What is business development? Why is it so vital for startups and corporates to master it and aim to maximise it when paired with successful API integration?
First things first, there is a common misconception between business development and sales. When we talk about sales, it’s basically growing a company from a monetisation perspective. Sales associates will stick to a rigid script and have a quota to fill with clients to win over and deals to close.
On the other hand, when it comes to business development, yes, this includes sales. It also includes a little bit of marketing, creativity, and sharp-wittedness, but it mainly focuses on strategic partnerships and how to maintain and grow these partnerships to develop into multimillion dollar deals, resulting in both parties benefitting from positive network effects. This is why business development pairs so well with APIs because APIs are all about partnerships too.
An application programming interface, or API, acts like a portal for third-party developers to build on top of a platform. A very common example of an API is Google Maps. Even though their main feature is displaying static or interactive maps, third-party apps use APIs and other features to provide users with desired locations, points of interest, and directions. It may seem like an improbable match, but APIs and BD have an important relationship. APIs help speed up partnerships between two companies, they give developers or third-party apps the ability to grab functionality or build on top of an existing platform, therefore making a partnership easier to execute.
For instance, a business-to-business-to-consumer (B2B2C) API is all about functionality. Aviary, a company with a B2B2C API, switched its business from a website for photography editing tools to a web and mobile lightweight editing platform, and it did so along with developers and strategic partnerships with companies guiding it along the way. Aviary’s management had a general idea of how to steer its business, and input from developers and companies helped shape the initial product and future iterations. “The bet paid off in spades”, as Aviary announced two years later that it had 50 million monthly active users (MAUs), leaps and bounds higher than the pre-pivot MAU number, pitching and closing Alexander Taub and Ellen DaSilva.
Companies typically use APIs to either cultivate a strong developer base community that enables it to have a global reach or for monetisation purposes. Twilio and SenGrid both charge developers and partners for access to its APIs. This also helps to get rid of the not-so serious developers and to partner up with another company without the problems of custom integration.
Business Development is very important for a startup or even a well established corporate. It is very successful when integrated with an API and helps the business grow and develop in different aspects. We can see in the examples given above how important it was and where it has taken these businesses today.
-Sonura Jayaratne (Business Development Associate at SIXER VIDEO)