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It's been years since I've consumed a square API, but I found it amazing when I did. Thank you for your work, even if it came after I used it. Do you think tha

It's been years since I've consumed a square API, but I found it amazing when I did. Thank you for your work, even if it came after I used it. Do you think that the Square API hit the level of design just because of the people involved? Or are there organizational factors that played into it? I.e. was good API design seen at the top as a good reason to take longer with a release? I really want to find suggestions to take into my company.

ThomPete 9y ago
A combination. From the day I started back in 2012 it was clear to me that in order for us to grow functionality to enough verticals in the merchant space we would have to build an API as that was the only way to actually allow for the platform to grow beyond what we could build internally. It was a hard push for a while though as the focus was in some of the other areas that made us actual money. The first inception had a pretty strong team but less backup in the organization. We did a lot of great work that never saw the light of day. Then the last couple of years it all changed and there was suddenly a push to do proper API I was "called into duty" again. This time the foundation was product led rather than tech led and that changed things a lot. My personal experience was that people just saw API as some technical curiosity rather than as an actual foundation for the business. Luckily plenty of people in the organization was aware of its importance. This has changed a lot the last couple of years I think not the least because of Stripes documentation which is almost legendary today. For some reason, I was always aware of its importance. I even wrote an essay about it back in 2009 and wrote: "The next big battle is going to be a battle between digital ecosystems; not gadgets, not products and not services. The most important weapon is going to be the WMCs: Weapons of Mass Connection, a.k.a. the APIs. These APIs will make it possible for different organizations to have data flow freely between them. Allow for anyone with the right idea to leverage on others’ success without taking anything away from them. On the contrary, the more trusted interpreters you can give access to the data flow, the more robust the digital ecosystem will be." http://000fff.org/the-power-of-digital-ecoystems/ http://000fff.org/the-power-of-digital-ecoystems/

ThomPete 9y ago

A combination. From the day I started back in 2012 it was clear to me that in order for us to grow functionality to enough verticals in the merchant space we would have to build an API as that was the only way to actually allow for the platform to grow beyond what we could build internally. It was a hard push for a while though as the focus was in some of the other areas that made us actual money. The first inception had a pretty strong team but less backup in the organization. We did a lot of great work that never saw the light of day. Then the last couple of years it all changed and there was suddenly a push to do proper API I was "called into duty" again. This time the foundation was product led rather than tech led and that changed things a lot. My personal experience was that people just saw API as some technical curiosity rather than as an actual foundation for the business. Luckily plenty of people in the organization was aware of its importance. This has changed a lot the last couple of years I think not the least because of Stripes documentation which is almost legendary today. For some reason, I was always aware of its importance. I even wrote an essay about it back in 2009 and wrote: "The next big battle is going to be a battle between digital ecosystems; not gadgets, not products and not services. The most important weapon is going to be the WMCs: Weapons of Mass Connection, a.k.a. the APIs. These APIs will make it possible for different organizations to have data flow freely between them. Allow for anyone with the right idea to leverage on others’ success without taking anything away from them. On the contrary, the more trusted interpreters you can give access to the data flow, the more robust the digital ecosystem will be." http://000fff.org/the-power-of-digital-ecoystems/ http://000fff.org/the-power-of-digital-ecoystems/