WEBVTT NOTE This file was generated by Descript 00:00:01.560 --> 00:00:03.660 Mike Bifulco: Hi friends, and welcome back to APIs you won't hate. 00:00:03.660 --> 00:00:05.010 My name is Mike Biko. 00:00:05.010 --> 00:00:07.410 I'm one of the co-founders of APIs you won't hate. 00:00:07.410 --> 00:00:11.250 And of course, podcast co-host and occasional friend of Phil's. 00:00:11.250 --> 00:00:14.505 We get to catch up and talk about API stuff when I can find 00:00:14.505 --> 00:00:15.785 him wherever he is in the world. 00:00:15.785 --> 00:00:19.575 But today I'm excited to sit down and chat with a new friend of mine. 00:00:19.605 --> 00:00:23.575 I'm here talking to Alan Kaba about what he's building with API bull. 00:00:23.655 --> 00:00:25.245 And really excited to hear your story. 00:00:25.245 --> 00:00:26.475 Alan, thanks so much for joining today. 00:00:26.475 --> 00:00:26.805 How are you? 00:00:28.125 --> 00:00:28.665 Allan Knabe: Hi, Mike. 00:00:28.715 --> 00:00:29.490 I'm doing very well. 00:00:29.490 --> 00:00:29.910 Thank you. 00:00:29.910 --> 00:00:30.990 Thanks for having me on the show. 00:00:30.990 --> 00:00:31.529 First of all. 00:00:32.400 --> 00:00:32.970 Mike Bifulco: Of course. 00:00:32.970 --> 00:00:33.120 Yeah. 00:00:33.120 --> 00:00:34.080 It's a pleasure to have you here. 00:00:34.360 --> 00:00:37.180 I would love to to to hear a little bit about you to start. 00:00:37.260 --> 00:00:40.320 Gimme your, the history of how you got to what you're building today, 00:00:40.325 --> 00:00:41.550 and then I want to hear all about API 00:00:42.405 --> 00:00:43.095 Allan Knabe: Okay, cool. 00:00:43.100 --> 00:00:46.695 Yeah, I'll skip the early years 'cause I don't think they'll interest anyone, but 00:00:47.430 --> 00:00:47.730 Mike Bifulco: Sure. 00:00:48.135 --> 00:00:51.315 Allan Knabe: I, I guess, you know, the, the origin is like starting at university 00:00:51.365 --> 00:00:56.165 saying information systems, which is code word for not very good at programming. 00:00:56.165 --> 00:00:59.885 I think, you know, everyone else were, you know, software engineers, but I 00:00:59.885 --> 00:01:03.305 would write code that was like one page long or something like this, and then 00:01:03.310 --> 00:01:06.725 a real software engineer would come along and say, okay, you know, I could 00:01:06.725 --> 00:01:08.225 write that same thing in one line. 00:01:08.225 --> 00:01:08.495 Right. 00:01:08.495 --> 00:01:11.045 And, kind of like the, the, the penny click that I needed to 00:01:11.285 --> 00:01:12.665 be a little bit more diverse. 00:01:12.665 --> 00:01:15.635 So information systems where, where I, I kicked it off 00:01:15.695 --> 00:01:17.835 with my, my computing career. 00:01:18.165 --> 00:01:18.850 And yeah. 00:01:18.850 --> 00:01:22.600 From there I, I kind of started off with an Oracle consulting company in 00:01:22.600 --> 00:01:25.720 Birmingham, which is, you know, basically where I'm from in Birmingham, uk. 00:01:26.320 --> 00:01:30.270 And great Years had some like really good fun in like these, like very 00:01:30.270 --> 00:01:32.400 small teams of like 10 people. 00:01:32.400 --> 00:01:36.630 It's where I really love to, to be, you know, where everyone's working hard and 00:01:36.630 --> 00:01:38.220 you can see like what you're achieving. 00:01:38.225 --> 00:01:39.840 So good fun there. 00:01:39.920 --> 00:01:43.825 But ultimately I left for a bigger company, Fujitsu computers. 00:01:44.005 --> 00:01:45.050 Mainly kind of. 00:01:45.535 --> 00:01:49.675 Backend development type tasks and Oracle databases and all this kind of 00:01:49.675 --> 00:01:54.745 stuff that were, you know, popular in the early two thousands before moving 00:01:54.745 --> 00:01:57.595 on to being a Siebel consultant. 00:01:57.625 --> 00:02:01.135 So, I dunno if anyone still knows what Siebel is, but Siebel CRM was 00:02:01.135 --> 00:02:03.415 really big in the two thousands. 00:02:03.445 --> 00:02:03.655 And 00:02:03.835 --> 00:02:04.375 Mike Bifulco: Sure. 00:02:04.375 --> 00:02:04.945 Yeah. 00:02:05.035 --> 00:02:06.175 Allan Knabe: yeah, I, I, I think I. 00:02:06.205 --> 00:02:07.345 Mike Bifulco: while since I've heard that word. 00:02:07.345 --> 00:02:07.675 Yeah. 00:02:07.810 --> 00:02:08.290 Allan Knabe: Yeah. 00:02:08.320 --> 00:02:08.470 Yeah. 00:02:08.470 --> 00:02:09.759 Siebel, it was massive. 00:02:09.759 --> 00:02:10.120 Right? 00:02:10.180 --> 00:02:13.540 And then Oracle bought them and kind of, they disappeared a little bit, but 00:02:13.540 --> 00:02:14.980 there are still some projects out there. 00:02:14.980 --> 00:02:19.240 But I kind of, I san about 10 years of my life into Siebel, 00:02:19.450 --> 00:02:21.040 I'll never get back somehow. 00:02:21.040 --> 00:02:21.370 Right. 00:02:21.375 --> 00:02:24.310 It's, it's, I don't know for people who don't know where it is, it's, 00:02:24.310 --> 00:02:28.600 it's basically before you had Salesforce, you had Siebel and. 00:02:28.960 --> 00:02:32.440 Instead of programming, they gave you like this tools console, which 00:02:32.440 --> 00:02:36.340 basically just toggle switches and you toggle them on and off. 00:02:36.340 --> 00:02:36.640 Right? 00:02:36.640 --> 00:02:39.490 And it would just, you know, activate feature toggles in code 00:02:39.490 --> 00:02:41.020 that you could never see, right? 00:02:41.025 --> 00:02:45.430 So like this black box and you had no real idea what was going on. 00:02:45.435 --> 00:02:48.010 And sometimes you would just kill performance, right? 00:02:48.250 --> 00:02:51.850 Because you were doing some sort of outer join in behind the scenes. 00:02:51.850 --> 00:02:54.760 So not nice stuff if we're being honest. 00:02:54.840 --> 00:02:58.590 So my API story kind of started when I, when I left Germany. 00:02:58.590 --> 00:03:00.150 So I was in Munich for 10 years. 00:03:00.460 --> 00:03:02.380 And I went to Swisscom in Switzerland. 00:03:02.920 --> 00:03:05.950 So Swisscom is like at and t basically, but in Switzerland. 00:03:06.430 --> 00:03:08.140 And joined the API team. 00:03:08.140 --> 00:03:11.580 So I, I moved across to, to doing APIs and, well, it was 00:03:11.580 --> 00:03:13.260 a world of difference, right? 00:03:13.260 --> 00:03:18.420 The, the API team, you know, was really young, fresh, cool thing to be doing. 00:03:18.720 --> 00:03:22.980 You know, we were having like hackathons and it was really about that genesis about 00:03:22.985 --> 00:03:27.090 10 years ago on now of like when the, the API started to really come onto the scene. 00:03:27.430 --> 00:03:30.280 It was a really, really cool time to be working in APIs. 00:03:31.180 --> 00:03:31.540 Really 00:03:31.720 --> 00:03:34.000 Mike Bifulco: Yeah, that's an interesting time to be getting into it. 00:03:34.005 --> 00:03:37.900 There was sort of this like renaissance of people kind of having this realization 00:03:37.900 --> 00:03:41.170 that they can go in and grab things from services they want and like kind 00:03:41.170 --> 00:03:45.040 of assemble products from, from whole cloth based on just little bits and 00:03:45.040 --> 00:03:46.600 bobs of services round and about. 00:03:46.600 --> 00:03:50.960 And that's de definitely where the modern conversation of how do we build 00:03:50.960 --> 00:03:54.440 good things and like how, how do I behave properly as someone consuming 00:03:54.440 --> 00:03:55.790 or building these APIs started? 00:03:56.090 --> 00:03:56.630 That's really cool. 00:03:56.630 --> 00:03:57.470 What interesting timing. 00:03:58.145 --> 00:03:58.505 Allan Knabe: Yeah. 00:03:58.565 --> 00:03:59.555 Yeah, it was really cool. 00:03:59.555 --> 00:04:02.995 And it was like, you know, I think Apigee pre acquisition 00:04:02.995 --> 00:04:04.405 by Google at the time, right. 00:04:04.405 --> 00:04:07.195 So it was still in like startup mode as it were. 00:04:07.195 --> 00:04:11.215 And, you know, we got to go across to San Jose and, meet 00:04:11.215 --> 00:04:15.025 with a and go to the, I love APIs conferences and all of this stuff. 00:04:15.025 --> 00:04:17.175 And it was yeah, it was a nice time, really great time to be 00:04:17.175 --> 00:04:18.825 getting into, into the APIs. 00:04:18.825 --> 00:04:22.995 I think nowadays we're maybe a little bit more mainstream, although there are a 00:04:22.995 --> 00:04:28.545 lot of API companies coming out now, like startups, like my company, a pable, right? 00:04:28.575 --> 00:04:32.035 We're we're startups and we're entering this space and kind of 00:04:32.065 --> 00:04:35.705 sitting over the top of what these more traditional players are doing. 00:04:36.950 --> 00:04:37.430 Mike Bifulco: Yeah. 00:04:37.430 --> 00:04:38.960 And you know, that's a perfect segue. 00:04:38.960 --> 00:04:41.245 So what's the elevator pitch for a pable? 00:04:42.535 --> 00:04:45.625 Allan Knabe: Okay, well the, the elevator pitch for a pable I mean if 00:04:45.630 --> 00:04:50.155 we, if we think about when we came up with the idea, it was also at Swisscom. 00:04:50.485 --> 00:04:55.165 So my co co-founder is a, a clever guy called Alexander Ham. 00:04:55.735 --> 00:04:57.725 And he was working. 00:04:58.225 --> 00:05:01.435 With me in the, in a squad as it were, we had like this Spotify 00:05:01.435 --> 00:05:05.645 squad concept going again, it was 10 years ago when it was mega popular. 00:05:06.065 --> 00:05:09.665 And we led a team of like 10, 11 developers together. 00:05:09.875 --> 00:05:11.855 And you know, we had a great time doing that. 00:05:11.885 --> 00:05:12.995 It was amazing fun. 00:05:13.715 --> 00:05:17.195 But one of the challenges that we had is that we were asked 00:05:17.200 --> 00:05:18.995 to create new digital products. 00:05:18.995 --> 00:05:23.375 So API products for Swisscom, so think like payment services and. 00:05:23.825 --> 00:05:26.555 You know, the precursor to like WhatsApp and things like this. 00:05:26.735 --> 00:05:28.085 That's what we were trying to do. 00:05:28.085 --> 00:05:31.415 But we found that the tooling that came out of the box for 00:05:31.415 --> 00:05:33.185 developer portals was pretty poor. 00:05:33.815 --> 00:05:38.765 So we were using the one that came from apg, which was this Drew Pal PHP 00:05:38.765 --> 00:05:43.805 solution that, you know, we didn't really like it, but we used it for a while. 00:05:44.270 --> 00:05:48.540 And eventually no one kind of patched that solution and security said, 00:05:48.540 --> 00:05:50.010 okay, it's just too vulnerable. 00:05:50.010 --> 00:05:51.150 You have to take it down. 00:05:51.150 --> 00:05:53.490 So a lot of companies did that at the time. 00:05:54.240 --> 00:05:54.990 And what did they do? 00:05:54.990 --> 00:05:57.300 They built their own API portals, right? 00:05:57.300 --> 00:05:58.080 That's what we did. 00:05:58.080 --> 00:05:58.380 Right. 00:05:58.380 --> 00:06:02.520 You know, we spent like, I don't know, like two years, like making the API 00:06:02.550 --> 00:06:04.490 portal and did a really good job. 00:06:04.490 --> 00:06:05.270 Fantastic. 00:06:05.330 --> 00:06:09.380 But it was kind of that feeling that the, all this energy from 00:06:09.385 --> 00:06:11.810 mankind is going into building. 00:06:12.320 --> 00:06:14.660 API portals there are bespoke. 00:06:14.970 --> 00:06:18.955 And, and really the amount of features you want to build for an API portal. 00:06:19.385 --> 00:06:21.245 If you're building it yourself, it's limited, right? 00:06:21.245 --> 00:06:24.815 You can only get X features in there before someone says that'll do. 00:06:24.995 --> 00:06:29.075 And it's basically just getting the API key sticking some documentation on it. 00:06:29.315 --> 00:06:31.475 But we wanted to do a lot more with it, right? 00:06:31.475 --> 00:06:35.555 And, and that's kind of like where, where we went with API all is saying, okay, 00:06:35.555 --> 00:06:39.965 well, treating APIs as products right is one of the biggest things that we do. 00:06:40.495 --> 00:06:43.105 You know, I really believe in API product management. 00:06:43.105 --> 00:06:46.555 I am an API product manager and see the value in that. 00:06:46.555 --> 00:06:50.935 So we really try to bake that into API able, and that does go 00:06:50.935 --> 00:06:52.645 hand in hand with monetization. 00:06:52.675 --> 00:06:56.155 Not every company wants to monetize, but those that do, 00:06:56.635 --> 00:06:58.645 can do it with a pable, right? 00:06:58.645 --> 00:07:01.975 So it's, yeah, it was that kind of like genesis moment of saying, 00:07:02.005 --> 00:07:05.635 okay, if everybody in the world is building these API pools, why 00:07:05.640 --> 00:07:09.085 don't we just build one that's like great and provide it as a service. 00:07:09.085 --> 00:07:11.085 So that's where we got to. 00:07:11.445 --> 00:07:15.495 And I, I think what we're really noticing as well on the, again, 00:07:15.495 --> 00:07:19.065 more on the enterprise side, is the amount of organizations that 00:07:19.905 --> 00:07:22.005 have more than one API portal. 00:07:22.440 --> 00:07:25.920 It sounds a bit crazy, but if you're as an organization, you've done some 00:07:25.920 --> 00:07:32.130 acquisitions and you end up with like multiple technologies, so, so imagine 00:07:32.130 --> 00:07:34.830 a situation where I think you've got MuleSoft and you've got Kong 00:07:34.835 --> 00:07:36.630 and you've got Apigee, for instance. 00:07:37.170 --> 00:07:38.730 Sometimes you'll have three portals. 00:07:38.805 --> 00:07:43.290 My, my previous company, Connor, at one point, I, I'm glad to say it's not the 00:07:43.290 --> 00:07:45.745 case anymore, but we had, I think Dev. 00:07:46.560 --> 00:07:51.300 dot and we have develop dot and we have developer dot, right? 00:07:51.300 --> 00:07:53.940 And you've seen some, and you've seen banks as well. 00:07:53.940 --> 00:07:58.110 You see this very similar situation as this, like different factions within the 00:07:58.110 --> 00:08:00.690 organization using different technologies. 00:08:01.020 --> 00:08:05.130 And the technology assumes that you will use our portal and we are, 00:08:05.130 --> 00:08:08.070 you know, the only company in the world and, and you know, so there's. 00:08:08.860 --> 00:08:10.000 Cross usage there. 00:08:10.360 --> 00:08:13.960 So that's one thing that, that we kind of identified and we said, okay, well we're, 00:08:13.960 --> 00:08:15.790 we're technology agnostic then, right? 00:08:15.790 --> 00:08:21.280 So you can have Kong and MuleSoft and Apigee in your organization and just go 00:08:21.280 --> 00:08:22.990 ahead and connect the gateways in, right? 00:08:22.990 --> 00:08:26.890 So as a developer, we're making developers life much easier that they don't have to 00:08:26.920 --> 00:08:29.830 then log into three different API portals. 00:08:29.830 --> 00:08:30.310 You have like. 00:08:30.565 --> 00:08:34.205 One unified portal where you can just get everything you need. 00:08:34.275 --> 00:08:37.875 And the token management should work in the same way across, across all. 00:08:39.090 --> 00:08:39.630 Mike Bifulco: Sure. 00:08:39.720 --> 00:08:42.510 Yeah, I think that's, it speaks to an interesting thing that happens 00:08:42.510 --> 00:08:46.800 in product development on any scale, but certainly at enterprise level. 00:08:46.870 --> 00:08:50.470 I would imagine pick, pick, I mean, if you're listening to the show, pick 00:08:50.470 --> 00:08:54.670 any like, fortune 500 sized company that's not primarily a tech company. 00:08:54.940 --> 00:08:58.270 Imagine the size of their dev team and the amount of stress they're 00:08:58.270 --> 00:09:02.930 under to deliver things probably in an underfunded under timelined sort of way. 00:09:03.290 --> 00:09:07.160 They will put as many resources as, as they're able to, I'm sure, to 00:09:07.160 --> 00:09:08.990 developing the API itself, right? 00:09:09.170 --> 00:09:12.290 Make sure it does the things it purports to do, right in the languages 00:09:12.290 --> 00:09:13.970 that they, they are comfortable with. 00:09:14.250 --> 00:09:18.105 And when it comes time to make that thing available for usage there's 00:09:18.105 --> 00:09:21.045 probably a very rushed moment where it's like, ah, okay, now we need 00:09:21.105 --> 00:09:22.605 to expose this thing to the world. 00:09:22.605 --> 00:09:23.085 So let's, 00:09:23.415 --> 00:09:25.545 what's the simplest way to put up a, a. 00:09:25.600 --> 00:09:28.750 A developer portal where someone can go and now consume our APIs. 00:09:29.200 --> 00:09:31.870 And I think that's maybe the curse of product development is it's like you 00:09:31.875 --> 00:09:35.470 spend so much time building it, and then the last bit of pushing it over the line 00:09:35.500 --> 00:09:37.695 often is where things start to fall apart. 00:09:37.695 --> 00:09:41.005 And if you've, I, I mean lots of our listeners are probably familiar with 00:09:41.005 --> 00:09:44.785 this, but if you've tried to consume an API from, like some random company Inc. 00:09:45.125 --> 00:09:47.525 You know, from, from wherever in the world and you've come across a 00:09:47.525 --> 00:09:51.045 site that looks like it was built in, you know, visual studio.net in 00:09:51.140 --> 00:09:51.560 Allan Knabe: right. 00:09:52.245 --> 00:09:53.145 Mike Bifulco: you've had this feeling. 00:09:53.145 --> 00:09:53.745 Exactly. 00:09:54.115 --> 00:09:55.375 So, so that's really interesting. 00:09:55.375 --> 00:09:59.225 And so, I mean, it's, it's a core problem that, that a lot of these 00:09:59.225 --> 00:10:02.345 product teams face and a lot of API devs have certainly dealt with. 00:10:02.445 --> 00:10:04.335 I'm curious, how, how long have you been working on this? 00:10:04.335 --> 00:10:06.045 You said it started when you were at Swisscom. 00:10:06.145 --> 00:10:07.495 What's kind of the timeline for that? 00:10:07.890 --> 00:10:10.320 Allan Knabe: Yeah, we kind, we, we carried the idea from there. 00:10:10.320 --> 00:10:14.805 And it was really when I, when I left Swisscom I, I moved to Finland 00:10:14.995 --> 00:10:18.560 to Helsinki and started working with an elevator or actually I think they 00:10:18.560 --> 00:10:20.420 call themselves a people flow company. 00:10:20.450 --> 00:10:20.870 Right. 00:10:20.960 --> 00:10:22.970 To, you know, be more modern. 00:10:22.970 --> 00:10:23.180 Right. 00:10:23.180 --> 00:10:24.920 I guess, you know, but they're an elevator company. 00:10:24.920 --> 00:10:25.250 Yeah. 00:10:25.700 --> 00:10:28.780 And when I started seeing, okay, the same problem there, right. 00:10:28.780 --> 00:10:34.120 Different technology, but you know, multiple gateways and, you know, not, you 00:10:34.120 --> 00:10:36.280 know, no one providing a good API portal. 00:10:36.580 --> 00:10:39.640 That was kind of the, the point for me where I said, okay, I need 00:10:39.640 --> 00:10:41.200 to quit my day job and do this. 00:10:41.440 --> 00:10:43.510 Of course, I quit in February, 2020. 00:10:43.960 --> 00:10:46.300 I mean, the best timing in the world, right. 00:10:46.855 --> 00:10:47.145 Mike Bifulco: Yeah. 00:10:47.560 --> 00:10:50.530 Allan Knabe: Yeah, I, I, I, you know, of course, you know, coronavirus 00:10:50.530 --> 00:10:53.650 was, was around at the time in China and I just thought, okay, you know, 00:10:53.650 --> 00:10:54.940 that won't be a problem for me. 00:10:54.940 --> 00:10:58.335 And I quit my day job and by April I was babysitting. 00:10:58.365 --> 00:11:00.915 'cause we have three children, so my wife was working and I 00:11:00.915 --> 00:11:02.295 was just looking after the kids. 00:11:02.295 --> 00:11:03.550 So that was good fun. 00:11:03.550 --> 00:11:06.040 But that was kind of like the genesis there in that. 00:11:06.790 --> 00:11:11.560 In 2020 when I formed the company and basically was looking around 00:11:11.560 --> 00:11:15.190 for potential customers and we found a great company called bmo. 00:11:15.220 --> 00:11:17.020 They sell bicycle insurance. 00:11:17.410 --> 00:11:21.790 And what they're trying to do is embed their APIs within the shopping cart 00:11:21.820 --> 00:11:24.170 of you know, larger bike companies. 00:11:24.175 --> 00:11:27.050 So you can go like specialized or con or someone like this. 00:11:27.520 --> 00:11:31.210 See an insurance offer within the shopping cart process, right? 00:11:31.570 --> 00:11:35.920 So, so we've helped them with their APIs and getting them exposed so that 00:11:35.920 --> 00:11:40.280 they can get more partners effectively and get more customers that way, rather 00:11:40.280 --> 00:11:43.490 than relying upon someone buying a bike and then thinking, oh, I wonder 00:11:43.490 --> 00:11:45.140 if I should insure this thing, right? 00:11:45.140 --> 00:11:46.425 Because that never happens, right? 00:11:46.485 --> 00:11:49.100 But if it's in the shopping cart process, you're like, oh yeah, I can 00:11:49.100 --> 00:11:50.750 do this 50 bucks a month, whatever. 00:11:51.325 --> 00:11:52.020 And put it in. 00:11:52.020 --> 00:11:56.220 So, so yeah, so we, we built like out the first version for bmo, which 00:11:56.220 --> 00:11:59.590 is kind of like a small and medium sized company which is good 'cause 00:11:59.590 --> 00:12:03.450 we could do like, you know, the base and work with them to get that done. 00:12:03.910 --> 00:12:09.280 And so we were building it like basically 2021 22. 00:12:09.280 --> 00:12:11.470 We got funding in 23. 00:12:11.470 --> 00:12:15.190 We basically perfected the products and then we have a bunch of customers 00:12:15.190 --> 00:12:17.860 working on it from like smaller startups. 00:12:18.610 --> 00:12:21.340 We have a startup in Canada that's called pirate weather. 00:12:22.000 --> 00:12:26.690 And they've got now, I, I guess it's something like 8,000 developers using 00:12:26.690 --> 00:12:29.450 the portal, which is, is amazing. 00:12:29.450 --> 00:12:29.750 Yeah. 00:12:29.850 --> 00:12:32.850 But told us something about scale within the product as well, so 00:12:32.910 --> 00:12:34.170 that gave us some work to do. 00:12:34.920 --> 00:12:36.155 So it's pirate weather. 00:12:36.275 --> 00:12:36.545 Yeah. 00:12:37.745 --> 00:12:37.895 And 00:12:38.465 --> 00:12:38.685 Mike Bifulco: Wow. 00:12:39.575 --> 00:12:43.715 Allan Knabe: so, so we basically we're, we, we've onboarded these guys. 00:12:44.225 --> 00:12:46.955 And that, that's where it kind of came in and we've been working on 00:12:46.955 --> 00:12:49.145 it for, yeah, some, some years now. 00:12:49.195 --> 00:12:51.745 We've probably been working on the product too long. 00:12:51.775 --> 00:12:54.055 We should have, you know, gone in, out the door sooner. 00:12:54.055 --> 00:12:58.945 But we, we wanted to make it like really feature complete, so wanna make 00:12:58.950 --> 00:13:04.285 sure that it has like the, you know, great API products that are monetized. 00:13:04.755 --> 00:13:07.575 And one of the features we just added, actually, that I really 00:13:07.575 --> 00:13:10.095 wanna bring out is the API catalog. 00:13:10.875 --> 00:13:13.365 Which is more like an internal developer thing. 00:13:14.055 --> 00:13:17.685 'cause we came across some, quite some customers who have so many 00:13:17.685 --> 00:13:22.575 APIs, like thousands of APIs, and are cataloging them in an Excel sheet. 00:13:23.205 --> 00:13:28.155 So it must be a developer working in an organization like this bank we, we 00:13:28.160 --> 00:13:30.135 were talking to in, in South America. 00:13:30.735 --> 00:13:34.605 And if you wanna know what APIs the company has and and which one to 00:13:34.605 --> 00:13:38.625 use for any specific case, you gotta be searching an Excel sheet right. 00:13:39.750 --> 00:13:42.810 No developer in the world wants to search an Excel sheet, right? 00:13:43.770 --> 00:13:48.630 Nobody wants to search it, so, so we put together this API catalog, which 00:13:48.930 --> 00:13:52.920 effectively, because we connect into the API gateways, we can retrieve 00:13:52.920 --> 00:13:56.790 a list of all the APIs available in that gateway and then list them. 00:13:57.510 --> 00:14:00.780 Now if you've got like just one API gateway, maybe that's not so useful. 00:14:00.780 --> 00:14:05.160 But we find that especially in enterprises, they can have like up 00:14:05.160 --> 00:14:07.860 to a hundred API gateways or more. 00:14:07.860 --> 00:14:08.190 Right. 00:14:08.250 --> 00:14:08.640 You know? 00:14:08.700 --> 00:14:12.570 Especially if they've got lots of regions, again, different technologies coming 00:14:12.570 --> 00:14:16.200 into Play Kong versus Apigee and so on. 00:14:16.200 --> 00:14:19.200 But having like this one unified API catalog. 00:14:19.685 --> 00:14:21.425 Is being really helpful. 00:14:21.425 --> 00:14:25.015 It's like one of the features that we didn't intend to build, but, you know, 00:14:25.015 --> 00:14:29.395 it was the most requested and it was actually kind of easy for us to build 00:14:29.395 --> 00:14:34.205 since we already did all the integration work to the underlying API gateways. 00:14:35.850 --> 00:14:38.310 Mike Bifulco: Yeah, I think that fits pretty cleanly into the, like, 00:14:38.640 --> 00:14:42.180 problems worth solving that a lot of certainly enterprise scale companies 00:14:42.185 --> 00:14:45.310 will never dedicate time to you know, if, if the thing is working 00:14:45.310 --> 00:14:48.220 and someone can find it in the Excel spreadsheet, like dust it off, problem 00:14:48.225 --> 00:14:49.990 solved, we'll call that good enough. 00:14:49.990 --> 00:14:51.870 But I'm, I'm sure, especially if you've. 00:14:51.890 --> 00:14:55.070 Been able to build a solution that's reasonably plug and playable from 00:14:55.070 --> 00:14:56.120 there and it makes life better. 00:14:56.120 --> 00:15:00.380 There's clear value add, especially if they see, you know, API usage, picking 00:15:00.380 --> 00:15:03.390 up or whatever monetization, picking up whatever the metric is there. 00:15:03.395 --> 00:15:04.860 I think there's lots of ways to measure that. 00:15:05.820 --> 00:15:09.850 So can we talk a little bit about the, I guess the like major features 00:15:09.850 --> 00:15:11.050 that API will provides today? 00:15:11.055 --> 00:15:14.310 It sounds like there's obviously the, the gateway product and the catalog. 00:15:14.660 --> 00:15:16.310 Is there a documentation angle as well? 00:15:16.315 --> 00:15:17.710 What else are you providing right now? 00:15:18.275 --> 00:15:18.725 Allan Knabe: Oh yeah. 00:15:18.785 --> 00:15:18.965 Yeah. 00:15:18.965 --> 00:15:21.665 I mean the, the core developer experience is something that was 00:15:21.665 --> 00:15:24.855 always very very important to us. 00:15:24.985 --> 00:15:28.775 And, and so there we're actually using something open source called rapid Doc 00:15:28.775 --> 00:15:30.545 Web that I, I guess we can get to that. 00:15:31.115 --> 00:15:34.595 In more detail, but we're using Rapid Doc web to, you know, 00:15:34.595 --> 00:15:36.335 put the API specifications up. 00:15:36.855 --> 00:15:40.605 We were going to build our own documentation tool, but then 00:15:40.605 --> 00:15:43.215 we found this and said, okay, look, it's absolutely fantastic. 00:15:43.215 --> 00:15:44.265 We'll go ahead and use that. 00:15:44.985 --> 00:15:48.555 So, so we put that in there for, you know, developer documentation. 00:15:48.895 --> 00:15:53.690 We do some nifty things like synchronizing the documentation from the API gateway. 00:15:54.545 --> 00:15:55.265 Which is nice. 00:15:55.265 --> 00:15:59.015 So you can update it on the documentation on the gateway and you get it synchronized 00:15:59.315 --> 00:16:01.235 across into your API products. 00:16:01.745 --> 00:16:08.345 Some of the other things we do as well is we, we really tailor the documentation 00:16:08.765 --> 00:16:13.055 for the subscription you are using, right? 00:16:13.235 --> 00:16:18.065 So sometimes you, you see like an API specification, which 00:16:18.065 --> 00:16:20.315 is, I dunno, 50 pages long. 00:16:20.975 --> 00:16:24.635 And you have to try and work out as a developer, you know which parts 00:16:24.635 --> 00:16:27.965 of it are relevant to like your use case that you should be using, right? 00:16:28.835 --> 00:16:34.865 And so what we said is that if you can say, okay, in this particular 00:16:34.870 --> 00:16:38.345 API product and in a particular plan, because you might have like 00:16:38.345 --> 00:16:39.995 a small, medium, and large plan. 00:16:40.565 --> 00:16:43.565 And in the large plan, you might get more endpoints. 00:16:43.565 --> 00:16:44.975 More methods, right? 00:16:44.975 --> 00:16:47.975 And you want the documentation to reflect that, right? 00:16:48.275 --> 00:16:52.075 So you can switch between these different plans and see, okay you 00:16:52.080 --> 00:16:55.555 know, oh, okay, I'm not getting a post possibility on this endpoint, 00:16:55.555 --> 00:16:57.655 but I do get that in the large plan. 00:16:57.655 --> 00:16:57.925 Right? 00:16:58.165 --> 00:17:02.335 And so making that really clear to the developer what, what they're 00:17:02.335 --> 00:17:05.525 working on with the whole, you know, triad functionality is 00:17:05.530 --> 00:17:07.115 a triad console there as well. 00:17:07.680 --> 00:17:12.420 Once you've subscribed to an API, the API credentials are automatically 00:17:12.630 --> 00:17:14.040 assigned to the documentation. 00:17:14.040 --> 00:17:17.910 So you can just start pressing buttons and it will do, you know, 00:17:17.910 --> 00:17:19.320 API calls for you and so on. 00:17:19.320 --> 00:17:21.150 So, you know, trying to help the developer. 00:17:21.720 --> 00:17:25.680 And I, I'd say, you know, they're one of the key things as well is that we 00:17:25.680 --> 00:17:29.790 noticed, we noticed working at, at Swisscom and elsewhere as well, is 00:17:29.790 --> 00:17:35.400 that the decision maker to use an API is not always the developer, right. 00:17:35.865 --> 00:17:41.235 Developer may be the one like signing up using it, but we really feel that if 00:17:41.235 --> 00:17:46.875 we can get the decision maker to sign up for the API and put their credit card 00:17:46.880 --> 00:17:52.125 in and sign any contracts and go for the approval process, and then do invite 00:17:52.125 --> 00:17:54.495 the developer in a at the correct time. 00:17:55.080 --> 00:17:58.740 That's much more useful for the developer because, you know, no 00:17:58.740 --> 00:18:00.840 developer likes waiting for approval. 00:18:00.840 --> 00:18:01.050 Right. 00:18:01.650 --> 00:18:05.880 It, you know, you, you go, you go to a site, you sign in, you know, I wanna use 00:18:05.880 --> 00:18:11.710 this API, the worst thing a developer can see is, okay this is pending approval. 00:18:11.770 --> 00:18:12.010 Yeah. 00:18:12.040 --> 00:18:15.430 We'll get back to you when John comes off his vacation in two weeks time. 00:18:15.910 --> 00:18:21.070 So, so we, we really try and, you know, work from our experience of seeing Okay. 00:18:22.075 --> 00:18:24.205 You know, who's making the decision to use the api? 00:18:24.205 --> 00:18:26.425 Sometimes it's the developer directly, right? 00:18:26.795 --> 00:18:31.815 For, you know, more enterprisey, contractee, APIs we, we let you know 00:18:31.815 --> 00:18:35.805 more of a business person take care of all of that stuff, and then just say, 00:18:35.805 --> 00:18:39.855 okay, within the team, invite in the developer to work on the API and then 00:18:39.855 --> 00:18:41.775 they just, you know, get straight in. 00:18:42.105 --> 00:18:45.105 The subscription is there, they get the API key and they start working. 00:18:45.135 --> 00:18:45.165 Okay. 00:18:46.935 --> 00:18:47.445 Mike Bifulco: Yeah. 00:18:47.545 --> 00:18:51.715 I am, I'm victim or I have been victim of that in the past where hey, here's 00:18:51.715 --> 00:18:54.955 the next great thing we're gonna use, or maybe I have the idea to, Hey, like, our 00:18:54.955 --> 00:18:56.305 team should probably adopt this product. 00:18:56.305 --> 00:18:58.995 And you get there and you're hit a door stop because it's 00:18:59.000 --> 00:19:00.860 not security approved or I. 00:19:00.860 --> 00:19:03.470 Accounting hasn't approved the expense or whatever the case may be. 00:19:03.570 --> 00:19:04.650 It's a really interesting approach. 00:19:04.665 --> 00:19:08.260 I, I think typically when we're talking about API products it's not really a 00:19:08.260 --> 00:19:11.410 facet that comes up and it's definitely like an important angle, especially I'd 00:19:11.410 --> 00:19:14.550 imagine if you're dealing mostly with enterprise level customers, there's a 00:19:14.555 --> 00:19:17.910 lot more of that like red tape in place to keep the business safe and secure. 00:19:18.120 --> 00:19:19.200 That makes a lot of sense. 00:19:19.740 --> 00:19:20.030 Allan Knabe: Yeah. 00:19:20.130 --> 00:19:22.530 Mike Bifulco: You, you touched on something a minute ago that I, I think 00:19:22.530 --> 00:19:25.530 is interesting too, that you were talking about differences in plans for APIs 00:19:25.530 --> 00:19:26.940 and making different things available. 00:19:27.130 --> 00:19:31.180 I noticed on your site that there's some monetization features available as well. 00:19:31.370 --> 00:19:32.570 Can you talk a little bit about that? 00:19:33.455 --> 00:19:34.875 Allan Knabe: Yeah, that's, that's really exciting. 00:19:34.880 --> 00:19:38.835 Right now we're working on some of the more advanced monetization cases as well. 00:19:40.090 --> 00:19:44.590 At the moment we've got, you know, more of a like standard subscription base 00:19:44.590 --> 00:19:49.480 that if you subscribe to use these API endpoints, you can use them for, I don't 00:19:49.480 --> 00:19:54.580 know, 10,000 times a month, 10,000 API calls for 50 bucks or something like this. 00:19:54.850 --> 00:19:56.260 So that's kind of where we started on. 00:19:56.260 --> 00:20:00.545 A lot of our early adopters have used this, but we are getting 00:20:00.575 --> 00:20:04.210 into some cases now where we're doing more usage based pricing. 00:20:04.895 --> 00:20:07.115 Which is what people expect with APIs, right? 00:20:07.115 --> 00:20:11.675 So per API call, you're gonna, we're gonna charge you $1, or whatever it is. 00:20:12.065 --> 00:20:17.345 The caveat there is that we, we are not a proxy to the API, right? 00:20:17.345 --> 00:20:21.095 So we do not get involved in like the networking layer of your API. 00:20:21.125 --> 00:20:23.015 We leave that to the API gateway. 00:20:23.375 --> 00:20:26.045 So unlike some other solutions which proxy everything and 00:20:26.045 --> 00:20:28.895 add latency, we don't do that. 00:20:29.135 --> 00:20:32.405 The downside of that, of course, is that we then don't going get 00:20:32.405 --> 00:20:34.175 to count the number of API calls. 00:20:34.475 --> 00:20:37.755 So we have to do that afterwards via the the log file, which is 00:20:37.755 --> 00:20:38.955 what we're working on right now. 00:20:38.960 --> 00:20:41.885 We hope I mean may, maybe even by the time this podcast comes 00:20:41.890 --> 00:20:45.645 out we'll have completed this for these advanced cases where. 00:20:45.940 --> 00:20:50.055 You know, you can charge for a particular endpoint for a particular 00:20:50.055 --> 00:20:53.805 method, you can have a different price to anything else, right? 00:20:53.805 --> 00:20:59.365 So especially with AI companies, they if they really are interested in these 00:20:59.365 --> 00:21:04.435 cases of saying, okay, certain calls are more valuable than than other ones. 00:21:04.435 --> 00:21:08.615 And we get 'em requests now for credits as well to say, okay, someone 00:21:08.615 --> 00:21:11.135 could buy a package of credits. 00:21:11.420 --> 00:21:13.890 And then depending on the kind of course they're making it 00:21:13.890 --> 00:21:15.510 uses more or less credits. 00:21:15.720 --> 00:21:19.230 So, so these, you know, it's really interesting time to be working in 00:21:19.235 --> 00:21:22.510 this and yeah, luckily the team is doing a really good job, so. 00:21:24.040 --> 00:21:28.950 Mike Bifulco: Yeah, that's a big change in paradigm that I think we faced probably 00:21:28.950 --> 00:21:32.570 somewhere in the last two years where LLMs in particular have made it so that like 00:21:32.575 --> 00:21:37.550 the same API call costs differently every time you call it, based on how much input 00:21:37.550 --> 00:21:40.050 and output that it's, it's using which. 00:21:40.410 --> 00:21:44.760 I don't know if, if you use it back to, call it February of 2020 that was a pretty 00:21:44.760 --> 00:21:49.240 foreign concept not too long ago and is very, very like standard these days for, 00:21:49.240 --> 00:21:51.650 for a lot of the creative AI based tools. 00:21:51.990 --> 00:21:54.330 So really cool to see being able to support that. 00:21:54.580 --> 00:21:55.480 There, there's a lot here. 00:21:55.485 --> 00:21:58.600 I'm, I'm honestly really impressed by the amount of things that, that API will. 00:21:58.855 --> 00:22:02.995 Provides, and even like the granularity you're getting into for, for monetization 00:22:02.995 --> 00:22:07.025 between seeing freemium and usage based and different subscription tiers and 00:22:07.030 --> 00:22:09.335 all those things, there's, there's quite a bit that goes into that. 00:22:09.615 --> 00:22:14.235 Can you tell me a little bit about what it would be like for a team that's interested 00:22:14.235 --> 00:22:17.955 in using api, able to adopt API able, what does the integration process look like? 00:22:18.910 --> 00:22:22.480 Allan Knabe: For the integration process, we really tried to make it. 00:22:22.855 --> 00:22:23.905 As simple as possible. 00:22:23.905 --> 00:22:28.285 I know everyone one says that, but we, we saw like when we were at Swisscom and 00:22:28.285 --> 00:22:31.765 elsewhere, that there are products you can get and you can do a lot of your own 00:22:31.765 --> 00:22:35.995 development to, to integrate, et cetera, and you are ready some weeks later. 00:22:35.995 --> 00:22:40.705 But we, we had, I mean if we take just that one case of pirate weather very 00:22:40.705 --> 00:22:45.115 small company in Canada, I think they were up and running in an hour or something. 00:22:45.115 --> 00:22:46.435 They just connected their. 00:22:47.015 --> 00:22:51.335 Amazon API Gateway, which you can do with a role right in the Amazon. 00:22:51.685 --> 00:22:53.335 Like 10 minutes to connect that. 00:22:53.335 --> 00:22:56.925 And once you've got your APIs well then you just need to, you know, put 00:22:56.925 --> 00:23:00.915 a pretty picture on it and say how much you want to charge basically. 00:23:00.915 --> 00:23:02.385 And it's kind of working, right? 00:23:02.385 --> 00:23:07.490 So yeah, we really tried to do it like, you know, product led in, in that case, 00:23:07.490 --> 00:23:09.680 so that it was, you know, off the shelf. 00:23:10.395 --> 00:23:10.935 Very quickly. 00:23:10.935 --> 00:23:15.075 Obviously for enterprise customers, they might want a little bit more, more help 00:23:15.125 --> 00:23:16.985 with the onboarding process and so on. 00:23:16.985 --> 00:23:20.765 And for that we have, you know, pilot programs where we sit with 00:23:20.765 --> 00:23:23.975 them and, and discuss their needs and so on, which is fascinating because 00:23:24.305 --> 00:23:27.755 then you get to uncover like these, like really urgent needs they have, 00:23:27.755 --> 00:23:31.085 like the, that's how we got to the API catalog part as well, right. 00:23:31.835 --> 00:23:34.955 Just by talking to, you know, people who wanted to use it and then 00:23:34.955 --> 00:23:39.425 figuring out that actually they want a catalog to seal their APIs, right? 00:23:39.425 --> 00:23:41.005 And being able to add that. 00:23:41.470 --> 00:23:42.430 That quite quickly. 00:23:42.490 --> 00:23:48.590 But it, it does drive my development team insane because it, it's just constant 00:23:48.590 --> 00:23:50.510 feature requests, you know, from me. 00:23:50.540 --> 00:23:55.310 And I apologize to the team if they're listening to this, but I, I do keep like 00:23:55.310 --> 00:23:57.620 a constant flow of new features coming in. 00:23:57.620 --> 00:24:02.540 So at some point I have to stop and we just need to tidy everything up, but yeah. 00:24:03.905 --> 00:24:05.705 Mike Bifulco: Well, that's the joy of building a product that people 00:24:05.705 --> 00:24:08.925 want, is that there's lots more ways to use it that come up along the way. 00:24:09.765 --> 00:24:12.405 So one of the interesting things about the product you're building 00:24:12.405 --> 00:24:16.575 then, and, and from what I'm hearing is that a pable is probably from the. 00:24:17.190 --> 00:24:19.740 Implementation standpoint of the dev teams that are integrating 00:24:19.740 --> 00:24:22.170 with API bullet, you're sort of language ag agnostic, right? 00:24:22.170 --> 00:24:25.970 There's really just needs to be able to point to and understand 00:24:26.000 --> 00:24:27.680 the sort of the shape of a gateway. 00:24:27.990 --> 00:24:31.765 Is there do you find yourself working with particular I don't know, flavors 00:24:31.770 --> 00:24:32.905 of team more often than others? 00:24:32.905 --> 00:24:36.005 Like, do you, do you find that Ruby developers come to you or rust 00:24:36.005 --> 00:24:37.115 developers or something like that? 00:24:37.115 --> 00:24:38.315 Or is it coming from all over the map? 00:24:39.085 --> 00:24:40.975 Allan Knabe: It is all over the shop, to be honest. 00:24:41.155 --> 00:24:45.325 We, we, we get everything come through and at the moment we're getting all 00:24:45.445 --> 00:24:49.285 shapes and sizes of company come across. 00:24:49.285 --> 00:24:52.855 It's, it's obviously really interesting working with startups. 00:24:53.445 --> 00:24:57.015 And, and you know, them getting like Python requests and stuff like this, 00:24:57.015 --> 00:25:01.785 it's really interesting when they come along because they, they wanna get going 00:25:01.790 --> 00:25:05.595 immediately and have it finished in two weeks and they don't mind giving you 00:25:05.595 --> 00:25:07.725 a hundred requests at the same time. 00:25:07.725 --> 00:25:11.155 So very useful speaking to those guys. 00:25:11.215 --> 00:25:11.995 Very useful. 00:25:11.995 --> 00:25:14.935 The enterprise is, you know, first of all, you have a conversation for 00:25:14.935 --> 00:25:18.325 six months with someone who's not actually ever gonna use the portal. 00:25:18.765 --> 00:25:22.035 And then, then you get to the real team who are, who are kind of using 00:25:22.035 --> 00:25:24.045 it and connecting gateways and stuff. 00:25:24.105 --> 00:25:25.575 So it's two, two different worlds. 00:25:25.575 --> 00:25:29.905 But yeah, in terms of like, you know, languages, it's, it's a huge chasm. 00:25:31.135 --> 00:25:31.885 Mike Bifulco: I could imagine. 00:25:32.255 --> 00:25:33.485 What about open source work? 00:25:33.485 --> 00:25:35.615 Are you doing anything with open source projects? 00:25:36.275 --> 00:25:38.545 Allan Knabe: Well, well, I hinted at rapid Doc. 00:25:38.885 --> 00:25:41.855 Is, is one that we use within our products. 00:25:42.470 --> 00:25:45.020 It's honestly very, very well put together. 00:25:45.025 --> 00:25:48.980 You, you can find it at a rapid doc web.com. 00:25:49.140 --> 00:25:50.790 I guess you'll put a link as well in. 00:25:51.375 --> 00:25:52.230 Mike Bifulco: Yeah, absolutely. 00:25:52.380 --> 00:25:53.340 Allan Knabe: Yeah, that's great. 00:25:53.340 --> 00:25:56.450 So it, it, it's it's a really good project. 00:25:56.500 --> 00:25:59.205 I think, you know, probably more people could get value from that 00:25:59.305 --> 00:26:02.440 if you just want to, you know, if you've got a simple API you wanna 00:26:02.440 --> 00:26:05.930 document it and put it up somewhere it's a really nice project for that. 00:26:06.240 --> 00:26:10.990 And we're, we're hoping to, to support that community more 00:26:10.990 --> 00:26:12.490 and more as we go forward. 00:26:12.940 --> 00:26:14.290 So, so that's exciting. 00:26:14.815 --> 00:26:18.115 Other stuff we're kind of like interested when we get five minutes 00:26:18.115 --> 00:26:22.255 because like I said, it's a constant like feature frenzy at, at api able, 00:26:22.555 --> 00:26:26.815 but one of the things we're looking at is more on the oof two side as well. 00:26:27.820 --> 00:26:29.200 Somehow helping. 00:26:29.200 --> 00:26:32.770 And this was, this was like an idea we had a few years ago working at Connor. 00:26:33.260 --> 00:26:38.630 And that's when you turn around to a product manager when you're building, 00:26:38.635 --> 00:26:42.440 for example, an app and development team starts to ask some questions like, 00:26:42.440 --> 00:26:46.760 what, what flavor of OO two should we use for securing this application? 00:26:46.760 --> 00:26:47.090 Right. 00:26:47.630 --> 00:26:49.460 And getting blank stares back. 00:26:49.460 --> 00:26:49.850 Right. 00:26:50.270 --> 00:26:54.860 So the, the, there's some kind of a translation needed there. 00:26:55.290 --> 00:26:57.120 That I think is really doable. 00:26:57.300 --> 00:27:01.530 Some kind of like a tool that you could build to say, okay, in, 00:27:01.590 --> 00:27:03.480 you know, more, more human terms. 00:27:03.810 --> 00:27:05.880 How would you like to secure something? 00:27:05.885 --> 00:27:07.470 What are the cases, right? 00:27:07.470 --> 00:27:12.600 You know, is it on a per user who's logging in basis or is it more of a 00:27:12.600 --> 00:27:14.490 machine to machine case, wherever. 00:27:14.820 --> 00:27:17.190 So some kind of like, maybe just utility that. 00:27:17.655 --> 00:27:21.745 You know, you go through that flow and out of it comes like the correct 00:27:22.165 --> 00:27:27.415 o or flow or you know, JWT, what you should be using as a technology 00:27:27.805 --> 00:27:30.145 to secure it for that given case. 00:27:30.655 --> 00:27:30.955 Right? 00:27:30.955 --> 00:27:33.625 So that's kind of one open source tool that we would like 00:27:33.625 --> 00:27:35.335 to, to put out at some point. 00:27:36.055 --> 00:27:40.895 'cause OF two is, you know, well, it's developer, right? 00:27:40.895 --> 00:27:44.435 And it doesn't translate very well to, you know, you can't send, 00:27:44.555 --> 00:27:45.785 you know, we've done this, right? 00:27:45.995 --> 00:27:51.305 We've sent like business people the o to a specification and said, yeah, 00:27:51.305 --> 00:27:52.775 just choose the right flow, right? 00:27:52.775 --> 00:27:55.445 And they've looked at it and go, oh my God, this is crazy. 00:27:55.865 --> 00:27:58.475 So, so there's that kind of thing there. 00:27:58.825 --> 00:28:02.725 The other one that we would like to look at maybe get a chance this 00:28:02.725 --> 00:28:07.975 year a little bit more is to say, okay, how green are your APIs? 00:28:08.635 --> 00:28:09.025 Right. 00:28:09.055 --> 00:28:12.355 So I'm, I'm sure Phil would be interested in this one as well. 00:28:12.355 --> 00:28:16.345 But we're in a, a very good place since we're connected into all of the 00:28:16.345 --> 00:28:19.105 API gateways across the organization. 00:28:19.525 --> 00:28:23.665 And we can, you know, see from the log files what developers are all doing. 00:28:24.175 --> 00:28:28.465 And start to drop in some hints for the organizational owners, the 00:28:28.465 --> 00:28:33.245 customers to say, okay what could you be doing to reduce the footprint here? 00:28:33.275 --> 00:28:39.035 Because I mean, APIs are, is it 83% of all internet traffic or is it more than that? 00:28:39.035 --> 00:28:39.575 I can't remember. 00:28:39.575 --> 00:28:43.925 It's around that kind of like area, a huge amount of work happening 00:28:44.555 --> 00:28:48.995 with APIs and you know, are there some quick wins, for example. 00:28:49.595 --> 00:28:53.885 If we see a developer is getting the status of something 00:28:54.305 --> 00:28:57.395 every two seconds, right? 00:28:57.425 --> 00:29:00.415 It could be you know, a potential then to turn around and say 00:29:00.515 --> 00:29:03.185 well, maybe this should be behind some kind of a web hook, right? 00:29:03.305 --> 00:29:07.655 Say, okay, instead of some polling all the time, you know, and, and that generating 00:29:07.655 --> 00:29:12.265 a lot of backend work, you could say, okay, we'll update you in like four hours 00:29:12.265 --> 00:29:14.875 when this thing has changed status, right? 00:29:14.935 --> 00:29:15.265 So. 00:29:15.895 --> 00:29:19.105 That's like an immediate idea, but I'm sure we could uncover 00:29:19.105 --> 00:29:20.545 like, a lot more to say. 00:29:20.575 --> 00:29:20.965 Okay. 00:29:20.965 --> 00:29:25.645 Just, you know, let's, let's reduce the number of API calls if possible. 00:29:25.925 --> 00:29:29.195 And also not forgetting the, the load on the back ends as well. 00:29:30.365 --> 00:29:30.785 Mike Bifulco: Yeah. 00:29:31.025 --> 00:29:34.255 Oh, that's, that's a really interesting product angle and you're certainly well 00:29:34.255 --> 00:29:35.905 positioned to be able to advise on that. 00:29:35.965 --> 00:29:38.695 Given what you must know about how, you know, gateways are deployed and 00:29:38.695 --> 00:29:40.915 consumed and all that really fascinating. 00:29:41.005 --> 00:29:41.425 Yeah. 00:29:41.735 --> 00:29:46.140 I think that is, one of those things that teams rarely think about, right? 00:29:46.140 --> 00:29:50.070 Like, not everyone has a Phil Sturgeon on their team who is very, very cognizant 00:29:50.070 --> 00:29:53.940 of the existential crisis facing all of us with, with environmental friendliness. 00:29:54.280 --> 00:29:54.940 And it's hard. 00:29:54.940 --> 00:29:56.530 It's, it's something that's subtle, right? 00:29:56.530 --> 00:29:59.910 Like, it seems really simple to make a polling call and like, yeah, 00:29:59.940 --> 00:30:02.670 every two seconds we're sending a couple of packets across the web. 00:30:02.670 --> 00:30:03.150 But like, 00:30:03.480 --> 00:30:06.565 you stack that up for a day and a week and a month, and you're, you're, putting 00:30:06.565 --> 00:30:09.055 a lot of energy through the wire that doesn't necessarily need to be done there. 00:30:09.055 --> 00:30:09.895 That's super cool. 00:30:10.285 --> 00:30:10.825 I like that. 00:30:11.095 --> 00:30:11.455 Allan Knabe: that's, 00:30:11.755 --> 00:30:12.025 Mike Bifulco: oh, sorry. 00:30:12.025 --> 00:30:12.325 Go ahead. 00:30:12.835 --> 00:30:15.535 Allan Knabe: I was gonna say, it's, it's actually a, it's probably an entirely 00:30:15.535 --> 00:30:17.665 new company and product of its own Right. 00:30:17.815 --> 00:30:20.175 But that, that, that's, you know, if someone wants to run 00:30:20.175 --> 00:30:21.405 with this idea, go for it. 00:30:21.505 --> 00:30:24.745 Yeah, again, my team hate me because I always have these crazy ideas. 00:30:24.745 --> 00:30:24.805 I. 00:30:27.985 --> 00:30:28.495 Mike Bifulco: I like it. 00:30:28.495 --> 00:30:29.065 I'm into it. 00:30:29.125 --> 00:30:33.380 Well, I, I will make absolutely sure to drop your GitHub organization in 00:30:33.380 --> 00:30:36.340 the show notes as well, if people are interested in following the open 00:30:36.345 --> 00:30:39.320 source and exposed code and projects that you're working on, on the web. 00:30:39.560 --> 00:30:43.300 And certainly if folks are interested in chasing you down for working 00:30:43.360 --> 00:30:46.060 on some of these projects there, there'll be ways to do that there too. 00:30:46.390 --> 00:30:48.160 Let's let's talk about what's to come for you. 00:30:48.160 --> 00:30:50.410 What is API bull looking at building next? 00:30:50.415 --> 00:30:52.420 What are the things on the horizon that are exciting for you? 00:30:53.490 --> 00:30:55.470 Allan Knabe: Yeah, I think I already, I already touched on kind 00:30:55.475 --> 00:30:59.370 of like these, these features coming in advanced monetization cases. 00:31:00.290 --> 00:31:04.280 Also along with that, the analytics that we can get to say, okay, how 00:31:04.280 --> 00:31:06.080 are you using the APIs a little bit. 00:31:06.080 --> 00:31:08.420 This like green thing is in there as well. 00:31:08.420 --> 00:31:11.990 Of course, you know, when we get to see, okay, what you, what you're doing with 00:31:11.990 --> 00:31:17.801 the APIs and, you know, our developers you know, signing up to use your api I, 00:31:18.070 --> 00:31:20.440 but then not making the first API call. 00:31:20.960 --> 00:31:24.590 Or did they, or they, were they a regular user of your API and certainly 00:31:24.590 --> 00:31:26.060 dropped off and things like this? 00:31:26.060 --> 00:31:30.690 There's lots of very interesting things we can do there as well, but I, I think 00:31:30.690 --> 00:31:32.940 we're pretty much like feature complete. 00:31:32.940 --> 00:31:37.460 Other than that we'll probably add more API Gateways, we support Amazon, API 00:31:37.460 --> 00:31:40.715 Gateway and Kong and Appg and Azure. 00:31:41.445 --> 00:31:44.055 And so we'll probably add some more API gateways this year. 00:31:44.055 --> 00:31:46.695 Lots of people on like MuleSoft and stuff like this, so, we'll, 00:31:46.695 --> 00:31:47.685 we'll, we'll add those in. 00:31:47.685 --> 00:31:51.825 But that's yeah, we're, we're, we, we need to, you know, not 00:31:51.825 --> 00:31:54.705 do more features and so I'm 00:31:55.170 --> 00:31:59.620 Mike Bifulco: Yeah, features versus focus is a perennial startup founder challenge. 00:31:59.620 --> 00:32:00.250 I get that. 00:32:00.560 --> 00:32:01.970 Okay, so what about your team? 00:32:01.970 --> 00:32:02.690 Are you expanding? 00:32:02.690 --> 00:32:03.590 Are you looking at hiring? 00:32:04.325 --> 00:32:04.505 Allan Knabe: Okay. 00:32:04.505 --> 00:32:06.915 So we're, we're currently going through our seed round. 00:32:07.275 --> 00:32:11.465 So, so we're doing another raise at the moment, and as soon as that's 00:32:11.465 --> 00:32:15.845 complete, then yes, we will be looking for developers to join the team. 00:32:15.965 --> 00:32:20.525 You know, especially we have need for DevOps type people, site 00:32:20.530 --> 00:32:24.035 reliability engineers to, to take care of the infrastructure because 00:32:24.035 --> 00:32:25.675 there's a lot of moving parts. 00:32:25.675 --> 00:32:30.735 We opted for a single tenancy application which is, which is great. 00:32:30.955 --> 00:32:34.875 But at the same time takes a lot of, you know, maintenance and looking after. 00:32:34.875 --> 00:32:37.490 So that's, that's definitely one role we'll be looking for in the future. 00:32:39.120 --> 00:32:39.450 Mike Bifulco: Got it. 00:32:39.510 --> 00:32:43.300 Yeah, that's another link I have in the show notes is the, the correct sort of 00:32:43.300 --> 00:32:46.150 URL for careers or job listings for api. 00:32:46.155 --> 00:32:46.690 I able too. 00:32:47.510 --> 00:32:47.960 That's great. 00:32:47.960 --> 00:32:51.580 So before we wrap up, Alan where, where's the best place for listeners 00:32:51.585 --> 00:32:54.280 of the show to go to find and chat with you if they're interested? 00:32:55.705 --> 00:32:56.095 Allan Knabe: Okay. 00:32:56.095 --> 00:32:58.250 I spend most of my time on, on LinkedIn. 00:32:59.120 --> 00:33:03.800 I'm not cool enough to be on X, so I'm, I'm mainly on, on LinkedIn. 00:33:04.020 --> 00:33:06.960 Other than that, you know, it just come to the website and then just, you know, 00:33:06.960 --> 00:33:10.360 throw in a contact request or something and you know, get a, get ahold of me. 00:33:10.360 --> 00:33:10.900 That way as well, 00:33:12.070 --> 00:33:12.520 Mike Bifulco: That's great. 00:33:12.520 --> 00:33:14.860 And just so that we say it out loud, what is the website. 00:33:16.425 --> 00:33:21.400 Allan Knabe: a API able io so you can think of it's, we make you API able 00:33:21.700 --> 00:33:23.200 or you could be asking a question. 00:33:23.205 --> 00:33:25.750 As a developer, when you look at some code, you can say. 00:33:26.035 --> 00:33:27.050 Is that a pable? 00:33:28.915 --> 00:33:29.425 Mike Bifulco: I love it. 00:33:29.795 --> 00:33:32.075 Again, another one of those things we'll drop in the show notes. 00:33:32.185 --> 00:33:34.365 And Alan, thanks so much for, for joining me today. 00:33:34.365 --> 00:33:35.175 It's been a real pleasure. 00:33:35.175 --> 00:33:38.275 I'm super excited about what y'all are building, and happy to have you come back 00:33:38.280 --> 00:33:41.040 on the show anytime if you're you know, rolling through new feature announcements. 00:33:41.040 --> 00:33:43.960 So there's some you know, environmentally friendly things we want to get 00:33:43.960 --> 00:33:45.310 into for a deeper conversation. 00:33:45.310 --> 00:33:46.360 I'm happy to do that too. 00:33:46.620 --> 00:33:47.760 Super, super cool to have you here. 00:33:47.760 --> 00:33:48.570 Thanks for joining today. 00:33:48.570 --> 00:33:49.290 I appreciate it, Alan. 00:33:49.785 --> 00:33:50.115 Allan Knabe: Yeah. 00:33:50.115 --> 00:33:51.495 Thanks a lot, Mike, for having me on. 00:33:51.675 --> 00:33:52.305 Really enjoyed it. 00:33:52.485 --> 00:33:52.905 Mike Bifulco: Of course. 00:33:53.325 --> 00:33:53.505 Yeah. 00:33:53.505 --> 00:33:53.925 Take care. 00:33:53.925 --> 00:33:54.345 Talk to you soon. 00:33:54.805 --> 00:33:55.455 Allan Knabe: Thanks, bye. 00:34:01.115 --> 00:34:01.915 Mike Bifulco