5 Mistakes Your API Product Must Avoid

In her article, Jennifer Craig outlines five common mistakes that teams make in their API product strategy and offers advice on how to avoid them. She emphasizes the importance of solving the right problem by mapping out how the API fits into usage scenarios to ensure it addresses a specific pain point for the target audience. Clarity is crucial, as APIs should focus on solving a clear problem rather than offering a multitude of disconnected features. Craig differentiates between delivering capabilities, which empower users to achieve new outcomes, and features, which are merely the tools to achieve those outcomes. She also highlights the significance of ongoing product ownership beyond the initial release, urging API product owners to continuously seek stakeholder feedback and plan for future iterations. Finally, she advises against long design and delivery cycles, recommending a design-first approach to balance speed and consumer safety, and encourages the use of cross-functional teams and tools like the OpenAPI Specification to streamline the delivery process while keeping stakeholders engaged.