I’ve been talking to web developers, engineers and product people about APIs. After all, they’re the ones using them. From our discussions, it’s clear that the best web APIs share some common traits. Would you like to know what’s going to make yours more successful?

Despite relying on each other for the success of their products, the Sales and Product teams often have a jarring relationship. This is far from ideal. By looking at where things go wrong we can identify a better way of working with each other. The prizes on offer: shorter sales cycles, more easily achieved targets and customers who are always happy to hear from you.

At some point in your product career, you’re going to piss someone off. It will be unavoidable. Hopefully it will not have been the result of, say, supergluing a pound coin to the desktop of your alpha sales guy. It might be a customer who’s annoyed with you, perhaps because of an otherwise well-intentioned change to your product. Is this a problem? Not yet. Let me explain why.

Photo by Miguel Cuenca from Pexels: https://www.pexels.com/photo/red-arrows-aerobatic-display-in-clear-blue-sky-32594251/

One of the easiest traps for a product manager to fall into is unquestioning routine or habit. I learned about this most through my time at university training to fly with the Royal Air Force. Let me explain how it applies.