#137 Rethinking API Development: Handling Legacy Hurdles and Building an Agent-Based Future w/ Sagar Bachu, CEO and Co-Founder of Speakeasy

Hey Listener!

In this episode, we’re hanging out with Sagar Batchu, the guy behind Speakeasy, who’s doing groundbreaking stuff in the world of APIs and AI. Sagar’s journey from physics to tech is packed with insights into how we can all use APIs and AI to make life a little easier for product teams.

Connect with Sagar on Linkedin.

Listen now on Apple and Spotify

With his background in developer tools from his time at LiveRamp, Sagar knows the drill for streamlining processes.

His company, Speakeasy, aims to make APIs more accessible and user-friendly, removing the headache from the tech side. I was struck by how he sees APIs and AI weaving together to create super straightforward solutions, and I’m stoked to share some of these ideas with you.

Actionable Takeaways

Shoot for the 80/20 Win:

"You can never perfectly solve a customer's problem... What you can do is build something that's amazing in the 80/20, right? Help 80 percent of users do things really well." -Sagar Batchu

Instead of trying to be all things to everyone, focus on delivering great experiences for the majority. It’s about hitting the sweet spot between effort and impact. Robust API development helps you build this 80% foundational use case for tech products.

APIs: Your Secret Weapon:

"An API is like a super powerful developer, right? You're delegating some massive amount of work to a single, single URL, single call." -Sagar Batchu

Think of APIs as levers that handle the heavy lifting, letting you zero in on what counts: delivering on customer promises.

Let AI Bridge the Gap:

"We're getting to the next level, all you need is natural language.  Tomorrow is here already…Pull up your chat window of your favorite AI product, the LLM, and say, find me the best fights to Europe” -Sagar Batchu

Large language models are making it even easier for non-technical people to leverage the power of APIs.

ChatGPT and similar interfaces provide an easy way to interact with APIs using natural language. They can query specific APIs, such as those for flight information or Google search results. This capability allows you to ask ChatGPT to guide you through setting up an API for your product, potentially saving development time.

Thanks again for reading this week’s newsletter.

If you’re curious about diving deeper, listen to the full episode. And learn more about Speakeasy here: www.speakeasy.com

Connect with Sagar on Linkedin.

Listen now on Apple and Spotify

Cheers,

Caden Damiano

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