Snappr: Building API-First, Last

Using a bunch of APIs that are really flexible, and figuring out good ways to connect them, leads to a combinatorial explosion of potential workflows. API-first companies turn software into like customizable building blocks, and companies like Zapier and Tray.io function as “APIs for all APIs,” making connections between nearly any app with an API ... See more

Snap has a big, engaged base of users who are the right age to pioneer a new technology platform. It’s in the sweet spot - it has been around long enough to have a large user base, which is necessary to create enough adoption for a new platform, while its users are young enough (and geographically dense enough) to adopt a new spatial platform.

Early Snap Mini’s are from a set of curated partners: Headspace, sports betting, booking concert and movie tickets, class schedules on Saturn, registering to vote, and collaborating on flashcards to study. Like most of its products, Snap likely keeps this closed for a year or two before opening it up for any developer to build on.

I compared Zoom with Dropbox and Skype, but another useful comparison is with photo sharing. There have always been hundreds of things that did this, but we saw a succession of companies that worked out something new around user experience and psychology that took them beyond ‘photos’ to some deeper insight - first Flickr, then Facebook and Instagr... See more

Users. Many people in a company interact with a typical SaaS product (like Slack, Salesforce, Airtable, Asana), whereas only the engineers typically work with API-first companies.

API-first companies are a subset of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) companies, with a few key distinguishing features: