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78 79 <div id="topNav" data-content-field="navigation"> 80<nav class="main-nav"> 81 <ul> 82 83 </ul> 84</nav> 85</div> 86 87 </header> 88 89 <div class="page-divider"></div> 90 91 <div class="extra-wrapper page-header"> 92 <div class="sqs-layout sqs-grid-12 columns-12 empty" data-layout-label="Header Content: John Sheehan" data-type="block-field" id="page-header-521190b7e4b0775e185c57f0"><div class="row sqs-row"><div class="col sqs-col-12 span-12"></div></div></div> 93 </div> 94 95 <section id="page" role="main" data-content-field="main-content"> 96 <!-- CATEGORY NAV --> 97 98 <div class="article-list hfeed"> 99 100 101 102<article class="hentry author-john-sheehan post-type-text article-index-1" id="article-60215365c1c7150cc9e2ed35" data-item-id="60215365c1c7150cc9e2ed35"> 103 104 <!--SPECIAL CONTENT--> 105 106 107 108 109 <!--POST HEADER--> 110 111 <header> 112 <h1 class="entry-title"> 113 114 <a href="/blog/raising-money-when-you-have-no-idea-what-youre-doing" data-content-field="title">Raising Money When You Have No Idea What Youâre Doing</a> 115 116 </h1> 117 <div class="meta"> 118 <span class="date"><time class="published" datetime="2018-05-22">May 22, 2018</time></span> 119 </div> 120 </header> 121 122 <!--POST BODY--> 123 124 125 <div class="body entry-content"><div class="sqs-layout sqs-grid-12 columns-12" data-layout-label="Post Body" data-type="item" data-updated-on="1612796889601" id="item-60215365c1c7150cc9e2ed35"><div class="row sqs-row"><div class="col sqs-col-12 span-12"><div class="sqs-block html-block sqs-block-html" data-block-type="2" id="block-0f944439b88124a3b135"><div class="sqs-block-content"> 126 127<p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">People somewhat regularly ask me for advice on raising money, typically at very early stages (angel or seed rounds). I was lucky to be able to raise $7.1M in two rounds at Runscope, so I guess that gives me some level of credibility with the process. I donât actually think I was very good at fundraising â my success rate was probably something less than 1% if you take into account how many pitches didnât lead to an investment.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">I went through seven major revisions of My Deck⢠and about 50 meetings before we got a term sheet for the seed round. Each revision attempted to resolve the typical set of issues you hear from feedback of failed pitches:</p><ul data-rte-list="default"><li><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Not enough market size data.</p></li><li><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Not compelling enough problem statement.</p></li><li><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Too focused on technical solutions over business viability.</p></li><li><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Underspecified go-to-market strategy.</p></li><li><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Poor competitive differentiation, etc.</p></li></ul><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">I eventually settled on creating a narrative instead of trying to convince investors with an avalanche of facts, logic and pie-in-the-sky projections. The deck became an accessory to the narrative, not vice-versa.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Iâve only sat on the other side of the table a few times, so Iâm not sure how investors in general would feel about this, but I know from the dull pitches I have sat through, a compelling narrative would have gone a long way. Below is a framework for thinking about your pitch as a story that Iâve sent around to people when they ask for advice raising. It worked for us. If youâre struggling with your pitch, it may work for you too.</p> 128 129 130</div></div><div class="sqs-block horizontalrule-block sqs-block-horizontalrule" data-block-type="47" id="block-yui_3_17_2_1_1612795948117_86219"><div class="sqs-block-content"><hr /></div></div><div class="sqs-block html-block sqs-block-html" data-block-type="2" id="block-yui_3_17_2_1_1612795948117_86288"><div class="sqs-block-content"> 131 132<p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">There is a timeline from when you first had your idea for a company to the eventual conclusion of your startup as a big company. This is the story to tell. Whenever you are pitching, you are at some point on that timeline. Your deck should reflect that position in time.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Start with quantifying the problem (in real terms! e.g.<em>âCompanies are losing $X by [whatever solution youâll replace for the problem they have]â</em>), how you recognized it, and why youâre the best team to solve it. Pick absolutely the most important points for each of those. Talk about traction only as a reinforcement of the previous points. Do not overwhelm with info. Investors will remember basically nothing specific.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Once youâve established that, the next part is working forward in time. The further out you get, the more âblurryâ it will need to be. But you need to pick milestones. If your next step after the seed round is an A round, describe the resources you need to achieve the business milestones that will set you up for the A round, THEN mention that it will take $X in funding to get there. Work backwards from the next milestone. Pick only the 1â3 most important things youâre going to accomplish.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">When you structure a pitch like this here are the things you donât have to beat over investorsâ heads: market size, competition, business model. If youâve made a compelling case at the beginning of the story, those will all be readily apparent. You should absolutely have answers for those questions, but you donât need to focus on them.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Instead, focus on:</p><ul data-rte-list="default"><li><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">This is a big problem.</p></li><li><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Thereâs nobody better to solve it.</p></li><li><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">You should get in now to help us continue on to the inevitable next milestone and ultimate success.</p></li></ul><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Get them excited about the story, not any specific number.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Remember, investors will remember next to nothing (they get pitched A LOT) so pick your spots and make the few key things that need to be recalled over-emphasized. Repeat them at each stage and how it applies to the past, present and future. Imagine after your meeting theyâre going to de
132scribe it to another investor in the hallway. What is the one thing youâd want them to say about you? Repeat that over and over again in your pitches. Have answers for everything, but keep the deck focused on the key points. In a way, the less info the better because thereâs less chance youâll get pulled off in random tangents.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Lastly, this is the single piece of advice that changed my approach to fundraising: <strong>Find true believers, not converts.</strong> Think of the process as eliminating anyone who does not believe in what youâre doing. When you find your first believers, youâll wonder why you spent so much energy trying to convince people. The difference in behavior on their part is striking.</p> 133 134 135</div></div></div></div></div></div> 136 137 138 139 140 <!--POST FOOTER--> 141 142 <footer> 143 <div class="meta"> 144 145 146 147 148 149 <div class="second meta-row"> 150 151 152 <span class="squarespace-social-buttons inline-style" data-system-data-id="" data-asset-url="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/52118c34e4b030489dbc406b/521190b7e4b0775e185c57f0/60215365c1c7150cc9e2ed35/1612796889898/" data-record-type="1" data-full-url="/blog/raising-money-when-you-have-no-idea-what-youre-doing" data-title="Raising Money When You Have No Idea What Youâre Doing"></span> 153 </div> 154 155 </div> 156 </footer> 157 158 159 </article> 160 161 <div class="post-divider"></div> 162 163 164<article class="hentry author-john-sheehan post-type-text article-index-2" id="article-59ca6f01197aeaecf476d2df" data-item-id="59ca6f01197aeaecf476d2df"> 165 166 <!--SPECIAL CONTENT--> 167 168 169 170 171 <!--POST HEADER--> 172 173 <header> 174 <h1 class="entry-title"> 175 176 <a href="/blog/thank-you" data-content-field="title">Thank You</a> 177 178 </h1> 179 <div class="meta"> 180 <span class="date"><time class="published" datetime="2017-09-28">September 28, 2017</time></span> 181 </div> 182 </header> 183 184 <!--POST BODY--> 185 186 187 <div class="body entry-content"><div class="sqs-layout sqs-grid-12 columns-12" data-layout-label="Post Body" data-type="item" data-updated-on="1506438913709" id="item-59ca6f01197aeaecf476d2df"><div class="row sqs-row"><div class="col sqs-col-12 span-12"><div class="sqs-block html-block sqs-block-html" data-block-type="2" id="block-6a48a90e22d8ac47b39f"><div class="sqs-block-content"> 188 189<p>Today we announced that <a href="https://blog.runscope.com/posts/301">Runscope has been acquired by CA Technologies</a>. This was made possible by the contributions of so many people. I'm eternally grateful for your support.</p><p><strong>To our customers:</strong> I can't overstate how obsessed we are with building a tool you can trust and rely on to solve real technology problems. Thank you for pushing us to always be better, and for being patient when we can't meet your needs exactly. We'll continue to use your feedback as the primary driver in setting our direction.</p><p><strong>To the API and developer community: </strong>So many people in the community have helped spread the word about Runscope that it would be impossible name everyone, but I want to give special thanks to Jeff Lindsay, Kin Lane, Kenneth Reitz, Jason Harmon, Cory Benfield, Marty Alchin, Matt Bernier, Hung Truong, Kristen Womack, Bruno Pedro, Keith Casey, Steve Willmott, Adam Duvander, James Higginbotham, Phil Sturgeon, Mehdi Medjaoui, Jeremiah Lee, and David Hayes.</p><p><strong>To our investors and advisors: </strong>Without your belief in our vision, Runscope wouldn't exist. In particular, I'd like to thank Nat Friedman, Jon Dahl, Steve Herrod, Ullas Naik, Tom Drummond, James Lindenbaum, Justin Mares, Greg Burkus, Robert Benner, David Cohen, Steve Schlafman, Taylor Greene, Frank Chen, Chris Dixon, Peter Werner, and Amanda Busch.</p><p><strong>To True Ventures: </strong>You set an example for how a VC should be. To say you are "founder friendly" would be a major understatement. You've been a true partner from the very beginning and have stood by Frank and me every step of the way. To Adam, Puneet, Phil, Christiaan, Jon and everyone else at True, thank you.</p><p><strong>To Runscopers past and present:</strong> People, product, profit. The people of Runscope have always been my favorite part of this venture. Working with and learning from you has been an honor and the highlight of my career. Thank you for taking a chance on us. I hope we are a worthy line on your resumé.</p><p><strong>To Frank:</strong> <em>There is no movement without the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fW8amMCVAJQ">first follower</a>.</em> Your steady hand was a calming force in the startup chaos. You remained dedicated through the highs and lows and consistently pushed me to be better. I couldn't ask for a better co-founder.</p><p><strong>To Emily:</strong> I couldn't have run this company without your support and counsel. Your unwavering support means the world to me. Thank y
189ou, I love you.</p> 190 191 192</div></div></div></div></div></div> 193 194 195 196 197 <!--POST FOOTER--> 198 199 <footer> 200 <div class="meta"> 201 202 203 204 205 206 <div class="second meta-row"> 207 208 209 <span class="comments"> 210 211 <a href="/blog/thank-you#comments-59ca6f01197aeaecf476d2df"> 212 213 2 Comments 214 215 </a> 216 217 </span> 218 219 <span class="squarespace-social-buttons inline-style" data-system-data-id="" data-asset-url="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/52118c34e4b030489dbc406b/521190b7e4b0775e185c57f0/59ca6f01197aeaecf476d2df/1506610336968/" data-record-type="1" data-full-url="/blog/thank-you" data-title="Thank You"></span> 220 </div> 221 222 </div> 223 </footer> 224 225 226 </article> 227 228 <div class="post-divider"></div> 229 230 231<article class="hentry author-john-sheehan post-type-text article-index-3" id="article-6021512bd96df944d8b4212e" data-item-id="6021512bd96df944d8b4212e"> 232 233 <!--SPECIAL CONTENT--> 234 235 236 237 238 <!--POST HEADER--> 239 240 <header> 241 <h1 class="entry-title"> 242 243 <a href="/blog/twilio-retrospective" data-content-field="title">Twilio: A Retrospective</a> 244 245 </h1> 246 <div class="meta"> 247 <span class="date"><time class="published" datetime="2016-06-22">June 22, 2016</time></span> 248 </div> 249 </header> 250 251 <!--POST BODY--> 252 253 254 <div class="body entry-content"><div class="sqs-layout sqs-grid-12 columns-12" data-layout-label="Post Body" data-type="item" data-updated-on="1612796642569" id="item-6021512bd96df944d8b4212e"><div class="row sqs-row"><div class="col sqs-col-12 span-12"><div class="sqs-block html-block sqs-block-html" data-block-type="2" id="block-3df491a708a57b9b178f"><div class="sqs-block-content"> 255 256<p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Itâs been over 4 years since I left Twilio but no career experience outside of Runscope has had a bigger impact on me. With the impending Twilio IPO, Iâm finding myself especially nostalgic about my time there. I was only there two years, but I learned so much.</p><h2 style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Discovering Twilio</h2><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">In 2008 I was a web developer in the Twin Cities. I ran a big softball league and when it would rain I needed to notify 600+ people that the games were canceled. I used my cell phoneâs voicemail as a hotline for awhile but that rendered my phone useless on game days. I thought it was ridiculous that everyone had to âpollâ the hotline for updates. I wanted push notifications via phone.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">My first attempt at this involved trying to set up Asterisk. Being a Windows user though I didnât even get past getting a Linux distro set up (kids, learn *nix). I gave up pretty quickly.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">One night during the off season I was reading TechCrunch when I came across <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2008/11/20/twilio-powerful-api-for-phone-services-that-can-recreate-grandcentral-in-15-lines-of-code/"><span style="text-decoration:underline">a post about Twilio</span></a>. It sounded like the perfect fit. I went to the site, read the docs and a few minutes later my phone was ringing. I donât know how to describe the feeling I had. I recall running around the house. I think I scared my wife.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">I was hooked. In just a few minutes a whole new set of capabilities opened up to me. I was consumed with ideas of telephony apps to build. My eyes were opened to the power of APIs. Stumbling on that TechCrunch post literally changed my life.</p><h2 style="white-space:pre-wrap;">From Fanboy to Employee</h2><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">I started <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090710162504/http://john-sheehan.com/blog/building-a-simple-voicemail-system-with-twilio-and-aspnet-mvc-part-1"><span style="text-decoration:underline">blogging about Twilio</span></a>, writing sample apps and <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20100923191339/http://john-sheehan.com/blog/twilioapi-net-wrapper-for-the-twilio-rest-api-now-available/"><span style="text-decoration:underline">helper libraries</span></a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20100923170843/http://john-sheehan.com/blog/using-web-service-apis-in-your-apps-video/"><span style="text-decoration:underline">giving talks at user groups</span></a> and regularly participating in their weekly IRC office hours where I virtually got to know Danielle Morrill, Jeff Lawson, Evan Cooke and other members of the team. Not too long after, <a href="https://www.twilio.com/blog/2009/07/congrats-john-sheehan-you-won-a-netbook-with-simple-hotline.html"><span style="text-decoration:underline">I won the infamous Netbook contest</span></a> which <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20101123140342/http://john-sheehan.com/blog/i-won-a-contest/"><span style="text-decoration:underline">I was ridiculously proud of</span></a>. Ironically, when I later took over running the contest I went to the master spreadsheet and found out there was only one other entry that week and it didnât even work. I didnât care; a win is a win.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">In early 2010 I was in Las Vegas for a trade show for the company I was working for. I saw that Danielle was tweeting about being at a different show there and so we started planning to meet in person for the first time. I was able to leave my show early and go over to the conference center where Twilio was exhibiting. The security guard wouldnât let me in without a badge. I hung out near the entrance hoping to catch them on the way out but I noticed an exit-only side door people were leaving the show through. When the guard wasnât looking, I snuck through the door. Conveniently, the Twilio booth was just inside where I found Danielle and told her how I got in much to her amusement (if you know Danielle, you know this is her kind of thing).</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">We chatted a bit and then she mentioned she wanted to introduce me to Jeff Lawson. When we found him, she introduced me b
256y saying, âJeff, this is John Sheehan, my first choice for our evangelist job opening.â This was news to me on two fronts: that such a job existed and that I was a candidate for it (I had only previously applied for a PHP developer job I was not qualified for).</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Jeff and I chatted and he invited me to dinner with some Twilio customers, investors and other team members. It felt like a dry run of doing an evangelistâs job. After dinner they told me they wanted me to come out to SF for an interview. A few days later, without even visiting, I got an offer that I quickly accepted. <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20100923194919/http://john-sheehan.com/blog/career-change/"><span style="text-decoration:underline">I started April 5th, 2010 as Twilioâs first full-time Developer Evangelist</span></a> and Twilioâs 10th employee.</p><h2 style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Being an Evangelist</h2><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">I didnât really have a job description. I knew my job was to <a href="https://www.twilio.com/blog/2010/04/my-name-is-john-im-here-to-help-you-be-awesome.html"><span style="text-decoration:underline">help bring developers to Twilio</span></a> by doing the things I was already doing but I didnât know what success looked like. We ended up mostly focusing on registered developers as our success metric but found the best way to drive that was not to evangelize (UGH STILL HATE THAT WORD) Twilio but to help developers be more successful. Period. Eventually those relationships would benefit the company when it benefited the developer.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">I really loved doing the job. I met so many great people, many of which I still consider friends. I got way better at writing and presenting. We were blazing a trail for how small companies could do developer outreach (remember that prior to 2010 most Developer Evangelists were at companies like Microsoft and Sun). The sign ups were piling up and accelerating. It was exhausting and exhilarating. The team was growing and I eventually took it over. Shortly after, a new opportunity within the company emerged that I had to go after.</p><h2 style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Working for Danielle</h2><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Danielle is the best manager Iâve ever had. No one has ever pushed me harder. She gave me a ton of autonomy and trusted me to do what I thought was best for the company and our community. She made sure I was recognized for my successes and took the fall for my failures.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">She knew how competitive I was and used it to push me further. We had a 1â1 meeting once where she told me whoever got the most blog page views that month would win something. I found out the next month (after âwinningâ) she hadnât included anyone else on the team in the contest. I was really happy with the results and too impressed with being hoodwinked to be upset.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Danielle is a polarizing figure but is one of the sharpest people I know and someone I will never, ever bet against.</p><h2 style="white-space:pre-wrap;">The API Debate</h2><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Shortly after I moved to SF to take over the evangelism team we were gearing up for a new product launch. Earlier on in the development the team was having trouble coming up with a friendly API (JavaScript in this case). I made a proposal that got adopted. Having that level of impact on product design from outside the product team on a big new product was a big personal win.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Closer to launch, there were still some details to be worked out on the design. Under the pressure of shipping many people became involved in a debate on a final issue. PMs, devs, support, and even Jeff were trying to work it out. I felt very invested in the outcome considering my earlier contribution and having just moved to SF literally to be more involved in moments like this. It got a little heated and I ultimately âlostâ. I was pretty devastated. My reaction didnât sit well with a few people. I stewed a little bit but calmed down and got on with the launch. There was too much to do. Unfortunately this would come up again later.</p><h2 style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Becoming a Product Manager</h2><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">As the product line grew it became difficult for every team to focus on developer experience. The developer console, docs, helper libraries, etc. were starting to suffer a bit from a lack of attention. A new position opened up on the product team to be the Product Manager for developer experience. It felt like a perfect and obvious next step for me given the amount of direct customer feedback I had been exposed to the previous 18 months.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">I donât know what was going on behind the scenes, but it took a long time (around 3 months) to go from expressing interest to getting the job (earlier design debate incident perhaps?). Iâm sure it was complicated but it was really frustrating. I didnât really feel like I had a lot of momentum once the switch was official. My team was small, the projects were unsexy (the ones we wanted to do wouldnât drive the business) and I was new at being a PM. It didnât go particularly well.</p><h2 style="white-space:pre-wrap;">The Breakdown</h2><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">While I was failing at being a PM, some new initiatives in the company were being explored that I felt like undermined our developer-friendly ethos. I understood the potential upside but
256it felt like the company was going through its biggest change yet (change was not uncommon, things felt very different at 10, 20, 50 and 100 people).</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">As a PM with a backlog a mile long, it was difficult to watch resources get diverted to things I didnât believe in. I was also a bit burned out from the intensity of the previous 18 months. This all culminated in a meeting with Jeff (my manager at the time) where I broke down and cried over where things were going. Iâve never been more embarrassed in my career. I left the meeting with a sense that my time at Twilio was coming to an end soon.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">I donât blame Jeff or others in the company for pursuing those opportunities. I probably would have done the same in their position. While those projects were ultimately scuttled, I think the company learned a lot. I was really excited the first time I saw the âAsk Your Developerâ billboard years later. It felt like a return to the Twilio I loved.</p><h2 style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Leaving</h2><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">I left in March of 2012. The company had gone from 10 to over 100 employees. Our registered developers had gone from single-digit thousands to over 100,000. The evangelism team was around 10 people strong and becoming a machine (Rob and crew have done an amazing job since taking it to over 1M developers).</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">On my 2nd to last day I accidentally spilled coffee on my laptop and destroyed it.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Quitting was a mixed bag of emotions. I missed the people. I missed the sense of urgency. I missed the prestige that came with being a part of a startup that was making it. But I was also relieved to not be so stressed all the time.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Do I wish I had stayed? The short answer is ânoâ but Iâm definitely experiencing a bit of FOMO right now. I went to Twilio because I truly believed it had a chance to become a successful company. There was always a really strong sense of mission and endless opportunity. It was palpable sometimes. I would have loved to have seen that play out directly, but leaving was still the right choice. In the 4 years since, Iâve been incredibly fortunate. I owe my entire career since to having been at Twilio. I will probably be banking on that for years to come.</p><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">I have only one regret: I should have negotiated for more options.</p><h2 style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Other Random Memories</h2><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Opening the first red track jacket, Jeff waiting on Andrew, missing every company photo, the Montana trip (and subsequent Owl reward), Super Startup Weekend, Epic Sax on a string, the Chicago demo fail, johnsheehanneedsajacket.com, Andre Bempton, Markâs laugh, Frank taking a stand on âpresentsâ, the fake Twitter feedback, 95% Taylor Swift, Bad Romance jam session, 4am Whattaburger, London tube singing guy & Hawksmoor, Twilioâs first âacquisitionâ via expense report.</p> 257 258 259</div></div></div></div></div></div> 260 261 262 263 264 <!--POST FOOTER--> 265 266 <footer> 267 <div class="meta"> 268 269 270 271 272 273 <div class="second meta-row"> 274 275 276 <span class="squarespace-social-buttons inline-style" data-system-data-id="" data-asset-url="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/52118c34e4b030489dbc406b/521190b7e4b0775e185c57f0/6021512bd96df944d8b4212e/1612796642758/" data-record-type="1" data-full-url="/blog/twilio-retrospective" data-title="Twilio: A Retrospective"></span> 277 </div> 278 279 </div> 280 </footer> 281 282 283 </article> 284 285 <div class="post-divider"></div> 286 287 288<article class="hentry author-john-sheehan post-type-text article-index-4" id="article-53fe16b0e4b093defe90ce21" data-item-id="53fe16b0e4b093defe90ce21"> 289 290 <!--SPECIAL CONTENT--> 291 292 293 294 295 <!--POST HEADER--> 296 297 <header> 298 <h1 class="entry-title"> 299 300 <a href="/blog/ultimate-api-webhook-backend-service-debugging-testing-monitoring-and-discovery-tools-list" data-content-field="title">60+ Tools and Services for API and Webhook Logging, Debugging, Testing, Monitoring, Documentation and Discovery</a> 301 302 </h1> 303 <div class="meta">
304 <span class="date"><time class="published" datetime="2014-08-28">August 28, 2014</time></span> 305 </div> 306 </header> 307 308 <!--POST BODY--> 309 310 311 <div class="body entry-content"><div class="sqs-layout sqs-grid-12 columns-12" data-layout-label="Post Body" data-type="item" data-updated-on="1409165890823" id="item-53fe16b0e4b093defe90ce21"><div class="row sqs-row"><div class="col sqs-col-12 span-12"><div class="sqs-block image-block sqs-block-image" data-block-type="5" id="block-yui_3_17_2_1_1409250767751_13763"><div class="sqs-block-content"> 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 <div 331 class=" 332 image-block-outer-wrapper 333 layout-caption-hidden 334 design-layout-inline 335 336 337 338 " 339 data-test="image-block-inline-outer-wrapper" 340 > 341 342 343 344 345 <figure 346 class=" 347 sqs-block-image-figure 348 intrinsic 349 " 350 style="max-width:800px;" 351 > 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 <div 360 361 362 class="image-block-wrapper" 363 data-animation-role="image" 364 365 data-animation-override 366 367 > 368 <div class="sqs-image-shape-container-element 369 370 371 372 has-aspect-ratio 373 " style=" 374 position: relative; 375 376 padding-bottom:53.375%; 377 378 overflow: hidden; 379 " 380 > 381 <noscript><img src="https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/52118c34e4b030489dbc406b/1409251072607-GBTKB6BDW90GNIRZJHW8/image-asset.jpeg" alt="" /></noscript><img class="thumb-image" data-src="https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/52118c34e4b030489dbc406b/1409251072607-GBTKB6BDW90GNIRZJHW8/image-asset.jpeg" data-image="https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/52118c34e4b030489dbc406b/1409251072607-GBTKB6BDW90GNIRZJHW8/image-asset.jpeg" data-image-dimensions="800x427" data-image-focal-point="0.5,0.5" alt="" data-load="false" data-image-id="53ff7700e4b09024f2c1264c" data-type="image" /> 382 </div> 383 </div> 384 385 386 387 388 389 390 </figure> 391 392 393 </div> 394 395 396 397 398</div></div><div class="sqs-block html-block sqs-block-html" data-block-type="2" id="block-11569e8915be1b323202"><div class="sqs-block-content"> 399 400<p>Pretty much every day someone asks me if there's a tool for solving a specific API problem. While <a href="https://www.runscope.com">Runscope</a> solves many API problems (particularly debugging, testing and monitoring) for app developers, there are many things we don't do. My goal with this post is to list out all the API tools that I know of and frequently recommend to people. Some even compete with us, but the more the merrier.</p><p>I've left out code libraries and frameworks since that would make the post too long.</p><h3>Webhook Debugging</h3><ul><li><strong><a href="http://requestb.in/">RequestBin</a></strong> - The original POST catcher, formerly postbin.org. Inspect HTTP requests. (Free)</li><li><strong><a href="http://webhookinbox.com/">Webhook Inbox</a></strong> - Receives HTTP requests and captures the data for later inspection. (Free)</li><li><strong><a href="http://respondto.it/">RespondTo.it</a></strong> - Debug web hooks like a pro. Supports custom responses. (Free) </li><li><strong><a href="http://inspectb.in/">InspectBin</a></strong> - Similar to RequestBin with live updates (Free)</li><li><strong><a href="https://www.runscope.com/docs/request-capture">Runscope Request Captures</a></strong> - HTTP request inspection with sharing, live updates, SSL, persistent URLs, search, comparisons and more. (Free + Paid)</li></ul><h3>Webhook Utilities</h3><ul><li><strong><a href="http://hookify.io/">Hookify</a></strong> - Filter, manipulate, combine and forward webhook events. (Private Beta)</li><li><strong><a href="http://webhooks.io/">Webhooks.io</a></strong> - Fast, reliable, scalable webhook delivery platform. (Private Beta)</li><li><strong><a href="https://www.webscript.io/">Webscript</a></strong>
400 - Webhook receiver and scripting engine using Lua. (Free + Paid)</li><li><strong><a href="https://torpio.com/">Torpio</a></strong> - JavaScript micro scripting platform for joining up & extending cloud apps. (Free + Paid)</li></ul><h3>Local Tunneling</h3><ul><li><strong><a href="http://ngrok.com">ngrok</a></strong> - Introspected tunnels to localhost (Free + Donations)</li><li><strong><a href="https://www.runscope.com/docs/passageway">Runscope Passageway</a></strong> - A version of ngrok tightly integrated with other Runscope tools. (Free + Paid)</li><li>For the rest, <a href="http://john-sheehan.com/blog/a-survey-of-the-localhost-proxying-landscape">see: A Survey of the Localhost Proxying Landscape</a>.</li></ul><h3>API Monitoring</h3><ul><li><strong><a href="https://www.runscope.com/docs/radar">Runscope Radar</a></strong> - Global API monitoring and testing with flexible assertions, chained requests and OAuth support. Integrates with PagerDuty, New Relic, HipChat, Slack, Keen IO and more. (Free + Paid)</li><li><strong><a href="http://apimetrics.io/">APImetrics</a></strong> - Real-time API tests & performance analysis. (Free + Paid)</li></ul><h3>Response Mocking</h3><ul><li><strong><a href="http://jsonstub.com/">JsonStub</a></strong> - Fake the backend while you develop the front end. (Free, Beta)</li><li><strong><a href="http://www.mockable.io/">Mockable</a></strong> - Create REST and SOAP services which mimic your external providers. (Free, Preview)</li><li><strong><a href="http://www.mocky.io/">mocky.io</a></strong> - Mock your HTTP responses to test your REST API. (Free)</li><li><strong><a href="http://httpbin.org/">httpbin.org</a></strong> - HTTP responses for common scenarios like status codes, delays, streaming, etc. (Free)</li><li><strong><a href="http://pathod.net/">pathod</a></strong> - A pathological web daemon. (Free)</li></ul><h3>JSON Utilities</h3><ul><li><strong><a href="http://jsonformatter.curiousconcept.com/">JSON formatter and validator</a></strong> - Paste in raw JSON, get a formatted, validated version back. (Free + Donations)</li><li><strong><a href="http://jsonformat.com/">JSON format</a></strong> - Paste or load JSON from a URL to format it. (Free)</li><li><strong><a href="http://jsonschemalint.com/">JSON Schema Lint</a></strong> - JSON schema validator to assist you in the writing and testing of JSON Schemas that conform with the Draft 03 specification. (Free)</li><li><strong><a href="http://www.json-generator.com/">JSON Generator</a></strong> - Generate sample JSON data with a comprehensive templating system. (Free)</li><li><strong><a href="http://www.jsoneditoronline.org/">JSON editor online</a></strong> - Edit JSON via a GUI. (Free)</li></ul><h3>OAuth Utilities</h3><ul><li><strong><a href="https://foauth.org/">foauth.org</a></strong> - Simplifies access to your data for services that use OAuth. (Free)</li><li><strong><a href="https://oauth.io/">OAuth.io</a></strong> - The fastest way to integrate OAuth (Free + Paid)</li><li><strong><a href="https://www.runscope.com/oauth_tool">Runscope OAuth 2 Token Generator</a></strong> - Generate OAuth 2 access tokens without having to set up a server. (Free)</li><li><strong><a href="https://www.runscope.com/oauth1_tool">Runscope OAuth 1.0a Token Generator</a></strong> - Generate OAuth 1.0a access tokens without having to set up a server. (Free)</li></ul><h3>API Directories</h3><ul><li><strong><a href="https://www.mashape.com/explore">Mashape</a></strong></li><li><strong><a href="http://apis.io/">APIs.io</a></strong></li><li><strong><a href="http://www.programmableweb.com/apis/directory">ProgrammableWeb</a></strong></li></ul><h3>API Documentation</h3><ul><li><strong><a href="http://apiary.io/">Apiary</a></strong> - Collaborative design, instant API mock, generated documentation, integrated code samples, debugging and automated testing. (Free + Paid)</li><li><strong><a href="http://apiblueprint.org/">API Blueprint</a></strong> - API documentation format used by Apiary and other tools. (Free)</li><li><strong><a href="http://raml.org/">RAML</a></strong> - RESTful API Modeling Language. (Free)</li><li><strong><a href="https://helloreverb.com/developers/swagger">Swagger</a></strong> - Specification and complete framework implementation for describing, producing, consuming, and visualizing RESTful web services. (Free)</li><li><strong><a href="http://www.mashery.com/product/io-docs">I/O Docs</a></strong> - Fast, powerful API documentation & test calls. (Free)</li><li><strong><a href="https://www.embedcurl.com/">Embedcurl.com</a></strong> - Embeddable curl commands for your web site, blog or API documentation. (Free)</li></ul><h3>API Testing</h3><ul><li><strong><a href="https://www.runscope.com/docs/radar">Runscope Radar</a></strong> - HTTP/RESTful API testing in the cloud. Run your tests on every commit, build or deploy with email and webhook notifications for failures. (Free + Paid)</li><li><strong><a href="http://www.soapui.org/">SoapUI</a></strong> - SoapUI is a free and open source cross-platform Functional Testing solution. (Free + Paid)</li><li><strong><a href="http://stoplight.io/">StopLight</a></strong> - A powerful HTTP testing tool. (Free, Beta)</li><li><strong><a href="http://pathod.net/docs/pathoc">pathoc</a></strong>
400 - A perverse HTTP client. (Free)</li></ul><h3>Cloud-based Debugging Proxies</h3><ul><li><strong><a href="https://www.runscope.com/docs/debugging">Runscope Traffic Inspector</a></strong> - Log and inspect HTTP API calls from any language or framework to any API. Share, search, retry, compare requests and more. (Free + Paid)</li><li><strong><a href="https://www.apitools.com/">API Tools</a></strong> - Track, transform and analyze the traffic between your app and the APIs you use. (Free)</li></ul><h3>Desktop Debugging Proxies</h3><ul><li><strong><a href="http://www.charlesproxy.com/">Charles</a></strong> - Charles is an HTTP proxy / HTTP monitor / Reverse Proxy that enables a developer to view all of the HTTP and SSL / HTTPS traffic between their machine and the Internet. Supports OS X, Linux and Windows. (Paid)</li><li><strong><a href="http://www.telerik.com/fiddler">Fiddler</a></strong> - The free web debugging proxy for any browser, system or platform. (Free)</li><li><strong><a href="http://mitmproxy.org/">mitmproxy</a></strong> - Intercept, modify, replay and save HTTP/S traffic. (Free)</li><li><strong><a href="http://portswigger.net/burp/">Burp Suite</a></strong> - Integrated platform for performing security testing of web applications. (Paid)</li><li><strong><a href="http://www.tuffcode.com/">HTTP Scoop</a></strong> - The HTTP sniffer for Mac OS X. (Paid)</li></ul><h3>API Gateway (Self-Hosted)</h3><ul><li><strong><a href="http://tyk.io/">Tyk</a></strong> - An open source, lightweight, fast and scalable API Gateway. (Free + Paid)</li><li><strong><a href="http://apiaxle.com/">ApiAxle</a></strong> - A proxy that sits on your network, in front of your API(s) and manages things that you shouldn't have to, like rate limiting, authentication and analytics. (Free)</li><li><strong><a href="https://support.3scale.net/get-started/quickstarts/hello-world-nginx">3scale</a></strong> - "3scale provides a hybrid (API traffic management on-premise, API administration, traffic reports and developer portal cloud based) full featured API Management solution that is highly scalable, secure and flexible to match the most demanding requirements." (Free + Paid)</li></ul><h3>Load Testing</h3><ul><li><strong><a href="https://loader.io/">Loader.io</a></strong> - Stress test your web apps/APIs with thousands of concurrent connections. (Free + Paid)</li><li><strong><a href="https://www.blitz.io/">Blitz.io</a></strong> - Performance testing for websites, web apps and REST APIs. (Paid)</li><li><strong><a href="http://blazemeter.com/">BlazeMeter</a></strong> - JMeter load testing. Test the performance of any mobile app, website or API. (Free + Paid)</li><li><strong><a href="http://www.loadui.org/">LoadUI</a></strong> - API load testing solution. (Paid)</li></ul><h3>Command Line Tools</h3><ul><li><strong><a href="https://github.com/jakubroztocil/httpie">HTTPie</a></strong> - HTTPie is a command line HTTP client, a user-friendly cURL replacement. (Free)</li><li><strong><a href="http://stedolan.github.io/jq/">jq</a></strong> - Lightweight and flexible command-line JSON processor. (Free)</li></ul><h3>GUI HTTP Clients</h3><ul><li><strong><a href="http://www.hurl.it/">Hurl.it</a></strong> - Make HTTP requests. (Free)</li><li><strong><a href="https://www.getpostman.com/">Postman for Chrome</a></strong> - There are many Chrome apps for making HTTP requests, this one is the best. (Free + Paid)</li><li><strong><a href="http://luckymarmot.com/paw">Paw 2</a></strong>
400 - OS X HTTP client. (Paid)</li><li><strong><a href="http://echoapp.net/">Echo</a></strong> - Another OS X HTTP client. (Paid)</li></ul><h2>Did I miss something?</h2><p>I almost certainly did. Let me know in the comments!</p> 401 402 403</div></div></div></div></div></div> 404 405 406 407 408 <!--POST FOOTER--> 409 410 <footer> 411 <div class="meta"> 412 413 414 415 416 417 <div class="second meta-row"> 418 419 420 <span class="comments"> 421 422 <a href="/blog/ultimate-api-webhook-backend-service-debugging-testing-monitoring-and-discovery-tools-list#comments-53fe16b0e4b093defe90ce21"> 423 424 4 Comments 425 426 </a> 427 428 </span> 429 430 <span class="squarespace-social-buttons inline-style" data-system-data-id="" data-asset-url="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/52118c34e4b030489dbc406b/521190b7e4b0775e185c57f0/53fe16b0e4b093defe90ce21/1458683332668/" data-record-type="1" data-full-url="/blog/ultimate-api-webhook-backend-service-debugging-testing-monitoring-and-discovery-tools-list" data-title="60+ Tools and Services for API and Webhook Logging, Debugging, Testing, Monitoring, Documentation and Discovery"></span> 431 </div> 432 433 </div> 434 </footer> 435 436 437 </article> 438 439 <div class="post-divider"></div> 440 441 442<article class="hentry author-john-sheehan post-type-text article-index-5" id="article-528947f0e4b0020f1bc8bc3c" data-item-id="528947f0e4b0020f1bc8bc3c"> 443 444 <!--SPECIAL CONTENT--> 445 446 447 448 449 <!--POST HEADER--> 450 451 <header> 452 <h1 class="entry-title"> 453 454 <a href="/blog/everything-is-a-remix-making-the-best-use-of-existing-conventions-to-build-runscope" data-content-field="title">Everything is a remix; making the best use of conventions to build Runscope.</a> 455 456 </h1> 457 <div class="meta"> 458 <span class="date"><time class="published" datetime="2013-11-18">November 18, 2013</time></span> 459 </div> 460 </header> 461 462 <!--POST BODY--> 463 464 465 <div class="body entry-content"><div class="sqs-layout sqs-grid-12 columns-12" data-layout-label="Post Body" data-type="item" id="item-528947f0e4b0020f1bc8bc3c"><div class="row sqs-row"><div class="col sqs-col-12 span-12"><div class="sqs-block image-block sqs-block-image sqs-col-6 span-6 float float-right" data-block-type="5" id="block-64d311782646962c937f"><div class="sqs-block-content"> 466 467 468 469 470 471 472 473 474 475 476 477 478 479 480 481 482 483 484 <div 485 class=" 486 image-block-outer-wrapper 487 layout-caption-hidden 488 design-layout-inline 489 490 491 492 " 493 data-test="image-block-inline-outer-wrapper" 494 > 495 496 497 498 499 <figure 500 class=" 501 sqs-block-image-figure 502 intrinsic 503 " 504 style="max-width:450px;" 505 > 506 507 508 509 510 511 512 513 <div 514 515 516 class="image-block-wrapper" 517 data-animation-role="image" 518 519 data-animation-override 520 521 > 522 <div class="sqs-image-shape-container-element 523 524 525 526 527 " style=" 528 position: relative; 529 530 padding-bottom:104%; 531 532 overflow: hidden; 533 " 534 > 535 <noscript><img src="https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/52118c34e4b030489dbc406b/1384735522963-05VSDWJY0Z8QJQUJXTJT/dont-make-me-think-cover.jpg" alt="dont-make-me-think-cover.jpg" /></noscript><img class="thumb-image" data-src="https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/52118c34e4b030489dbc406b/1384735522963-05VSDWJY0Z8QJQUJXTJT/dont-make-me-think-cover.jpg" data-image="https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/52118c34e4b030489dbc406b/1384735522963-05VSDWJY0Z8QJQUJXTJT/dont-make-me-think-cover.jpg" data-image-dimensions="450x468" data-image-focal-point="0.5,0.5" alt="dont-make-me-think-cover.jpg" data-load="false" data-image-id="52896322e4b09b1867fcd2e8" data-type="image" /> 536 </div> 537 </div> 538 539 540 541 542 543 544 </figure> 545 546 547 </div> 548 549 550 551 552</div></div><div class="sqs-block markdown-block sqs-block-markdown" data-block-type="44" id="block-a4c982c3432ba4261997"><div class="sqs-block-content"><p>One of the most influential books of my software career is Steve Krug's <em><a href="http://www.sensible.com/dmmt.html">Don't Make Me Think</a></em>. While the book is a little dated now, it contains a plethora of software design gems. <strong>The one that stuck with me the most over the years is "Conventions are your friends"</strong> in Chapter 3.</p> 553 554<p>Short of copying and pasting the whole section, here are my three favorite excerpts, starting with how an idea becomes a convention:</p> 555 556<blockquote> 557 <p>All conventions start life as somebodyâs bright idea. If the idea works well enough, other sites imitate it and eventually enough people have seen it in enough places that it needs no explanation.</p> 558</blockquote> 559 560<p>Why conventions are useful (emphasis mine):</p> 561 562<blockquote> 563 <p>As a rule, conventions only become conventions if they work. Well-applied conventions make it easier for users to go from site to site without expending a lot of effort figuring out how things work. (...) <strong>Thereâs a reassuring sense of familiarity</strong>...</p> 564</blockquote> 565 566<p>Krug's ultimate recommendation:</p> 567 568<blockquote> 569 <p>Innovate when you know you have a better idea (and everyone you show it to says âWow!â), but take advantage of conventions when you donât.</p> 570</blockquote> 571 572<h2 id="reducereuserecycle">Reduce, Reuse, Recycle</h2> 573 574<p>About a year ago I started on the initial product design that would become Runscope. Knowing we were building something completely new I wanted to introduce as few new concepts as possible. With Krug's voice in my head I was determined to make the best use of existing conventions.</p> 575 576<p>I thought it would be fun to look back at the concepts we borrowed from other services with the benefit of hindsight. Which ones worked out? Which do we regret? Let's find out.</p> 577 578<h3 id="buckets">Buckets</h3> 579 580<p>Buckets are the term we use for organizing your requests by project, app, customer or whatever else works for you. The name was borrowed from S3 but my intial idea for how they would work was more like Gmail's filters and labels. Using a well-known name from another developer tool with the behavior from another tool ended up being pretty confusing. Some early external feedback drove this point home and in the end buckets ended up much closer to their S3 brethren. <strong>Verdict: right decision after an adjustment</strong>.</p> 581 582<h3 id="stars">Stars</h3> 583 584<p>In a fast moving stream of API calls, we were looking for a way to single out requests to save and easily reference later. Gmail's stars seemed like a good model for this. That ended up to not be the case. It forced people to use buckets for lighter-weight organization and those weren't a good fit for a variety of reasons. We needed a middle ground: a simple organization method within a bucket. <strong>Verdict: Not a useful convention for us.</strong></p> 585 586<h3 id="collections">Collections</h3> 587 588<p>We replaced Stars with Collections. They're conceptually similar to Gmail's labels: lightweight, user-defined and optionally one-to-many. With starred requests you had to attribute your own meaning to what starring meant. For collections, you define the meaning in the name you give them. It's much more flexible. <strong>Verdict: Right decision.</strong></p> 589 590<h3 id="sharinglinks">Sharing Links</h3> 591 592<p>In need of a way to share API calls across account boundaries (e.g. to send to an API's support team) I immediately thought of Dropbox's shareable links. We implemented it just like Dropbox, with an explicit click to make a request public and create a public, shareable URL. Public links can be revoked at any time. Revoking and resharing creates a new, unique URL.</p> 593 594<p>A funny thing happened. When asking people to share requests with us, people would click the link to go to the share preview page and then send us the URL for that page, even after clicking the 'Create Share Link' button and being presented with the public URL. Even making the button and resulting URL much more prominent didn't fix it. It took a little bit of <a href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Guide/API/DOM/Manipulating_the_browser_history"><code>history.replaceState()</code></a> cleverness to mitigate the confusion.</p> 595 596<p>If I could go back, I'd simplify the feature. Every request would have a single non-guessable URL with a simple public/private visibility toggle (like Sentry). We may still do this, though revokability is an issue. <strong>Verdict: Right idea, but a little over-engineered.</strong></p> 597 598<h3 id="teamsorganizations">Teams/Organizations</h3> 599 600<p>The first version of our identity database had tables <code>Accounts</code> and <code>Users</code> with every user belonging to a single account. <a href="https://twitter.com/FrankRStratton">Frank</a> wisely deleted that as soon as he saw it. People very rarely have a single organizational association. We ended up using the GitHub model of users and organizations (we call them Teams). This has given us and our customers a lot of flexibility. <strong>Verdict: one of the best early decisions...thanks Frank!</strong></p> 601 602<h2 id="manymore">Many More</h2> 603 604<p>These examples are just from our initial Traffic Inspector product. In <a href="https://www.runscope.com/t/johnblog?next=docs/radar">Runscope Radar</a> (our new product for automated testing) we've also re-used concepts like integration testing assertions and variables with a Mustache-like template syntax.</p> 605 606<p>Next time you're designing a new feature, listen to your inner Steve Krug:</p> 607 608<blockquote> 609 <p>Sometimes time spent reinventing the wheel results in a revolutionary new rolling device. But sometimes it just amounts to time spent reinventing the wheel.</p> 610</blockquote> 611</div></div></div></div></div></div> 612 613 614 615 616 <!--POST FOOTER--> 617 618 <footer> 619 <div class="meta"> 620 621 622 623 624 625 <div class="second meta-row"> 626 627
628 <span class="squarespace-social-buttons inline-style" data-system-data-id="" data-asset-url="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/52118c34e4b030489dbc406b/521190b7e4b0775e185c57f0/528947f0e4b0020f1bc8bc3c/1384735843908/" data-record-type="1" data-full-url="/blog/everything-is-a-remix-making-the-best-use-of-existing-conventions-to-build-runscope" data-title="Everything is a remix; making the best use of conventions to build Runscope."></span> 629 </div> 630 631 </div> 632 </footer> 633 634 635 </article> 636 637 <div class="post-divider"></div> 638 639 640<article class="hentry author-john-sheehan post-type-text article-index-6" id="article-521190b7e4b0775e185c57f3" data-item-id="521190b7e4b0775e185c57f3"> 641 642 <!--SPECIAL CONTENT--> 643 644 645 646 647 <!--POST HEADER--> 648 649 <header> 650 <h1 class="entry-title"> 651 652 <a href="/blog/how-runscope-raised-a-1-1m-seed-round-without" data-content-field="title">How Runscope raised a $1.1M seed round without customers, revenue or even a product.</a> 653 654 </h1> 655 <div class="meta"> 656 <span class="date"><time class="published" datetime="2013-08-16">August 16, 2013</time></span> 657 </div> 658 </header> 659 660 <!--POST BODY--> 661 662 663 <div class="body entry-content"><div class="sqs-layout sqs-grid-12 columns-12" data-layout-label="Post Body" data-type="item" data-updated-on="1400468699788" id="item-521190b7e4b0775e185c57f3"><div class="row sqs-row"><div class="col sqs-col-12 span-12"><div class="sqs-block html-block sqs-block-html" data-block-type="2" id="block-521190b7e4b0775e185c57f4"><div class="sqs-block-content"> 664 665<p>I’ve been seeing a lot of posts lately on how to raise money from venture capitalists for your startup. I used to gobble that stuff up, reading any and every post I could to try to glean any insight I could into the process. Now that I’ve been through the process and have the benefit of hindsight I’ve concluded there’s no universally-applicable advice other than this: your mileage may vary.</p> 666 667<p>Fundraising is a crazy experience, and every founder who’s tried will love to tell you just how crazy it was for them. Your story always feels like the worst possible case until you hear someone else’s. For instance, another founder I knew was raising around the same time we were. They had a product, revenue and had just graduated from an accelerator. I felt like we had no chance compared to where they were at. They didn’t get funded and the company is gone. We did, and we’re here.</p> 668 669<p>I’ve been asked a lot, “How did you pull it off?” We had three things working for us: the right people, a ripe market and a good “story.” My approach to pitching was to hone in on those three things and ignore everything else.</p> 670 671<h3>The Right People</h3> 672 673<p>When I left Twilio, I really wanted to get into consumer web stuff. IFTTT was the perfect hybrid between dev tools and consumer services. Except I repeatedly found myself drawn back to building dev tools. My co-founder Frank is the same way. Everywhere we go, we build tools because it’s what we love to do.</p> 674 675<p>Between the two cofounders, we also had the right talent mix. My background as a developer, product manager and evangelist and Frank as a Lead Engineer on a popular API. We had the skills and track record. Selling the team was always the easiest part of pitching.</p> 676 677<h3>A Ripe Market</h3> 678 679<p>APIs are blowing up. App developers (especially mobile) are building and relying on more APIs (even if they don’t call them that) than ever. The trend is clear. Existing API tools are all focused on API providers. App developers need tools too.</p> 680 681<p>The most common question I got was “How big a market is it?” How many apps can you imagine <em>not</em> talking to a remote web service in the future? That’s how big it is. This was also easy to pitch.</p> 682 683<h3>A Good Story</h3> 684 685<p>Investors hear from good teams, with good ideas in good markets all the time. That was the minimum bar for getting in the door (being relatively well-connected also accelerated the process). But I think what made the biggest difference was the story we told about getting from where we are now to becoming a huge business.</p> 686 687<p>I tried to paint as vivid a picture as possible. Like any good story it had a beginning, middle and end. I explained how product development and marketing would progress and dovetail with each other over time. What the target audience was for each phase. How each phase set the stage for the next one. What we learned from working at a company that went through the process already. After the first few meetings I proactively addressed concerns before they were asked.</p> 688 689<p>Knowing our story inside and out gave me a lot of confidence. The more people I told, the more confident I got that we were on to something. Paul Graham covers this in ‘<a href="http://paulgraham.com/convince.html">How to Convince Investors</a>’:</p> 690 691<blockquote> 692 <p>Investors are not always that good at judging technology, but they’re good at judging confidence. If you try to act like something you’re not, you’ll just end up in an uncanny valley. You’ll depart from sincere, but never arrive at convincing.</p> 693</blockquote> 694 695<hr><p>Raising money was not fun. It was stressful and time-consuming. I feel incredibly fortunate to have had it work out. We ended up with great investors and never felt like we had to “sell out.”</p> 696 697<p>It’s still early for Runscope. We are finding our way and we’re a long way from successful. So far I’m happy with how it’s going. We’re on track to meet our goals, we have a great team (what I’m the most proud of) and we’re having a lot of fun.</p> 698 699 700</div></div></div></div></div></div> 701 702 703 704 705 <!--POST FOOTER--> 706 707 <footer> 708 <div class="meta"> 709 710 711 712 713 714 <div class="second meta-row"> 715 716
717 <span class="comments"> 718 719 <a href="/blog/how-runscope-raised-a-1-1m-seed-round-without#comments-521190b7e4b0775e185c57f3"> 720 721 Comment 722 723 </a> 724 725 </span> 726 727 <span class="squarespace-social-buttons inline-style" data-system-data-id="" data-asset-url="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/52118c34e4b030489dbc406b/521190b7e4b0775e185c57f0/521190b7e4b0775e185c57f3/1376691640000/" data-record-type="1" data-full-url="/blog/how-runscope-raised-a-1-1m-seed-round-without" data-title="How Runscope raised a $1.1M seed round without customers, revenue or even a product."></span> 728 </div> 729 730 </div> 731 </footer> 732 733 734 </article> 735 736 <div class="post-divider"></div> 737 738 739<article class="hentry author-john-sheehan post-type-text article-index-7" id="article-521190b7e4b0775e185c57fd" data-item-id="521190b7e4b0775e185c57fd"> 740 741 <!--SPECIAL CONTENT--> 742 743 744 745 746 <!--POST HEADER--> 747 748 <header> 749 <h1 class="entry-title"> 750 751 <a href="/blog/a-survey-of-the-localhost-proxying-landscape" data-content-field="title">A Survey of the Localhost Proxying Landscape</a> 752 753 </h1> 754 <div class="meta"> 755 <span class="date"><time class="published" datetime="2013-08-05">August 5, 2013</time></span> 756 </div> 757 </header> 758 759 <!--POST BODY--> 760 761 762 <div class="body entry-content"><div class="sqs-layout sqs-grid-12 columns-12" data-layout-label="Post Body" data-type="item" data-updated-on="1400442997950" id="item-521190b7e4b0775e185c57fd"><div class="row sqs-row"><div class="col sqs-col-12 span-12"><div class="sqs-block code-block sqs-block-code" data-block-type="23" id="block-733b1fc9ea4a54e63679"><div class="sqs-block-content"><img src="http://media.tumblr.com/469e5c536db6815b8dc2a09635b53053/tumblr_inline_mr2wxdvL0D1qz4rgp.jpg" title="" alt=""/></div></div><div class="sqs-block html-block sqs-block-html" data-block-type="2" id="block-4a852e950e3c15b98e11"><div class="sqs-block-content"> 763 764<p>In late 2009, soon after coining the term âwebhooksâ and starting to evangelize them to the world, <a href="http://progrium.com/">Jeff Lindsay</a> ran into a problem.</p><blockquote><p>I had another idea while thinking about webhooks. It would be great if I could expose a local web server to the Internet with a friendly URL. It should just be a simple command. There would have to be a server, but there could just be a public server that you didnât even have to think about.</p></blockquote><p>Jeffâs idea grew into <a href="http://progrium.com/localtunnel">localtunnel</a>, a friendly wrapper around an SSH reverse tunnel that makes your localhost available via a public URL. The first time I used it, it felt like magic. It completely changed the nature of working with webhooks. I was, well, hooked.</p><p>What was novel at the time has grown into a little bit of a cottage industry amongst API tool makers. Many similar services have cropped up, specializing in different versions of the same problem. Hereâs an overview of all the services I know of.</p><h3><a href="http://progrium.com/localtunnel/">localtunnel</a></h3><p>The original. The initial SSH-based version with the Ruby client eventually <a href="http://progrium.com/blog/2013/01/01/where-did-localtunnel-come-from/">ran into some issues</a>. Ruby and SSH are also a bit precocious on Windows. <a href="http://progrium.com/blog/2012/12/25/localtunnel-v2-available-in-beta/">Jeff later released a beta of a version 2 with a Python client and a new wire format</a>. Localtunnel has been discontinued in favor ngrok (see below).</p><h3>localtunnel.me</h3><p>A Node.js copy of the original localtunnel that <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7585056">couldn't come up with an original name</a>.</p><h3><a href="https://forwardhq.com/">Forward</a> (formerly Showoff)</h3><p>Forward was another early entrant, focusing more on allowing developers to show off web sites they were working on from their local machine. In early 2011 they rebranded from <a href="https://forwardhq.com/showoff-transition">Showoff to Forward</a>. They offer <a href="https://forwardhq.com/plans">a few different pricing plans</a> for various needs.</p><h3><a href="http://proxylocal.com/">ProxyLocal</a></h3><p>Another Ruby based solution, ProxyLocal was started in late 2010 and was last updated a year ago, though the web service seems to be operating still. It distinguishes itself from localtunnel by letting you choose the subdomain for your public URL. The service is free.</p><h3><a href="https://pagekite.net/">PageKite</a></h3><p>PageKite is another commercial service started around the same time independently of the others (<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6083000">this comment</a> suggests localtunnel predated it by only a few months). PageKite is Python-based, <a href="https://pagekite.net/wiki/OpenSource/">open source</a>
764, offers end-to-end encryption and can tunnel protocols other than HTTP. <a href="http://pagekite.net/2011-04-20/PageKite_meets_Showoff">Hereâs a post comparing it to Showoff</a>. <a href="https://pagekite.net/signup/">They offer subscriptions, pay-what-you-want and a free plan for OSS devs</a>.</p><h3><a href="http://www.ultrahook.com/">Ultrahook</a></h3><p>Ultrahook is a new entrant to the scene, focusing on webhook debugging. Created by <a href="https://twitter.com/veesahni">Vinay Sahni</a> from SupportFu, Ultrahook consists of a client distributed via Ruby gem. The service is free, but the source is not available. By signing up for a free account youâll receive an API key that âgives you a exclusive namespace. All endpoints you create will be subdomains under your own namespace. This ensures that you can always reconnect to the same endpoints at some point in the future.â Ultrahook does not proxy responses back and only supports POST requests.</p><h3><a href="https://meetfinch.com/">Finch</a></h3><p>Another Node.js client/server, currently in beta as of May 2014. Paid plans will be offered when it officially launches. As it is in beta at the time of this update, the full feature set is unknown.<
764/p><h3><a href="http://www.vagrantup.com/blog/feature-preview-vagrant-1-5-share.html">Vagrant Share</a></h3><p>Vagrant Share is a solution for sharing web servers (or any other TCP/UDP connection like SSH) running inside your Vagrant environments. Uses TLS end-to-end. Requires a Vagrant Cloud account.</p><h3><a href="https://ngrok.com/">ngrok</a></h3><p>The current king of localhost proxying is <a href="https://ngrok.com/">ngrok</a> from Alan Shreve (formerly of Twilio). ngrok is written in Go (both client and server) and has, by far, the easiest client installation options with single-file executables for Windows, OS X and Linux. No more fighting with Ruby gems Windows users! In addition, ngrok adds an introspection layer so you can see the traffic that was passed back and forth over the tunnel and even retry requests. ngrok supports SSL, password-protected tunnels, reserved subdomains and support for TCP/UDP tunneling. Itâs free and the source is on GitHub.</p><h3><a href="https://www.runscope.com/docs/passageway">Runscope Passageway</a></h3><p>My company <a href="https://www.runscope.com/">Runscope</a> also offers a version of ngrok called <a href="https://www.runscope.com/docs/passageway">Passageway</a>. Weâve added tight integration with the Runscope API Traffic Inspector and some other enhancements to create a more seamless experience with our other products.</p><h2>My Recommendation</h2><p>If youâre just getting started, I recommend <a href="https://ngrok.com/">ngrok</a>. Client set up is the easiest and it offers the most features of any of the options and its completely free.</p><p><strong>Did I miss any? If so, let me know in the comments.</strong></p><p><em>Update 5/18/2014: Added Finch, localtunnel.me, Vagrant Share and updated details about Runscope Passageway using ngrok instead of localtunnel.</em></p><p><em>Photo courtesy of <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/carlsonarts/">Tina Carlson</a></em></p> 765 766 767</div></div></div></div></div></div> 768 769 770 771 772 <!--POST FOOTER--> 773 774 <footer> 775 <div class="meta"> 776 777 778 779 780 781 <div class="second meta-row"> 782 783 784 <span class="squarespace-social-buttons inline-style" data-system-data-id="" data-asset-url="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/52118c34e4b030489dbc406b/521190b7e4b0775e185c57f0/521190b7e4b0775e185c57fd/1375741718000/" data-record-type="1" data-full-url="/blog/a-survey-of-the-localhost-proxying-landscape" data-title="A Survey of the Localhost Proxying Landscape"></span> 785 </div> 786 787 </div> 788 </footer> 789 790 791 </article> 792 793 <div class="post-divider"></div> 794 795 796<article class="hentry author-john-sheehan post-type-text article-index-8" id="article-521190b7e4b0775e185c5800" data-item-id="521190b7e4b0775e185c5800"> 797 798 <!--SPECIAL CONTENT--> 799 800 801 802 803 <!--POST HEADER--> 804 805 <header> 806 <h1 class="entry-title"> 807 808 <a href="http://blog.epanastasi.com/post/56919440376/oauth-is-awesome-oauth-is-horrible">I, Revolution: OAuth is awesome, OAuth is horrible. <span>→</span></a> 809 810 </h1> 811 <div class="meta"> 812 <span class="date"><time class="published" datetime="2013-07-31">July 31, 2013</time></span> 813 </div> 814 </header> 815 816 <!--POST BODY--> 817 818 819 <div class="body entry-content"><div class="sqs-layout sqs-grid-12 columns-12" data-layout-label="Post Body" data-type="item" id="item-521190b7e4b0775e185c5800"><div class="row sqs-row"><div class="col sqs-col-12 span-12"><div class="sqs-block html-block sqs-block-html" data-block-type="2" id="block-521190b7e4b0775e185c5801"><div class="sqs-block-content"> 820 821<p><a href="http://blog.epanastasi.com/post/56919440376/oauth-is-awesome-oauth-is-horrible" class="tumblr_blog">From my co-founder Frank Stratton</a>:</p> 822 823<blockquote> 824<p><img src="http://media.tumblr.com/7898f8f22a32d44ff49f5e57b0b44e8b/tumblr_inline_mq5gzjFA0i1qz4rgp.jpg" alt=""/></p> <p>Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/38748740@N05/5480153734/">Micro Ecosystem by Pierre Pocs</a></p> <h1>Introduction</h1> <p>After writing the <a href="https://www.runscope.com/docs/api">Runscope API</a>, and several OAuth API clients to other services. Iâve finally had some time to figure out how I feel about OAuth 2.0⦠OAuth is awesome, OAuth is horrible.</p> <p>My co-founder John has already <a href="http://john-sheehan.com/post/41653656681/the-good-and-the-bad-of-oauth-2-0-authorization">written a lot…</a></p></blockquote> 825 826 827</div></div></div></div></div></div> 828 829 830 831 832 <!--POST FOOTER--> 833 834 <footer> 835 <div class="meta"> 836 837 838 839 840 841 <div class="second meta-row"> 842 843
844 <span class="comments"> 845 846 <a href="/blog/i-revolution-oauth-is-awesome-oauth-is-horrible#comments-521190b7e4b0775e185c5800"> 847 848 Comment 849 850 </a> 851 852 </span> 853 854 <span class="squarespace-social-buttons inline-style" data-system-data-id="1376882954463-GTRU7CL3HHLTI75DP88D" data-asset-url="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/52118c34e4b030489dbc406b/521190b7e4b0775e185c57f0/521190b7e4b0775e185c5800/1375293992000/" data-record-type="1" data-full-url="/blog/i-revolution-oauth-is-awesome-oauth-is-horrible" data-title="I, Revolution: OAuth is awesome, OAuth is horrible."></span> 855 </div> 856 857 </div> 858 </footer> 859 860 861 </article> 862 863 <div class="post-divider"></div> 864 865 866<article class="hentry author-john-sheehan post-type-text article-index-9" id="article-521190b8e4b0775e185c5808" data-item-id="521190b8e4b0775e185c5808"> 867 868 <!--SPECIAL CONTENT--> 869 870 871 872 873 <!--POST HEADER--> 874 875 <header> 876 <h1 class="entry-title"> 877 878 <a href="https://www.apichangelog.com/">API Changelog: API Documentation Change Notifications <span>→</span></a> 879 880 </h1> 881 <div class="meta"> 882 <span class="date"><time class="published" datetime="2013-07-14">July 14, 2013</time></span> 883 </div> 884 </header> 885 886 <!--POST BODY--> 887 888 889 <div class="body entry-content"><div class="sqs-layout sqs-grid-12 columns-12" data-layout-label="Post Body" data-type="item" id="item-521190b8e4b0775e185c5808"><div class="row sqs-row"><div class="col sqs-col-12 span-12"><div class="sqs-block html-block sqs-block-html" data-block-type="2" id="block-521190b8e4b0775e185c5809"><div class="sqs-block-content"> 890 891<p>My company Runscope just launched this free service for tracking and sending notifications for changes to the docs for 23 popular APIs including Facebook, Twitter, Stripe, Twilio, Dropbox and more. Follow the APIs you depend on and receive a daily email summary if anything changes.</p> 892 893 894</div></div></div></div></div></div> 895 896 897 898 899 <!--POST FOOTER--> 900 901 <footer> 902 <div class="meta"> 903 904 905 906 907 908 <div class="second meta-row"> 909 910 911 <span class="comments"> 912 913 <a href="/blog/api-changelog-api-documentation-change-notifications#comments-521190b8e4b0775e185c5808"> 914 915 Comment 916 917 </a> 918 919 </span> 920 921 <span class="squarespace-social-buttons inline-style" data-system-data-id="1376882959531-7Z0YHU9A3QRB8O9PEJRY" data-asset-url="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/52118c34e4b030489dbc406b/521190b7e4b0775e185c57f0/521190b8e4b0775e185c5808/1373861440000/" data-record-type="1" data-full-url="/blog/api-changelog-api-documentation-change-notifications" data-title="API Changelog: API Documentation Change Notifications"></span> 922 </div> 923 924 </div> 925 </footer> 926 927 928 </article> 929 930 <div class="post-divider"></div> 931 932 933<article class="hentry author-john-sheehan post-type-text article-index-10" id="article-521190b8e4b0775e185c580b" data-item-id="521190b8e4b0775e185c580b"> 934 935 <!--SPECIAL CONTENT--> 936 937 938 939 940 <!--POST HEADER--> 941 942 <header> 943 <h1 class="entry-title"> 944 945 <a href="/blog/launched" data-content-field="title">Launched</a> 946 947 </h1> 948 <div class="meta"> 949 <span class="date"><time class="published" datetime="2013-05-22">May 22, 2013</time></span> 950 </div> 951 </header> 952 953 <!--POST BODY--> 954 955 956 <div class="body entry-content"><div class="sqs-layout sqs-grid-12 columns-12" data-layout-label="Post Body" data-type="item" id="item-521190b8e4b0775e185c580b"><div class="row sqs-row"><div class="col sqs-col-12 span-12"><div class="sqs-block html-block sqs-block-html" data-block-type="2" id="block-521190b8e4b0775e185c580c"><div class="sqs-block-content"> 957 958<p>Today we opened the doors on <a href="https://www.runscope.com">Runscope</a>, our new set of tools for debugging, testing and inspecting your API integrations. In addition to that, we announced that <a href="(http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/22/runscope-lands-1-1m-from-true-ventures-and-andreessen-horowitz-for-tools-that-address-the-broken-api-plague/)">we’ve received a seed round investment</a> of $1.1M from True Ventures, Lerer Ventures, David Cohen, Andreessen Horowitz, Nat Friedman, Jon Dahl and Ullas Naik.</p> 959 960<p>While launching to the public is a lot of fun and the culmination of a lot of hard work, it’s just the starting line for the next stage of what we’re trying to accomplish. Even so, getting here required a lot of help and support from a great many people and I’d like to thank those that were instrumental in helping us get this far.</p> 961 962<p>First off, my wife Emily. When I told her I wanted to quit my job to start a company she didn’t even flinch. When fundraising hit rough patches she was unwaveringly supportive. Thank y
962ou honey.</p> 963 964<p>Next up, my co-founder Frank and the rest of the team that has joined us in the past few months: you’ve done amazing work in a short period of time and you’re a blast to work with. Honored to be working with you.</p> 965 966<p>To Nat Friedman, Jon Dahl, Ullas Naik, Adam D’Augelli and the True crew, David Cohen, Ari Newman, Max Stoller, Steve Schlafman, Chris Dixon, and Frank Chen: I couldn’t ask for a better set of investors. Thank you all for your support.</p> 967 968<p>And lastly to everyone else who helped with intros, reference calls, testing out the preview, advice, lawyering, finding office space, candidate referrals, etc: thanks for playing a small part in helping us get this far.</p> 969 970<p>Now, the hard part.</p> 971 972 973</div></div></div></div></div></div> 974 975 976 977 978 <!--POST FOOTER--> 979 980 <footer> 981 <div class="meta"> 982 983 984 985 986 987 <div class="second meta-row"> 988 989 990 <span class="comments"> 991 992 <a href="/blog/launched#comments-521190b8e4b0775e185c580b"> 993 994 Comment 995 996 </a> 997 998 </span> 999 1000 <span class="squarespace-social-buttons inline-style" data-system-data-id="" data-asset-url="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/52118c34e4b030489dbc406b/521190b7e4b0775e185c57f0/521190b8e4b0775e185c580b/1369258402000/" data-record-type="1" data-full-url="/blog/launched" data-title="Launched"></span> 1001 </div> 1002 1003 </div> 1004 </footer> 1005 1006 1007 </article> 1008 1009 <div class="post-divider"></div> 1010 1011 1012<article class="hentry author-john-sheehan post-type-text article-index-11" id="article-521190b8e4b0775e185c580e" data-item-id="521190b8e4b0775e185c580e"> 1013 1014 <!--SPECIAL CONTENT--> 1015 1016 1017 1018 1019 <!--POST HEADER--> 1020 1021 <header> 1022 <h1 class="entry-title"> 1023 1024 <a href="http://apidigest.com/posts/2013/5/12/api-digest-20">API Digest 2.0 <span>→</span></a> 1025 1026 </h1> 1027 <div class="meta"> 1028 <span class="date"><time class="published" datetime="2013-05-13">May 13, 2013</time></span> 1029 </div> 1030 </header> 1031 1032 <!--POST BODY--> 1033 1034 1035 <div class="body entry-content"><div class="sqs-layout sqs-grid-12 columns-12" data-layout-label="Post Body" data-type="item" id="item-521190b8e4b0775e185c580e"><div class="row sqs-row"><div class="col sqs-col-12 span-12"><div class="sqs-block html-block sqs-block-html" data-block-type="2" id="block-521190b8e4b0775e185c580f"><div class="sqs-block-content"> 1036 1037<p>Today I’m happy to release a brand new <a href="http://apidigest.com">API Diges</a>t. Previously the digest was email-only. Starting today all links will be available via apidigest.com and @APIDigest on <a href="http://twitter.com/apidigest">Twitter</a> and <a href="http://alpha.app.net/apidigest">App.net</a>. You can also subscribe to the <a href="http://apidigest.com/rss">RSS feed</a>. Lastly, be sure to check out the new ‘<a href="http://apidigest.com/events">Events</a>' list.</p> 1038 1039 1040</div></div></div></div></div></div> 1041 1042 1043 1044 1045 <!--POST FOOTER--> 1046 1047 <footer> 1048 <div class="meta"> 1049 1050 1051 1052 1053 1054 <div class="second meta-row"> 1055 1056 1057 <span class="comments"> 1058 1059 <a href="/blog/api-digest-2-0#comments-521190b8e4b0775e185c580e"> 1060 1061 Comment 1062 1063 </a> 1064 1065 </span> 1066 1067 <span class="squarespace-social-buttons inline-style" data-system-data-id="1376882956397-1LX065AQZHT8UCGJ5AET" data-asset-url="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/52118c34e4b030489dbc406b/521190b7e4b0775e185c57f0/521190b8e4b0775e185c580e/1368460848000/" data-record-type="1" data-full-url="/blog/api-digest-2-0" data-title="API Digest 2.0"></span> 1068 </div> 1069 1070 </div> 1071 </footer> 1072 1073 1074 </article> 1075 1076 <div class="post-divider"></div> 1077 1078 1079<article class="hentry tag-apis author-john-sheehan post-type-text article-index-12" id="article-521190b8e4b0775e185c5811" data-item-id="521190b8e4b0775e185c5811"> 1080 1081 <!--SPECIAL CONTENT--> 1082 1083 1084 1085 1086 <!--POST HEADER--> 1087 1088 <header> 1089 <h1 class="entry-title"> 1090 1091 <a href="/blog/designing-apis-for-humans" data-content-field="title">Designing APIs for Humans</a> 1092 1093 </h1> 1094 <div class="meta">
1095 <span class="date"><time class="published" datetime="2013-04-25">April 25, 2013</time></span> 1096 </div> 1097 </header> 1098 1099 <!--POST BODY--> 1100 1101 1102 <div class="body entry-content"><div class="sqs-layout sqs-grid-12 columns-12" data-layout-label="Post Body" data-type="item" id="item-521190b8e4b0775e185c5811"><div class="row sqs-row"><div class="col sqs-col-12 span-12"><div class="sqs-block html-block sqs-block-html" data-block-type="2" id="block-521190b8e4b0775e185c5812"><div class="sqs-block-content"> 1103 1104<iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/64659021?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0&color=f3b940" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen></iframe> 1105 1106<p>Earlier this month I gave a talk at <a href="http://devslovebacon.com/">Devs Love Bacon</a> on an API design philosophy I picked up while working at <a href="http://ifttt.com">IFTTT</a> I’ve been calling ‘APIs for Humans’. Sadly, it’s not about this:</p> 1107 1108<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>OH at @<a href="https://twitter.com/devslovebacon">devslovebacon</a> “I thought the “APIs for humans” talk was about controlling humans” <a href="https://twitter.com/search/%23devslovebacon">#devslovebacon</a></p>â Julian Cheal (@juliancheal) <a href="https://twitter.com/juliancheal/status/322685410335678464">April 12, 2013</a></blockquote> 1109
1110<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
1110<p>At IFTTT I identified three major areas for how non-developers end up consuming API data in significant numbers. In this talk I cover what those areas are and how you can tailor your API designs to encourage developers to build human-friendly integrations.</p> 1111 1112<p>Since I had extra time I threw in a few points on developer experience too. After all, developers are humans too.</p> 1113 1114 1115</div></div></div></div></div></div> 1116 1117 1118 1119 1120 <!--POST FOOTER--> 1121 1122 <footer> 1123 <div class="meta"> 1124 1125 1126 1127 1128 <div class="first meta-row"> 1129 1130 <span class="tags"><span class="tags-title">Tags</span> <a href="/blog/tag/apis" rel="tag">apis</a></span> 1131 </div> 1132 1133 1134 <div class="second meta-row"> 1135 1136 1137 <span class="comments"> 1138 1139 <a href="/blog/designing-apis-for-humans#comments-521190b8e4b0775e185c5811"> 1140 1141 Comment 1142 1143 </a> 1144 1145 </span> 1146 1147 <span class="squarespace-social-buttons inline-style" data-system-data-id="" data-asset-url="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/52118c34e4b030489dbc406b/521190b7e4b0775e185c57f0/521190b8e4b0775e185c5811/1366911843000/" data-record-type="1" data-full-url="/blog/designing-apis-for-humans" data-title="Designing APIs for Humans"></span> 1148 </div> 1149 1150 </div> 1151 </footer> 1152 1153 1154 </article> 1155 1156 <div class="post-divider"></div> 1157 1158 1159<article class="hentry author-john-sheehan post-type-text article-index-13" id="article-521190b8e4b0775e185c581e" data-item-id="521190b8e4b0775e185c581e"> 1160 1161 <!--SPECIAL CONTENT--> 1162 1163 1164 1165 1166 <!--POST HEADER--> 1167 1168 <header> 1169 <h1 class="entry-title"> 1170 1171 <a href="http://apiux.com/2013/03/21/authentication-dont-be-clever/">Authentication: Donât be Clever <span>→</span></a> 1172 1173 </h1> 1174 <div class="meta"> 1175 <span class="date"><time class="published" datetime="2013-03-22">March 22, 2013</time></span> 1176 </div> 1177 </header> 1178 1179 <!--POST BODY--> 1180 1181 1182 <div class="body entry-content"><div class="sqs-layout sqs-grid-12 columns-12" data-layout-label="Post Body" data-type="item" id="item-521190b8e4b0775e185c581e"><div class="row sqs-row"><div class="col sqs-col-12 span-12"><div class="sqs-block html-block sqs-block-html" data-block-type="2" id="block-521190b8e4b0775e185c581f"><div class="sqs-block-content"> 1183 1184<p>My contribution to the new <a href="http://www.apiux.com">API UX</a> blog:</p> 1185 1186<blockquote> 1187 <p>By using standardized, common authentication schemes you can reduce the cognitive overhead for the developer consuming your API and avoid getting into unfamiliar, untested security situations. Authentication is the first thing any developer using your API will have to deal with and itâs those first few moments that are crucial to their success using your API to solve their problem. Take care to make the first impression a good one.</p> 1188</blockquote> 1189 1190 1191</div></div></div></div></div></div> 1192 1193 1194 1195 1196 <!--POST FOOTER--> 1197 1198 <footer> 1199 <div class="meta"> 1200 1201 1202 1203 1204 1205 <div class="second meta-row"> 1206 1207 1208 <span class="comments"> 1209 1210 <a href="/blog/authentication-dont-be-clever#comments-521190b8e4b0775e185c581e"> 1211 1212 Comment 1213 1214 </a> 1215 1216 </span> 1217 1218 <span class="squarespace-social-buttons inline-style" data-system-data-id="1376882955705-ER6TFKAHXM9YDM1MK7CZ" data-asset-url="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/52118c34e4b030489dbc406b/521190b7e4b0775e185c57f0/521190b8e4b0775e185c581e/1363975901000/" data-record-type="1" data-full-url="/blog/authentication-dont-be-clever" data-title="Authentication: Donât be Clever"></span> 1219 </div> 1220 1221 </div> 1222 </footer> 1223 1224 1225 </article> 1226 1227 <div class="post-divider"></div> 1228 1229 1230<article class="hentry author-john-sheehan post-type-text article-index-14" id="article-521190b8e4b0775e185c5821" data-item-id="521190b8e4b0775e185c5821"> 1231 1232 <!--SPECIAL CONTENT--> 1233 1234 1235 1236 1237 <!--POST HEADER--> 1238 1239 <header> 1240 <h1 class="entry-title"> 1241 1242 <a href="/blog/the-good-and-the-bad-of-oauth-2-0-authorization" data-content-field="title">The Good and the Bad of OAuth 2.0 Authorization Implementations</a> 1243 1244 </h1> 1245 <div class="meta">
1246 <span class="date"><time class="published" datetime="2013-01-27">January 27, 2013</time></span> 1247 </div> 1248 </header> 1249 1250 <!--POST BODY--> 1251 1252 1253 <div class="body entry-content"><div class="sqs-layout sqs-grid-12 columns-12" data-layout-label="Post Body" data-type="item" id="item-521190b8e4b0775e185c5821"><div class="row sqs-row"><div class="col sqs-col-12 span-12"><div class="sqs-block html-block sqs-block-html" data-block-type="2" id="block-521190b8e4b0775e185c5822"><div class="sqs-block-content"> 1254 1255<p>While testing out a new tool I’m working on that uses a variety of OAuth2 providers and thought I’d catalog some of the quirks I came across. This is just for the authorization flow, not for actually making requests once you’ve secured a token.</p> 1256 1257<p>Now that the <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6749">OAuth2 spec</a> is solidified we should start seeing less and less of these issues.</p> 1258 1259<h3>Google</h3> 1260 1261<p><strong>Good:</strong> The <a href="https://code.google.com/apis/console#access">APIs Console</a> is one of the best out there. My favorite feature: allowing you to specify multiple callback URLs for a single app. This makes testing different environments way easier because you don’t need to go back and constantly edit the callback URL value.</p> 1262 1263<p><strong>Good:</strong> The <a href="https://developers.google.com/oauthplayground/">OAuth 2.0 Playground</a> is <em>fantastic</em>. It will show you all the HTTP requests that are made for a standard auth flow. This makes it really easy to debug issues on your end by comparing the requests. I used it to diagnose the following problem.</p> 1264 1265<p><strong>Bad:</strong> When requesting an Access Token the request will fail if you include any parameters that it is not expecting. Google does not require a <code>state</code> or <code>type</code> parameter when getting the token like some other APIs do and will give you a 400 Bad Request with an <code>invalid_request</code> error if they are included.</p> 1266 1267<p><strong>Bad:</strong> The scopes options are not immediately obvious. There’s a huge list of services and you must enable them individually (good) in the ‘Services’ section of your project in the APIs Console. This page though does not list the scopes value to use. The Playground does have what appears to be a complete list.</p> 1268 1269<h3>Facebook</h3> 1270 1271<p><strong>Bad:</strong> If you just want to use OAuth with the Graph API, you still need to enable “Website with Facebook Login” in order to set the Site URL. This is hidden by default and took me a little bit to find it. This setting restricts which domains they will redirect back to.</p> 1272 1273<p><strong>Good:</strong> The Site URL only requires a domain instead of a full URL which means you can change your callback URL path without breaking your app.</p> 1274 1275<h3>37signals</h3> 1276 1277<p><strong>Bad:</strong> When you create the app you select which services you want your app to have access to but during the auth flow only one of the services is displayed.</p> 1278 1279<p><strong>Bad:</strong> There’s no support for limiting access to read-only via scopes. The only option is full read/write for all of the apps selected.</p> 1280 1281<h3>Stripe</h3> 1282 1283<p><strong>Bad:</strong> Stripe does not use a <code>client_secret</code>. Most client libraries and OAuth examples use it so it may be confusing for experienced developers wondering where that value is.</p> 1284 1285<p><strong>Bad:</strong> This is not technically wrong, but it isn’t common. When exchanging the code for an access token you are required to send an <code>Authorization</code> header with a value of <code>Bearer</code> and your Stripe account secret key (either test or live). I’d rather they just tell you to use the secret key as the client_secret and not require the additional header.</p> 1286 1287<h3>Instagram</h3> 1288 1289<p><strong>Bad:</strong> The docs say that the <code>scope</code> parameter is optional but will give you an error (400 OAuthException - Invalid scope field(s)) if it isn’t specified. You should specify at least ‘basic’.</p> 1290 1291<h3>Box</h3> 1292 1293<p><strong>Bad:</strong> The redirect URL settings requires HTTPS which can be difficult if you’re trying to test locally (for instance my test app runs on http://localhost:5001 which is accepted every where else). Box has
1293informed me this will be resolved soon.</p> 1294 1295<p><strong>Bad:</strong> Does not use scopes for read-only or read/write access (is configured with the application). Box has also told me they will be changing this once they have more than one scope.</p> 1296 1297<h3>Microsoft Live Connect</h3> 1298 1299<p><strong>Good:</strong> Permissions are set via an <a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/live/hh243646.aspx">extensive and clear list of scopes</a>. Very nice.</p> 1300 1301<h3>Stack Exchange</h3> 1302 1303<p><strong>Good:</strong> Callback URL validation is set via domain only (similar to Facebook).</p> 1304 1305<h3>GitHub</h3> 1306 1307<p><strong>Bad:</strong> Scopes must be specified comma-separated, contrary to the OAuth2 spec. <a href="https://twitter.com/pengwynn/status/295656100018126848">This is on the roadmap to be fixed</a>.</p> 1308 1309<h3>App.net</h3> 1310 1311<p><strong>Good:</strong> The application manager allows you to generate a token for yourself with custom scopes without having to go through the flow. This is extremely helpful during development.</p> 1312 1313<h3>Others</h3> 1314 1315<p>Here are some others that I tried that I didn’t have any notable issues with: MailChimp, Foursquare, Wordpress.</p> 1316 1317<p>Here are the services I desperately wish would move from OAuth 1.0a to OAuth 2.0: Twitter, Dropbox, LinkedIn</p> 1318 1319<p>If you’ve come across a unique implementation quirk of your own, post it below in the comments.</p> 1320 1321<h3>Related Posts</h3> 1322 1323<ul><li><a href="http://john-sheehan.com/post/21850777760/the-api-developer-experience-baseline">The API Developer Experience Baseline</a></li> 1324<li><a href="http://john-sheehan.com/post/18688963163/dont-build-the-best-rest-api-build-the-best-http-api">Don’t Build the Best REST API, Build the Best HTTP API</a></li> 1325</ul> 1326 1327 1328</div></div></div></div></div></div> 1329 1330 1331 1332 1333 <!--POST FOOTER--> 1334 1335 <footer> 1336 <div class="meta"> 1337 1338 1339 1340 1341 1342 <div class="second meta-row"> 1343 1344 1345 <span class="comments"> 1346 1347 <a href="/blog/the-good-and-the-bad-of-oauth-2-0-authorization#comments-521190b8e4b0775e185c5821"> 1348 1349 Comment 1350 1351 </a> 1352 1353 </span> 1354 1355 <span class="squarespace-social-buttons inline-style" data-system-data-id="" data-asset-url="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/52118c34e4b030489dbc406b/521190b7e4b0775e185c57f0/521190b8e4b0775e185c5821/1359331320000/" data-record-type="1" data-full-url="/blog/the-good-and-the-bad-of-oauth-2-0-authorization" data-title="The Good and the Bad of OAuth 2.0 Authorization Implementations"></span> 1356 </div> 1357 1358 </div> 1359 </footer> 1360 1361 1362 </article> 1363 1364 <div class="post-divider"></div> 1365 1366 1367<article class="hentry author-john-sheehan post-type-text article-index-15" id="article-521190b8e4b0775e185c5824" data-item-id="521190b8e4b0775e185c5824"> 1368 1369 <!--SPECIAL CONTENT--> 1370 1371 1372 1373 1374 <!--POST HEADER--> 1375 1376 <header> 1377 <h1 class="entry-title"> 1378 1379 <a href="/blog/age" data-content-field="title">Age</a> 1380 1381 </h1> 1382 <div class="meta"> 1383 <span class="date"><time class="published" datetime="2013-01-11">January 11, 2013</time></span> 1384 </div> 1385 </header> 1386 1387 <!--POST BODY--> 1388 1389 1390 <div class="body entry-content"><div class="sqs-layout sqs-grid-12 columns-12" data-layout-label="Post Body" data-type="item" id="item-521190b8e4b0775e185c5824"><div class="row sqs-row"><div class="col sqs-col-12 span-12"><div class="sqs-block html-block sqs-block-html" data-block-type="2" id="block-521190b8e4b0775e185c5825"><div class="sqs-block-content"> 1391 1392<p>This post is a little more personal and not at all technical. I realized I’ve been wanting to write about this for awhile.</p> 1393 1394<p>On the <a href="http://www.hanselminutes.com/353/coneryminutes-2-the-mid-life-crisis">latest episode of Hanselminutes</a> two of my favorite internet friends had a discussion on age as they are nearing their 40th and 45th birthdays. I happened to come up a couple times as a reference point for The Young’uns.</p> 1395 1396<p><img src="http://media.tumblr.com/0d18837024eaa29d1f684a24569d21aa/tumblr_inline_mgh9a4usxg1qcl1x1.jpg"/> Age has always been a sensitive issue for me. When I was 5 my mom homeschooled me and when she couldn’t do it anymore and it was time to go to public school I was effectively done with first grade so she bumped me ahead to second grade. The rest of my primary and secondary sc
1396hool years I trailed all my classmates in age by a year. I got my license my junior year, graduated at 17, etc. I played sports on teams consisting of all older players. I was always very determined to prove that my age didn’t matter.</p> 1397 1398<p>When I started running companies when I was 15 my age was an advantage. It got me attention and customers. When I started working real jobs at 19 it was also an advantage because people couldn’t believe how mature and experienced I was “for his age.” At about 25 when all my peers had experience too (with degrees to boot) it wasn’t as advantageous.</p> 1399 1400<p><img src="http://media.tumblr.com/c9b4d93a8e5835c85f6f62e9e41aae81/tumblr_inline_mgh945LRdV1qcl1x1.jpg" title="at my first real job"/></p> 1401 1402<p>Now I’m 31. In the SF tech scene I frequently feel old. My experience frequently gets deferred to (which often makes me slightly uncomfortable). Some of the younger engineers I’ve worked with lately have made me feel <em>really</em> old. They’re insanely smart but make me realize how much experience I actually have now (going on 16 years of doing computer stuff for money). 30 under 30 lists drive me crazy not because that’s my goal in life, but just because it’s impossible nonetheless. My wife consoles me by saying there’s plenty of time for 81 under 81.</p> 1403 1404<p>Back to the Hanselminutes episode. Rob talks about a recent dinner we had together where he was giving me some advice (that I appreciated) and my reaction. I (not surprisingly) reacted by giving him a look that said I have it all under control. Almost certainly I was overcompensating for my age insecurities. I rarely feel like I do have everything under control and I crave insight from people more experienced than me.</p> 1405 1406<p>At the same time, I do know some things now. More importantly I know what I don’t know. All of that experience has lead me to a position where I can <a href="http://john-sheehan.com/post/40122684922/runscope">be a founder of a startup</a>. I’m not doing this because I’m young and impetuous and want to ride the wave of the current ‘bubble.’ I’m doing this because I know what it will take for me to be happy in my work and I’m not going to spend any more time not pursuing it. I’ve known that for a long time, but I’m at a point where my age is an asset in making this happen. So I’m going to.</p> 1407 1408 1409</div></div></div></div></div></div> 1410 1411 1412 1413 1414 <!--POST FOOTER--> 1415 1416 <footer> 1417 <div class="meta"> 1418 1419 1420 1421 1422 1423 <div class="second meta-row"> 1424 1425 1426 <span class="comments"> 1427 1428 <a href="/blog/age#comments-521190b8e4b0775e185c5824"> 1429 1430 Comment 1431 1432 </a> 1433 1434 </span> 1435 1436 <span class="squarespace-social-buttons inline-style" data-system-data-id="" data-asset-url="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/52118c34e4b030489dbc406b/521190b7e4b0775e185c57f0/521190b8e4b0775e185c5824/1357935259000/" data-record-type="1" data-full-url="/blog/age" data-title="Age"></span> 1437 </div> 1438 1439 </div> 1440 </footer> 1441 1442 1443 </article> 1444 1445 <div class="post-divider"></div> 1446 1447 1448<article class="hentry author-john-sheehan post-type-text article-index-16" id="article-521190b8e4b0775e185c5827" data-item-id="521190b8e4b0775e185c5827"> 1449 1450 <!--SPECIAL CONTENT--> 1451 1452 1453 1454 1455 <!--POST HEADER--> 1456 1457 <header> 1458 <h1 class="entry-title"> 1459 1460 <a href="/blog/runscope" data-content-field="title">Runscope</a> 1461 1462 </h1> 1463 <div class="meta"> 1464 <span class="date"><time class="published" datetime="2013-01-09">January 9, 2013</time></span> 1465 </div> 1466 </header> 1467 1468 <!--POST BODY--> 1469 1470 1471 <div class="body entry-content"><div class="sqs-layout sqs-grid-12 columns-12" data-layout-label="Post Body" data-type="item" id="item-521190b8e4b0775e185c5827"><div class="row sqs-row"><div class="col sqs-col-12 span-12"><div class="sqs-block html-block sqs-block-html" data-block-type="2" id="block-521190b8e4b0775e185c5828"><div class="sqs-block-content"> 1472 1473<p><a href="https://www.runscope.com"><img src="http://media.tumblr.com/2092bcce7a1922faddf5f02f9a0ba04b/tumblr_inline_mgdqiedSV81qcl1x1.png" alt=""/></a></p> 1474 1475<p>Iâm very excited to announce that I have co-founded a company. If you use APIs in your mobile or web applications <a href="https://www.runscope.com">request an invite to our early preview</a>. Weâre still very early in this and will be talking about more details as we progress.</p> 1476 1477<p>The plan when I moved out to San Francisco was always to eventually start something of my own. I learned a ton working at Twil
1477io and IFTTT and now hope to apply that knowledge to build a great company. Nowâs the time. Weâve got a great team and a giant problem to solve and I can’t wait to show it to all of you.</p> 1478 1479<p><a href="https://twitter.com/runscope">Follow Runscope on Twitter</a> to track our progress.</p> 1480 1481 1482</div></div></div></div></div></div> 1483 1484 1485 1486 1487 <!--POST FOOTER--> 1488 1489 <footer> 1490 <div class="meta"> 1491 1492 1493 1494 1495 1496 <div class="second meta-row"> 1497 1498 1499 <span class="comments"> 1500 1501 <a href="/blog/runscope#comments-521190b8e4b0775e185c5827"> 1502 1503 Comment 1504 1505 </a> 1506 1507 </span> 1508 1509 <span class="squarespace-social-buttons inline-style" data-system-data-id="" data-asset-url="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/52118c34e4b030489dbc406b/521190b7e4b0775e185c57f0/521190b8e4b0775e185c5827/1357770698000/" data-record-type="1" data-full-url="/blog/runscope" data-title="Runscope"></span> 1510 </div> 1511 1512 </div> 1513 </footer> 1514 1515 1516 </article> 1517 1518 <div class="post-divider"></div> 1519 1520 1521<article class="hentry author-john-sheehan post-type-text article-index-17" id="article-521190b8e4b0775e185c582a" data-item-id="521190b8e4b0775e185c582a"> 1522 1523 <!--SPECIAL CONTENT--> 1524 1525 1526 1527 1528 <!--POST HEADER--> 1529 1530 <header> 1531 <h1 class="entry-title"> 1532 1533 <a href="http://blog.programmableweb.com/2012/12/11/announcing-the-2012-api-community-survey/">2012 API Community Survey <span>→</span></a> 1534 1535 </h1> 1536 <div class="meta"> 1537 <span class="date"><time class="published" datetime="2012-12-17">December 17, 2012</time></span> 1538 </div> 1539 </header> 1540 1541 <!--POST BODY--> 1542 1543 1544 <div class="body entry-content"><div class="sqs-layout sqs-grid-12 columns-12" data-layout-label="Post Body" data-type="item" id="item-521190b8e4b0775e185c582a"><div class="row sqs-row"><div class="col sqs-col-12 span-12"><div class="sqs-block html-block sqs-block-html" data-block-type="2" id="block-521190b8e4b0775e185c582b"><div class="sqs-block-content"> 1545 1546<p>I (via <a href="http://www.api-jobs.com">API Jobs</a>) teamed up with Programmable Web, Mashery, 3scale and Layer7 to survey the API community landscape. One lucky participant will win an 11” MacBook Air or Surface Pro. If you’ve built or used an API in the last year, please <a href="http://www.api-survey.com">take a few minutes to take the survey</a>.</p> 1547 1548 1549</div></div></div></div></div></div> 1550 1551 1552 1553 1554 <!--POST FOOTER--> 1555 1556 <footer> 1557 <div class="meta"> 1558 1559 1560 1561 1562 1563 <div class="second meta-row"> 1564 1565 1566 <span class="comments"> 1567 1568 <a href="/blog/2012-api-community-survey#comments-521190b8e4b0775e185c582a"> 1569 1570 Comment 1571 1572 </a> 1573 1574 </span> 1575 1576 <span class="squarespace-social-buttons inline-style" data-system-data-id="1376882955405-1Z0PJUD1TYJP4Q9DXWZK" data-asset-url="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/52118c34e4b030489dbc406b/521190b7e4b0775e185c57f0/521190b8e4b0775e185c582a/1355767233000/" data-record-type="1" data-full-url="/blog/2012-api-community-survey" data-title="2012 API Community Survey"></span> 1577 </div> 1578 1579 </div> 1580 </footer> 1581 1582 1583 </article> 1584 1585 <div class="post-divider"></div> 1586 1587 1588<article class="hentry author-john-sheehan post-type-text article-index-18" id="article-521190b8e4b0775e185c582d" data-item-id="521190b8e4b0775e185c582d"> 1589 1590 <!--SPECIAL CONTENT--> 1591 1592 1593 1594 1595 <!--POST HEADER--> 1596 1597 <header> 1598 <h1 class="entry-title"> 1599 1600 <a href="/blog/box-api-v2-less-is-more" data-content-field="title">Box API v2: Less is More</a> 1601 1602 </h1> 1603 <div class="meta"> 1604 <span class="date"><time class="published" datetime="2012-12-14">December 14, 2012</time></span> 1605 </div> 1606 </header> 1607 1608 <!--POST BODY--> 1609 1610 1611 <div class="body entry-content"><div class="sqs-layout sqs-grid-12 columns-12" data-layout-label="Post Body" data-type="item" id="item-521190b8e4b0775e185c582d"><div class="row sqs-row"><div class="col sqs-col-12 span-12"><div class="sqs-block html-block sqs-block-html" data-block-type="2" id="block-521190b8e4b0775e185c582e"><div class="sqs-block-content"> 1612 1613<p><a href="http://developers.blog.box.com/2012/12/14/v2_api/">Box has updated their API to version 2</a> and has simplified it along the way. The highlights:</p> 1614 1615<ul><li>Consistent request/response models</li> 1616<li>Convention-based attribute names (please do this in your APIs)</li> 1617<li>No more XML, huzzah!</li> 1618<li>Better events streams (I hope that Webhooks follows)</li> 1619<li>Settled on OAuth2 standard</li> 1620</ul><p>My favorite line:</p> 1621 1622<blockquote> 1623 <p>Thereâs an inherent impedance mismatch between XML and regular humans.</p> 1624</blockquote> 1625 1626<p>These are all very developer-friendly changes. If you’re designing an API, there’s a lot to learn from Box’s experience.</p> 1627 1628 1629</div></div></div></div></div></div> 1630 <div class="entry-source">Source: <a href="http://developers.blog.box.com/2012/12/14/v2_api/" target="_blank">http://developers.blog.box.com/2012/12/14/...</a></div> 1631 1632 1633 1634 <!--POST FOOTER--> 1635 1636 <footer> 1637 <div class="meta"> 1638 1639 1640 1641 1642 1643 <div class="second meta-row"> 1644 1645
1646 <span class="comments"> 1647 1648 <a href="/blog/box-api-v2-less-is-more#comments-521190b8e4b0775e185c582d"> 1649 1650 Comment 1651 1652 </a> 1653 1654 </span> 1655 1656 <span class="squarespace-social-buttons inline-style" data-system-data-id="1376882955483-64M07MRWDZXOFN7MXXN0" data-asset-url="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/52118c34e4b030489dbc406b/521190b7e4b0775e185c57f0/521190b8e4b0775e185c582d/1355511304000/" data-record-type="1" data-full-url="/blog/box-api-v2-less-is-more" data-title="Box API v2: Less is More"></span> 1657 </div> 1658 1659 </div> 1660 </footer> 1661 1662 1663 </article> 1664 1665 <div class="post-divider"></div> 1666 1667 1668<article class="hentry author-john-sheehan post-type-text article-index-19" id="article-521190b8e4b0775e185c5830" data-item-id="521190b8e4b0775e185c5830"> 1669 1670 <!--SPECIAL CONTENT--> 1671 1672 1673 1674 1675 <!--POST HEADER--> 1676 1677 <header> 1678 <h1 class="entry-title"> 1679 1680 <a href="http://trafficandweather.io">Traffic and Weather: My new Cloud/API Podcast <span>→</span></a> 1681 1682 </h1> 1683 <div class="meta"> 1684 <span class="date"><time class="published" datetime="2012-12-13">December 13, 2012</time></span> 1685 </div> 1686 </header> 1687 1688 <!--POST BODY--> 1689 1690 1691 <div class="body entry-content"><div class="sqs-layout sqs-grid-12 columns-12" data-layout-label="Post Body" data-type="item" id="item-521190b8e4b0775e185c5830"><div class="row sqs-row"><div class="col sqs-col-12 span-12"><div class="sqs-block html-block sqs-block-html" data-block-type="2" id="block-521190b8e4b0775e185c5831"><div class="sqs-block-content"> 1692 1693<p>Steve Marx and I had such a great time with the conversation I posted here that we decided to do it every week. Check out <a href="http://trafficandweather.io/">Traffic and Weather</a>, a (mostly) weekly news and commentary podcast about all things cloud and API. We’ve already done two episodes and I’m really happy with how they’ve turned out.</p> 1694 1695<p>Subscribe to the <a href="http://trafficandweather.libsyn.com/rss">RSS feed</a> or subscribe in <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/traffic-and-weather/id584636514?mt=2">iTunes</a>.</p> 1696 1697<p>Lastly, thanks to my friends at <a href="http://www.sendgrid.com">SendGrid</a> for sponsoring our first few episodes.</p> 1698 1699 1700</div></div></div></div></div></div> 1701 1702 1703 1704 1705 <!--POST FOOTER--> 1706 1707 <footer> 1708 <div class="meta"> 1709 1710 1711 1712 1713 1714 <div class="second meta-row"> 1715 1716 1717 <span class="comments"> 1718 1719 <a href="/blog/traffic-and-weather-my-new-cloud-api-podcast#comments-521190b8e4b0775e185c5830"> 1720 1721 Comment 1722 1723 </a> 1724 1725 </span> 1726 1727 <span class="squarespace-social-buttons inline-style" data-system-data-id="1376882955062-T3XJ91CJGRHRDDEQHCHC" data-asset-url="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/52118c34e4b030489dbc406b/521190b7e4b0775e185c57f0/521190b8e4b0775e185c5830/1355418055000/" data-record-type="1" data-full-url="/blog/traffic-and-weather-my-new-cloud-api-podcast" data-title="Traffic and Weather: My new Cloud/API Podcast"></span> 1728 </div> 1729 1730 </div> 1731 </footer> 1732 1733 1734 </article> 1735 1736 <div class="post-divider"></div> 1737 1738 1739<article class="hentry author-john-sheehan post-type-text article-index-20" id="article-521190b8e4b0775e185c5833" data-item-id="521190b8e4b0775e185c5833"> 1740 1741 <!--SPECIAL CONTENT--> 1742 1743 1744 1745 1746 <!--POST HEADER--> 1747 1748 <header> 1749 <h1 class="entry-title"> 1750 1751 <a href="/blog/craving-conversation" data-content-field="title">Craving Conversation</a> 1752 1753 </h1> 1754 <div class="meta"> 1755 <span class="date"><time class="published" datetime="2012-12-12">December 12, 2012</time></span> 1756 </div> 1757 </header> 1758 1759 <!--POST BODY--> 1760 1761 1762 <div class="body entry-content"><div class="sqs-layout sqs-grid-12 columns-12" data-layout-label="Post Body" data-type="item" id="item-521190b8e4b0775e185c5833"><div class="row sqs-row"><div class="col sqs-col-12 span-12"><div class="sqs-block html-block sqs-block-html" data-block-type="2" id="block-521190b8e4b0775e185c5834"><div class="sqs-block-content"> 1763 1764<p><img src="http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_meyd2iznYb1qcl1x1.png" alt=""/></p> 1765 1766<p>Twitter is my water cooler. I blow off steam, talk about what I’m working on, learn new things from others, etc. For the first few years I spent using the service it seemed like every night there was an awesome conversation going on. Lately it seems like people have been conversing less and retweeting more. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve shifted away from following people in a specific tech community (the .NET crew seems to have focused their conversing there more than the others I’ve observed) or just a general behavioral shift in how people use Twitter (or both) but lately I’
1766ve been missing those great conversations.</p> 1767 1768<p>Other social networks never really filled the gap. Google+ was OK, but activity tapered off pretty quickly after it launched. App.net is still promising, but nascent and hasn’t grabbed me yet. I almost started a site just to share links and discuss APIs just to have it. I’m not famous enough to bootstrap a discussion community though (learned that lesson once before).</p> 1769 1770<p>Then Google+ Communities were launched a few days ago. You can create them by topic. They’re moderated. The posts work like any other G+ post so links, etc. are first-class and each item has comments. To me, this is the perfect application of the G+ stream structures and having them scoped by topic solves the problem of having to follow someone who may post a lot about stuff you’re not interested in.</p> 1771 1772<p>Ultimately, it’s another message medium like many before. The quality will be determined by the people that contribute to the community. But it’s looking promising. <a href="https://plus.google.com/communities/101310422065394201059">You can find me chatting about APIs over there</a>.</p> 1773 1774 1775</div></div></div></div></div></div> 1776 1777 1778 1779 1780 <!--POST FOOTER--> 1781 1782 <footer> 1783 <div class="meta"> 1784 1785 1786 1787 1788 1789 <div class="second meta-row"> 1790 1791 1792 <span class="comments"> 1793 1794 <a href="/blog/craving-conversation#comments-521190b8e4b0775e185c5833"> 1795 1796 Comment 1797 1798 </a> 1799 1800 </span> 1801 1802 <span class="squarespace-social-buttons inline-style" data-system-data-id="" data-asset-url="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/52118c34e4b030489dbc406b/521190b7e4b0775e185c57f0/521190b8e4b0775e185c5833/1355373799000/" data-record-type="1" data-full-url="/blog/craving-conversation" data-title="Craving Conversation"></span> 1803 </div> 1804 1805 </div> 1806 </footer> 1807 1808 1809 </article> 1810 1811 1812 1813<!--PAGINATION--> 1814 1815 1816 <nav class="pagination clear"> 1817 1818 <a class="older-posts" href="/?offset=1355373799000">Older Posts →</a> 1819 </nav> 1820 1821 1822</div> 1823 1824<aside id="sidebar" data-content-field="Sidebar"><div class="sqs-layout sqs-grid-1 columns-1" data-layout-label="Blog Sidebar" data-type="block-field" data-updated-on="1612797089221" id="sidebarBlocks"><div class="row sqs-row"><div class="col sqs-col-1 span-1"><div class="sqs-block html-block sqs-block-html" data-block-type="2" id="block-da83e17b7ac614ad4057"><div class="sqs-block-content"> 1825 1826<h2 style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Around the Web</h2><ul data-rte-list="default"><li><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;"><a href="https://twitter.com/johnsheehan">Twitter</a></p></li><li><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;"><a href="http://instagram.com/johnsheehan">Instagram</a></p></li><li><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;"><a href="https://github.com/johnsheehan">GitHub</a></p></li><li><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;"><a href="http://stackoverflow.com/users/1786/runscope-api-tools">Stack Overflow</a></p></li><li><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;"><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=johns">Hacker News</a></p></li><li><p class="" style="white-space:pre-wrap;"><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/sheehanjohn/">LinkedIn</a></p></li></ul> 1827 1828 1829</div></div><div class="sqs-block search-block sqs-block-search" data-block-type="33" id="block-db7c5e493191d1dd11e4"><div class="sqs-block-content"> 1830 1831<div class="sqs-search-ui-text-input sqs-search-ui-button-wrapper color-dark" data-source="block" data-preview="false" data-collection=""> 1832 <div class="spinner-wrapper"></div> 1833 <input 1834 type="search" 1835 class="search-input" 1836 value="" 1837 placeholder="Search" 1838 aria-label="Search" 1839 /> 1840</div> 1841</div></div><div class="sqs-block image-block sqs-block-image" data-block-type="5" id="block-ba2137ff95c33fd29c81"><div class="sqs-block-content"> 1842 1843 1844 1845 1846 1847 1848 1849 1850 1851 1852 1853 1854 1855 1856 1857 1858 1859 1860 <div 1861 class=" 1862 image-block-outer-wrapper 1863 layout-caption-hidden 1864 design-layout-inline 1865 combination-animation-none 1866 individual-animation-none 1867 individual-text-animation-none 1868 " 1869 data-test="image-block-inline-outer-wrapper" 1870 > 1871 1872 1873 1874 1875 <figure 1876 class=" 1877 sqs-block-image-figure 1878 intrinsic 1879 " 1880 style="max-width:440px;" 1881 > 1882 1883 1884 1885 1886 1887 <a 1888 class=" 1889 sqs-block-image-link 1890 1891 1892 1893 " 1894 href="https://www.runscope.com/" 1895 1896 > 1897 1898 <div 1899 1900 1901 class="image-block-wrapper" 1902 data-animation-role="image" 1903 1904 1905 1906 > 1907 <div class="sqs-image-shape-container-element 1908 1909 1910 1911 has-aspect-ratio 1912 " style=" 1913 position: relative; 1914 1915 padding-bottom:50%; 1916 1917 overflow: hidden; 1918 " 1919 > 1920 <noscript><img src="https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/52118c34e4b030489dbc406b/1440137395290-IY2QEITH1CGH1JBOO4CI/rt-banner-250x250-001.png" alt="rt-banner-250x250-001.png" /></noscript><img class="thumb-image" data-src="https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/52118c34e4b030489dbc406b/1440137395290-IY2QEITH1CGH1JBOO4CI/rt-banner-250x250-001.png" data-image="https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/52118c34e4b030489dbc406b/1440137395290-IY2QEITH1CGH1JBOO4CI/rt-banner-250x250-001.png" data-image-dimensions="440x220" data-image-focal-point="0.5,0.5" alt="rt-banner-250x250-001.png" data-load="false" data-image-id="55d6c0b2e4b0f5f10ae0233c" data-type="image" /> 1921 </div> 1922 </div> 1923 1924 </a> 1925 1926 1927 1928 1929 </figure> 1930 1931 1932 </div> 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937</div></div></div></div></div></aside> 1938 </section> 1939 1940 <div class="extra-wrapper page-footer">
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