In 2016, I gave a presentation at API World. The topic was “The Blessings and Curses of Offering a Free Public API“. This was before Twitter made accessing their API a challenge, and Reddit also raised their API fees.
Although the topic was appropriate for its time, the audience for this messaging was miniscule. It would’ve been better suited for a Developer Relations conference, and its lesson can be summed into three points:
- Always have active (e.g., email newsletter) & passive (e.g., blog) communication channels
- Aim to understand every single user – otherwise you lose touch of what you’re solving
- Be so transparent it pushes company boundaries – with devs, authenticity is the best (non-crypto) currency, and this is the best way to earn it