The Business Leadership Podcast

[00:00:00] Salli: You're listening to the business leadership podcast with Edwin Frondoso.

[00:00:09] Derric: The last couple of years, we've witnessed different organizations like Twilio and Stripe that would actually turn these APIs into a business in itself. And so our goal is to actually help other businesses become that Stripe, that Twilio, and actually sell their APIs directly for revenue. And get more developers to adopt the APIs.

Our goal is trying to help the business teams at organizations Better leverage their APIs and turn those into the largest revenue centers they can ever create.

Because with AI Moeifand with just the tooling that's out there today, you can actually build out you know these amazing applications.

[00:00:48] Edwin: Good morning. Good afternoon. And good evening biz leader. Welcome to another episode of the business leadership podcast. I'm your host Edwin Frondozo today. We are featuring a special episode from our future narrator mini series recorded live at the collision conference in Toronto, Canada.

In this mini series, we explore the future of leadership, innovation, and storytelling with visionary leaders who are not just designing products, but are creating entire new worlds and markets.

Joining me is Dr. Paul Newton and together we'll be speaking with Derric Gilling. Derek is the CEO of Mosseif the leading API analytics and monetization platform.

In our conversation, Derric will discuss the recent trend of organizations like Twilio and Stripe transforming their API APIs into standalone businesses. We explore how most of aims to help other businesses emulate this success by selling their APIs directly in increasing developer adoption. Derric will highlight how initially companies didn't foresee their APIs as revenue generators. And how this perspective has evolved over time. So without further ado, here we go.

We're now speaking with. Derek Gillings, CEO of Moesif. Derek, how are you doing today?

[00:02:03] Derric: Doing great. Glad to be here.

[00:02:05] Edwin: Happy to have you. Thank you for your time. Derek, I'm just going to jump right in. Can you share what problem is Moesif solving in the API, or in the cloud, or in the industry?

[00:02:17] Derric: Sure. So we're helping different businesses monetize their APIs in AI applications. So these are different uses based models where you're charging for a number of API calls. Maybe if you're an AI application, it's input tokens or output tokens. We're really helping these different businesses get an understanding around that usage.

[00:02:34] Edwin: So just for the benefit of some of the listeners out there who may not understand what an API or even this problem that may happen, maybe if you could just talk about. The ability of this, first off the API and then why monetization might be the problem.

[00:02:49] Derric: Sure, so APIs, Application Programming Interfaces, have been around for decades.

That's how different teams, engineering teams, would organize their software to create a nice interface between those different teams. But it's always been considered an engineering concern. APIs for these other teams, for maybe other partners, customers and the like, to drive different automations. But after you made all these investments, you actually want to start turning it into a revenue center for the company versus just being a call center.

And so in the last couple of years, we've witnessed different organizations like Twilio and Stripe. And since that would actually turn these APIs into a business in itself. And so our goal is to actually help other businesses become that Stripe, that Twilio, and actually sell their APIs directly for revenue. And get more developers to adopt the APIs.

[00:03:36] Edwin: Awesome. So these businesses themselves, they didn't come to marketMoeif with the thought that, Oh, you know what? My API is going to make me money. Moeifthey have a revenue center already. They're looking for extra revenue by selling their service as an API. Is that right?

[00:03:52] Derric: We've seen both. Okay. Sometimes the company's actually started literally thinking about, I'm going to sell this API to developers. So these are the different developer tools that we like to see. Okay. But there's other businesses that already have some type of SaaS application. Yeah. They are selling that to folks who are logging into this UI and using it on a daily basis.

And then they have larger customers coming to them saying, I need customization. I need automation to use your platform. And that's where launching a new API offering next to the traditional offering may be the route to take. So one of our customers, NexHealth, literally did this. They already had a UI. Moeiffor they, they sell to differentMoeif medicalMoeif platforms, Moeiffor patient scheduling and the like, andMoeif they want to actually launch an API so their customers can automate a lot of these processes that they did not have automated before.

[00:04:39] Edwin: That makes sense. Thank you for sharing that. Just really taking a deep dive within your industry and within this, Moeifthis integration industry between different platforms, Moeifwhat are the major disruptions Moeifthat are coming or what's starting to shape the industry now?

[00:04:55] Derric: The largest one we've seen is usage based billing models. And if you look at how SAS has been priced for the last decade, even, MoeifMoeifyou purchase a number of seats or a license of some sort, and Moeifit's a flat cost for the entire year. Moeifyou purchase 10 a seat or 50 a seat or whatever it is.

But more recently we've seen what AWS have done with usage based models. You can purchase only what you need and nothing more. So you're actually aligning your cost to the value that the customer receives and nothing more. They only need to pay for what they need. Moeifbut within the API space, and also AI applications is driving a lot of this, is you only need to maybe purchase 10 API calls, or you go through a million API calls in the last month.

Moeifin the prompt engineering space, it could be number of input tokens, output tokens, context size. Moeifthere's a lot of different variables you can actually price Moeifyour platform around.

[00:05:48] Edwin: So it's sounding like in terms of maybe not disruption, but the flexibility of how the offering is going out there to different partners or how they want to launch it as well.

And I think it's interesting and maybe you could share the benefits of that usage model for those who might be in the startup space or thinking about new ideas is just to get that availability out there right away for maybe beta customers.

[00:06:12] Derric: Definitely. So one of the great things about these usage based models.

Is it allows you to expand and grow with your customers? What I mean by that is one of your customers can get up and running with your software and pay a token amount. Maybe it's only 50 bucks a month, a hundred bucks a month, something very small, but then each month or each week that usage is going to increase.

And so that customer that started off with 50 a month and spend, they can suddenly go to 10, 000 a month in the course of a couple of months. So you're actually growing with your customers and your customers are growing with you. And that's the beauty of these uses based models. Also allows you to do some type of land and expand approach.

Sometimes folks like to call that landing the beach head first and then growing that into something larger than what you had initially.

[00:06:57] Edwin: Yeah. And landing the beach Moeifjust for the listenersMoeif that's really like just testing out the market and then growing from there. Moeif

[00:07:02] Derric: Yeah. So let's say I'm going to sell to a large enterprise.

Okay. Of course, trying to go in with a multi million dollar contract, it's not easy. It's a lot of legal work, a lot of negotiation. You have to really prove the value Moeifto the executive leadership. So instead you can actually sell to a small team and maybe it's a smaller project with lower usage.

And the goal is to actually keep working with that team to expand into other teams, to other products that they might have or might be selling. And so that usage keeps increasing. So a good example of this is. Let's say you're only starting with the engineering team, one engineering team. But a company like UPS has tens and hundreds of different engineering teams with tens or hundreds of different APIs and products and offerings.

So over time, you're going to start jumping from team to team, from product to product, and that spend from the customer is going to get Moeiflarger and larger. And it's only getting larger because they're seeing more value in the software that they're using, what they're buying from you.

[00:08:00] Edwin: That's amazing. And it's a very strategic approach to get into enterprise and working with a small team, proving your value, low cost to get in and it just shows because we're like, what are you working on? Oh, this makes our team great. So that, that, that's amazing.

I'm curious when it comes to the cloud and from your point of view, because you're making, and maybe not only the cloud, but you're making a lot of platforms work together easily. Making, making a lot of collaborations happen, new solutions coming out. does the future of the cloud look like in your eyes?

[00:08:32] Derric: So our belief is two things. One is a lot more stuff is going to be automated through AI. But the second thing is you're going to see more and more of the boring stuff taken over by different offerings.

So I can get up and running with my AI application today and use, say, all zero for authentication, use Twilio to send out my text messages, use Stripe to handle payments, use Mosa for the usage tracking and metering. And there's so many different solutions out there that enable you to do this. But we're just still at the very beginning of this idea of creating softwareMoeif by putting together a bunch of Legos, right?

And so the next generation of software is really picking and choosing the services and companies. And offerings that would actually allow you to build out the application. This, the third thing that we see is more and more non technical folks getting really involved with product management, the engineering side of things, right?

Because with AI Moeifand with just the tooling that's out there today, you can actually build out, you know these amazing applications. If you look at things like retool and the like.

[00:09:33] Edwin: Yeah. I was thinking as you were talking, DerekMoeif it's really interesting because of this Lego approach.

[00:09:39] Derric: If you're out there listening and you see a problem, you could really customize it to a specific customer, a specific segment, a specific problem, and go from there. Is that right?

Exactly. And so these APIs that I speak on, they're very pointed solutions. And so what that means is, if I'm a company selling a product, I'm not just selling one product.

I'm actually selling a menu of different APIs you can pick and choose from. I might just use one API. Let's say I'm a telecommunications company. I'm going to have SMS, video, audio. Moeifthere's so many different things and business functions around telecommunications. And this goes back to this usage based model, because me as a customer, I can get started using just SMS because that's all I care about.

Yeah. Then later on, I expand into voice and video and more media Moeifthat might be out there.

[00:10:27] Edwin: That's great. I love it. When it comes to. Business leadership, leading your team, stakeholders, customers, clients. Derek, what are the biggest challenges you face today?

[00:10:39] Derric: Sure. So two, two things I always keep in mind is one, Moeifa lot of us are very busy, right?

We don't want to deal with, nagging and micromanagement. These are professional, senior, talented folks that Moeifwe're working with. The second thing that I believe in isMoeif you have to have goals, right? Me as an individual there's something I want to look forward to. I built something. I want to show it to my friends. I want to show it to my colleagues. MoeifI want to show like what I built. And so as a leader, you really want to lean into both of those things. So instead of micromanaging the day to day, Oh, did you get this task done? When is it gonna be done? It's more about the higher level okay. So this is what we want to ship. you can go ahead and break that down, spec it out. You drive the delivery of this feature or function. Or if you're on the go to market side, you drive the OKRs and goals we define at the company, but then you're actually marching towards something.

we set the high level marching orders, but then it's up to the respective reports to actually go and execute on those marching orders without getting in their face too much.

[00:11:46] Edwin: Yeah. And I guess to that point, it's really taking a step back, trusting and empowering your teamsMoeif your leadership teams to allow them to empower their teams.

[00:11:57] Derric: Exactly. And when I think about leadership, Moeifone thing is leading by example, but the other thing is that empowerment thing that you just mentioned, which is my goal is really not to be the person that's trying to do everything for folks. It's actually to help them. I think it's stuck. Help them and empower them to understand how to do it themselves next time because if I'm not Educating and training my team then I'm doing a bad job as a leader.

[00:12:22] Edwin: I love that Derek. I'm curious What is your vision of the future that you're building?

[00:12:28] Derric: Our goal is to help business teams at organizations Better leverage their APIs and turn those into the largest revenue centers they can ever create We've seen all these different waves around how software is being built and delivered.

If we had the on prem wave, right? I'm a company and I'm looking for a solution, I would take six months to do a PLC Moeifor pilot of some sort, roll that out across the entire organization. This was software in the, Moeifcirca 2000s. Then we went into the SaaS world where, Moeifit's a small team, a pizza team, where it's Moeiffive or ten people can choose to use Alassian or Trello or whatever they want to use for their particular tools.

And this next wave is one single developer can pick and choose the API, they want to use and incorporate that into the application. the fact that they can now pick and choose exactly what they want from this menu of APIs is gonna continue to get broken down into now is just a bunch of little tinyMoeif pieces that you're putting together.

And that is what I actually get excited for.

[00:13:24] Edwin: That's exciting. For these goals or. These missions, what would the world look like when this vision is realized? How does it change these businesses and these organizations?

[00:13:34] Derric: Every company out there is going to be a software company.

Every company out there is going to have some type of API that their customers, partnersMoeif individual folks are going to be interfacing with and using. So the world is becoming more networked and more interconnected. Moeifbefore, MoeifI might use three APIs and in a couple of years, I might be using 10, 000 APIs from 10, 000 different companies.

So having this idea of Moeifa micro SaaS or micro API is becoming more and more of a thing. And with this whole AI wave, I've hit on AI a lot, but it's such a paradigm shift in how a team can operate. I can just be a couple engineers and build a lot of value and deliver a lot of value with, not a lot.

Moeifif you look at whatsApp and Instagram, like very small engineering teams. And so these teams are getting smaller and smaller, which is pretty cool to see.

[00:14:21] Edwin: That's amazing, Derek. So I'm curious as you march through this vision, as you lead your teams, how do you continue to lead them and inspire to realize that vision?

[00:14:33] Derric: Sure. So one of the biggest things we have Moeifis our mission statement. MoeifWe believe in helping companies build and grow better API products. So everything we do revolves around that mission. If we have a couple of different offerings. Of course, one of them is analytics and observability, how to understand the usage of these APIs and applications.

The second, which we've been talking around is the monetization of those same APIsMoeif around Moeifusage based billing and the like. We have actually another pillar, which is around user guidance. So how do you actually nudge your customers in the right direction? But all three of these components is really around helping these organizations build better products, which is something we fundamentally believe in.

[00:15:12] Edwin: That's great. Derek before we let you go. One thing we always to get from our guests is if you could share any final thoughts, advice, recommendations for the business leader, entrepreneur, or executive that's listening out there today.

[00:15:26] Derric: Sure. starting a company todayMoeif it's a great time, Moeifespecially leveraging all the different tooling out there.

It's not easy, right? Moeifit, it takes time perseverance. Moeifit's not a get rich quick scheme. And that's the thing. It's sometimes hard to see because you don't see all the grind and all the hard work that someone did before they got to, Moeifsome type of fame of some sort. MoeifMoeifthe best co founders I've seen, they persevere.

And they actually just run a Moeifreally good process, whether it's sales, recruiting, hiring folks. It's all about the process.

[00:16:03] Edwin: Derek, that's amazing. Thank you for joining us on the business leadership podcast today.

[00:16:09] Derric: Thanks for having us here.

[00:16:12] Edwin: That's it. Biz leader. Thank you for joining me on this episode of the business leadership podcast. This is part of our future narrate a mini series. Recorded at the collision conference. This conversation was amazing with Derek exploring the evolution of API monetization and Mosseif's its role in the growing trend.

For links to all the resources we discussed to connect with Derek and to learn more about this future narrative project. Please slide into the show notes in the app that you're listening to right now. If you are interested in reading about Derek and all the other business leaders that we profiled, please do join the wait list for our upcoming book.

And if he found any value in this episode, Please subscribe rate and share it with the very first person who comes to mind that could benefit about hearing about APIs and would be absolutely grateful from hearing from you.

Your support helps us grow and an empowers us to create more great content. So thank you again for tuning in. And being part of this business leadership community until next time have a 100 X day.