption strategies
@adamd

2. Your Typical Developer
^

3. Chris Jason, ESPN

5. ESPN
SportsZone
Launched
April 1, 1995

6. SO…
YOU HAVE
AN API

7. NOW YOU:
Hackathon!
Hacker News!
AdWords?

9. ArmchairBuilder.com

10. Why do you need
developers?

11. Sales
Business Development
Marketing
THEY MIGHT KNOW

12. Community
Open Source
THEY NEED CHAMPIONS

13. Sales
Business Development
Marketing
THE SIX
Community
Open Source
Jens Tärning, Mister Pixel, Aziz, Wilson Joseph and Björn Andersson

14. THE SIXTH
100%*

15. CREATE A SERVICE
THAT IS
POPULAR

16. Flickr user skipjack2000

18. THE FIRST
BIZ DEV

19. Jens Tärning

20. “PARTNER
FIRST
not ecosystem first”

21. Customers in common

23. “We find that if our
customers use any single
integration, they are three
times as likely to convert
to paid.”

25. Scouting developers
Alessandro Suraci

26. “If developers haven’t
launched an app yet, the
chance they’ll launch and
move the needle for
Retailigence is slim.”

28. THE SECOND
SALES

33. Pay as You Go
Pay for what you use
Grows as you grow
Seems fair
Tiered
Traditional SaaS model
Predictable
Allows volume discounts
Tiered with Trial
Get started for free
Upgrade when you grow
Devs like freemium
Most
popular!

35. THE THIRD
MARKETING

36. SumCo is proud to
announce a major update
to its Arithmetic API that
allows divisors with
values less than one…
blah blah blah

37. HOW TO
Divide by Zero

38. SHARE KNOWLEDGE
not features
Lemon Liu

39. Why We Open
Sourced Our
Documentation
How to Convince
Your Company to Go
with Golang

42. Tutorials
Sample Apps
Client Libraries
ALSO “DOCUMENTATION”

43. THE FOURTH
COMMUNITY

44. Wilson Joseph and SimpleScott

45. Y Hacker News
ONLINE

46. OFFLINE

47. THE FIFTH
OPEN
SOURCE

48. Contribute
to what you use
“Library support is a weakness.
I prefer to turn it into a strength
by open sourcing libraries that
we have to develop in Go.”

49. Open Source
Your Product

50. Integrate Your Product
With Open Source*
Plugins
Add-ons
*FOR COMMUNITY GOOD

51. Open Source
All You Can
Libraries
Documentation
Maybe Your Secret Sauce

52. API