A significant amount of development time goes into making sure a new product integrates with existing services. Often, this can be one of the most time-consuming and unpredictable parts of the process, because it requires interacting with a data model and syntax that your developers did not get to specify. Documentation and support of APIs varies widely across services, and even some of the most popular brands are guilty of having hard-to-use APIs.

Unlike writing the application logic for your product, you have no control over when and how your third-party services might change their APIs; there are some notable instances in the past in which sudden changes, while necessary, broke thousands of sites with one unexpected change in protocol.

Once the product has shipped, the process of supporting your application’s integration with third-party services can include some unpleasant surprises. And of course, the more APIs and services you integrate into your application, the more time you will end up spending making sure your integrations are up-to-date.

The thing is, developers at every company using an API end up doing the same work.

When we thought about how our platform could lower the friction inherent in adding an API to an application, we realized that much of that upkeep can (and, for a couple of reasons, should) be offloaded to someone dedicated to integration. Part of the value of Temboo lies in the “API insurance” we provide – so makers of the Composite Apps of the future can explore the full potential of the connected web without the overhead.