Agile Businesses: Darshan Shivashankar Of Apiwiz On How Businesses Pivot and Stay Relevant In The Face of Disruptive Technologies
An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis
Be customer-centric. They become your advocates. They become the stories of your technology and the impact it can have. This means you have to have an outstanding customer experience with support.
As part of my series about How Businesses Pivot and Stay Relevant In The Face of Disruptive Technologies, I had the pleasure of interviewing Darshan Shivashankar.
Darshan Shivashankar is the founder of Itorix Inc and its product Apiwiz, which offers a Low Code APIOps Platform engineered to streamline API Lifecycle Management for better Productivity with Governance at scale. He has over 15 years of experience in middleware, integration, and APIs with a deep passion for solving interesting problems.
After completing Engineering Degree in Computer science Darshan worked within Fortune 500 companies like Apigee (Acquired by Google), T-Mobile, Starbucks, Kaiser Permanente where he built and ran successful API Programs.
Darshan can also be found playing cricket, as he owns a cricket club in Seattle.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?
I’m Darshan, and I’ve been working in the software industry for about 15 years now.
I started as a Senior Software Engineer for Puma Group, the third-largest sportswear manufacturer globally. As an engineer, I was responsible for designing and building Puma’s Global Business System. A supply chain project used by various business partners of Puma to share the fulfillment information between Puma, its suppliers, and service providers, and provide near real-time view to its customers and management of order information throughout its life cycle (from inquiry, customer order, purchase order, shipment of goods to invoicing).
Later, I had the privilege of working for Accenture, A Fortune Global 500 company specialized in IT services and consulting. As a middleware developer, I had a chance to work with some of the Fortune 100 customers of Accenture across different business verticals. It gave me an excellent opportunity to design and build complex business workflows using ESB/SOA architecture across various disparate systems. Some of the noted clients I had the privilege to work with were PepsiCo, Vodafone Turkey, and the Ministry of Health & Holdings Singapore.
By 2012 I had realized that traditional SOA suites are costly and take years to implement, mainly because custom code creates a rigid architecture that hinders IT productivity. Companies need an API-led SOA solution that increases development speed and creates a future-proof architecture to be competitive. That’s where my journey with Apigee started, now acquired by Google. Apigee is a global leader in API management solutions. As a solution architect / pre-sales professional, I helped companies from the 100-year-old to the digital native understand and achieve business success and competitive differentiation in the Digital Economy. I worked closely with prospective customers, including business leaders and technology stalwarts (CTO/Architects) from various industry verticals like telco, healthcare, retail, gaming, etc., and leveraged my technical aptitude and drive to envision, determine and communicate how Apigee can best serve their unique business needs.
My next leg of the journey was instrumental in starting Itorix. I worked as an API platform architect across various organizations like eHealth Inc, T-Mobile, Starbucks, Kaiser Permanente as part of their digital transformation journey.
After a decade of seeing different API teams struggling with identical problems, the founders of Itorix saw there was a need for a solution.
However, it’s not simply a question of cherry-picking from the different software tools already in use! It’s also a tremendous opportunity to take it to the next level by enabling a strategic approach.
We built towards the following goal — “One place. One solution. One view of your cross-organizational strategy.” Consequently, Itorix equips businesses in the API economy with the unrivaled capability to execute a strategic vision for managing and monetizing APIs.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lessons or take away you learned from that?
Initially, when we set out, a lot of time was spent getting the product and market fit right, including time spent with large enterprises, workshops, and pilots. A critical part that we left out in the midst during this time was branding and messaging. We spun up a website over the weekend to establish our digital presence, and it stopped there. After we wrapped up one of our workshops with an initial Enterprise prospect, they were pleasantly surprised at our rich feature set and alluded that our website and the product were out of sync. With our heads deep in Engineering land, this was a wake-up call.
As a result, we spent the next few months starting from scratch, which is how Apiwiz.io was born. In hindsight, it’s paramount to allocate time to make sure product messaging and marketing are done right, as it takes a while to yield results.
None of us can achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?
You’re only as successful as your mentors and peers. I was very fortunate to have worked and met with some great leaders along my entrepreneurial journey who have always inspired me to take risks and have a meaningful impact in life.
I’m grateful to Chet Kapoor, the chairman, and CEO of Datastax. His passion, the way he is so results-oriented, and how he built an industry around APIs were truly inspirational. He taught us to first worry about the customer and the customer’s problems and not the competition.
And to my mentors/advisors, Anant Jhingran, Co-founder and CEO of Stepzen and Arivuvel Ramu Group CTO Tonik Bank, have been very supportive and instrumental in making this journey successful.
I was also privileged to meet Manish Vipani at one of the Google conferences in 2019. It was one of those moments when I said, “I’m working on this platform, and I’d like to get five minutes of your time.” Those five minutes turned into an effective mentoring relationship over the years, helping me understand, especially, enterprise decision making.
They all have been humble and allowed me to shine in the space and; starting up this organization is a way of saying thank you and showing gratitude for all this help.
Extensive research suggests that “purpose-driven businesses” are more successful in many areas. When your company started, what was its vision, what was its purpose?
My advice for every startup? Have a firm conviction of your vision. Once you know a problem and how to address that — and there will be some deviations along the journey — but you need that conviction for the long run. Because when you talk to ten different people, they will offer you ten different perspectives about marketing, messaging, your go-to-market strategy and, your valuation. Everyone will share some advice, but it is based on their experiences, not strictly building your business. So maintaining your conviction helps startup founders stay on track.
Let that conviction be grounded in the problem you’re trying to solve. Back in April 2016, I had this idea, and we assembled in a small room, and I drew the problem out on a whiteboard. I asked, do you see this problem too?
As a core founding team, we want to make sure that we saw the same problem within the four people, and we clarified we all wanted to build the exact solution for that problem. And then, in 2017, when we started to build the company and product, we began to share our experiences within our network of building and scaling API programs. We started speaking about our vision to solve that one challenge, but the market was not mature back then.
And that’s where the conviction comes in. We knew that we had to continue to build the product, and eventually, the market would mature, and then we would be the right platform.
So what we decided was, we wanted to build a low-code APIOps platform to enable all the stakeholders within an API program to plan, design, build, and manage their APIs within a single platform. Which reduces the cost and increases productivity by tenfold, making enterprises release business-critical data through APIs faster to market.
The other vision that we shared was to democratize skills within enterprises. The way cloud technology moves, we see a new open-source or a new cloud platform every day, which helps enterprises ship code faster. But then the problem, how do enterprises adapt to those ever-changing needs? That’s why we wanted to build a no-code or low-code approach, where anyone with a minimum skillset can start designing, building, and managing their APIs.
Thank you for all that. Let’s now turn to the main focus of our discussion. Can you tell our readers a bit about what your business does? How do you help people?
Apiwiz is an integrated low code APIOps platform engineered to streamline API lifecycle management for better Productivity with Governance.
Amidst the ever-increasing rush to develop and publish an API to remain competitive, we see several common issues arise that didn’t exist before. Let’s hear how Enterprises can better manage the value creation of automated customer-centric services by streamlining the process of developing, building, and running APIs through a Low Code approach.
The future is going to be a hybrid cloud. So every enterprise will choose which cloud provider they want to go to or, more likely, have a combination of providers. So what that means is there might be the same API, like the store locator API, that might be deployed in both the cloud containers. We provide an abstracted APIOps platform, where we hide all the complexities of building, managing, and deploying APIs to different runtime platforms. We complement the gateway runtime platform, where enterprises are without vendor lock-in. If tomorrow the enterprise decides to move away from one API runtime to another, the developers within the organization don’t have to adapt to the nuances of the new platform. Because the way you plan, design, build and manage your APIs doesn’t change, you know, irrespective of which gateway or cloud provider you’re working with today.
We know enterprises want to give developers autonomy to build and release quickly, but they also want to make sure they build stable software that integrates. The Apiwiz APIOps platform helps drive your business strategy with a broad overview of cross-company APIs, causing stability and enabling reusability, taking you to market faster while releasing stable software, and helping you monetize your APIs safely.
Which technological innovation has encroached or disrupted your industry? Can you explain why this has been disruptive?
The State of the API Economy 2021 from Google Cloud confirms that though digital transformation has been among enterprises’ top business imperatives for years, the COVID-19 pandemic and changing market conditions have increased this urgency. Organizations across the world weathered the pandemic by compressing years of digital transformation into just a few months.
- 75% of the organizations are continuing their digital transformation journey despite the pandemic.
- 65% of this group are also accelerating investment in their digital transformation journey.
The application programming interface is the glue of the digital economy.
Google Cloud’s findings identified five key trends in 2021 for API-first digital transformation:
- Increasing SaaS and Hybrid Cloud-based API Deployments
- Analytics Expand Competitive Advantage
- AI and ML — Powered API Management is Gaining Traction
- API Ecosystems Are Innovation Drivers
- API Security and Governance More Important Than Ever
Data is the king and provides the context. In this digital world, the way consumers review the data varies from person to person. Still, we want to get the relevant data as close as possible to the consumers to build customer-centric experiences, constantly asking how we integrate applications for certain functionality.
The application programming interface is driving all of that. A whopping 83% of web traffic now routes through APIs. And the most successful companies — like Stripe, who allow your customers to purchase your products at a click of a button — adopt an API-first strategy.
Tell us about a pivot you had to make because of lessons learned?
We had to find the correct product positioning by re-branding and redefining the business model. The company was initially called Itorix — a portmanteau of IT without risk — this is still our legal entity, but people could never pronounce it right. And enterprises tend to be slow in decision making.
So we changed the product name to Apiwiz because we wanted to call ourselves around the developers we’re championing. We needed a name that spoke to them more.
And then that meant moving our messaging and sales and marketing more to speak to that B2C — or B2D — market.
So, how are things going with this new direction?
To be very honest, it’s been challenging. Since we’ve moved our go-to-market model from B2B to B2C, it’s been challenging because there’s a subtle change. Most revenue would still flow through the B2B models, but most developers build APIs. And the developers are the ones planning to monetize them eventually as part of the larger organization.
We examined the platform for aspects that can be immediately useful to developers. We created a Freemium model for the API Design Studio to help the developers reduce their design time and build quality and repeatable API designs that can be used throughout the organization.
That was an excellent way to create new good leads and get better, more rapid feedback. Having developers trying out the platform gave us the view to making the experience better. Because it isn’t just that you are solving a problem, it’s all about how you are solving that problem.
So now we target citizen developers within larger organizations and work first to get adopted within a small, innovative department, following the land and expanding the SaaS model.
Can you share the most exciting story that has happened to you since you started this pivot?
Set a clear path for product positioning. The whole exercise of rebranding to Apiwiz helped distinguish from the competitors’ products and different from brand awareness.
- Helped positioning by product attribute
- Helped positioning by the user
- Helped positioning versus competition
- Helped positioning by use/application
- Helped to set by quality or value
Our product pathway hasn’t changed much, but our messaging has.
While Itorix is still the entity name, we’ve changed our product to Apiwiz. We’re a much more product-driven organization with an outside-in approach. We’ve balanced our technical messaging and business proposition and set up a clear and balanced tone and content to cater to each audience. As you can see, our homepage is very much driving developers to sign up and try our platform for themselves.
What would you say is the most critical role of a leader during a disruptive period?
Patience. For a first-time entrepreneur, patience and convictions are essential, driving how they steer the change — because change is pretty much inevitable. A startup will always surprise you. There will be ten things you don’t know, so it’s your job to understand the knowledge gap and fill it. You need to roll up your sleeves (proverbially — of course, we wear t-shirts) and be active in every department to figure out what needs to be changed.
When the future seems so uncertain, what is the best way to boost morale? What can a leader do to inspire, motivate and engage their team?
At a startup, you will see a lot of gloomy days before the happy days — it’s a roller coaster, for sure. The founders and even the founding team, and the first set of engineers have to be aligned. And then, the leadership brings in an extra set of cushioning to the groups.
A startup is always about a journey. Keep remembering why you signed up and reminding your team. Talk about: How do we continue to drive towards that?
Is there a “number one principle” that can help guide a company through the ups and downs of turbulent times?
People do question if it’s the right time. I always say the time is always right to do what is right.
Can you share 3 or 4 of the most common mistakes you have seen other businesses make when faced with disruptive technology? What should one keep in mind to avoid that?
Disruptive can work in your favor, or it cannot. It becomes a sort of bubble that you just never know. Many founders have an approach to building an MVP, and then they go and pitch it with a great deck, and then they have this massive valuation, and there is no shortage of people who want to invest. That’s often setting you and your team up for failure.
As a founder, you have to believe in what you’re building and trust your instincts. Back in 2017, we weren’t ready for valuation or investment because the API market wasn’t mature yet, and that’s why we got the wrong valuation. Many enterprises accepted they lacked API governance and an end-to-end view beyond silos, but there was no urgency to solve it. And enterprises operate on a need basis.
When the market isn’t ready, you have to believe in what you’re doing and the need to serve as a founder. Often, when startups don’t get traction from angel investors and VCs early on, they think it won’t work and don’t have a product to show what can be done. So don’t quit your day job right away but still work toward your goal.
We were doing part-time for the first couple of years. I jumped in full-time in 2019. We got traction, but that’s because we were well past the MVP. We were building it. Then we had a paid pilot at a primary healthcare provider to make the use case and validate for founders. And traction creates more traction. If you’re building something new and disruptive, you can’t give up, but you also have to be willing to actually make it.
Ok. Thank you. Based on your experience and success, what are the five most important things a business leader should do to pivot and stay relevant in the face of disruptive technologies? Please share a story or an example for each.
- Be customer-centric. They become your advocates. They become the stories of your technology and the impact it can have. This means you have to have an outstanding customer experience with support.
- End of the day, you need to give your team credit. Very important in the culture. When we talk about change is inevitable for organizations, you also need to have the same mindset. Adapt to what the customers are asking and adapt to better ways to ship your product.
- This helps to keep your first five to ten employees motivated. These first ten employees define who you are and what you are. And you have to work to be as accepting of a leader as you can be.
- Every day I focus on the Why. Why am I doing this? For me, after ten years in the API community, it’s my way to give back.
- Sometimes as a company scales and grows, founders tend to stop innovating, and the products dilute, but the founder must always have a balance between running a business & innovation. Yes, many of your leadership roles shift from development to company-building. Still, the founders always have to be grounded in the product, constantly in touch with the product and engineering team. Keep using the product. I do every day, so I know what our developer’s users are experiencing and strive to make it better.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
My all-time favorite here is Steve Jobs, who said: “Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.”
I hardly have a social life, but I find happiness and socialize at work. The current era is all focused on work-life balance. You should reduce your stress as a startup founder, but you cannot run away from responsibilities. I’m working towards hiring the right talent and working closely with my engineers to talk in their words and languages and understand their sacrifices.
How can our readers further follow your work?
Go to Apiwiz.io — bookmark it or go ahead and try it right now. And let’s connect on LinkedIn!
Thank you so much for sharing these important insights. We wish you continued success and good health!
Agile Businesses: Darshan Shivashankar Of Apiwiz On How Businesses Pivot and Stay Relevant In The… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
