How to leverage API observability to meet product objectives

API observability is crucial for aligning product objectives with customer value and adoption metrics, as it helps businesses understand product adoption, engagement, and retention rates. The Tyk team explored these concepts with Derric Gilling, CEO of Moesif, emphasizing the importance of customer value metrics which vary across industries, such as SMS volumes for Sinch or payment support for Stripe. Key metrics like time to first API call and time to first working app are vital for measuring API adoption, while engagement metrics help identify user growth and new use cases. Retention is also critical, as it reflects user satisfaction and continued engagement with the product. Observability aids in scaling self-service models by offering customers transparency in usage and preventing unexpected billing, thereby easing the support burden. The use of a few core observability tools with strong integrations can streamline operations and enhance API performance, as highlighted by the potential synergy between platforms like Moesif and Tyk.