From APM to APIs: Moesif’s Framework for Strategic Product Development

When building complex B2B products, the temptation to build everything at once can be overwhelming. In a recent episode of Category Visionaries, Moesif founder Derric Gilling shared their methodical approach to product development that enabled their successful pivot from APM to API analytics.

Start With the Core, Not the Vision

While most companies talk about their grand vision first, Moesif took a different approach. “Don’t boil an ocean,” Derric emphasizes. Even with a clear vision for what their platform could become, they focused on perfecting their core offering first.

The Foundation First Principle

This disciplined approach was particularly evident in their rollout of monetization features. “We always had this vision for doing monetization,” Derric explains, “but we purposely delayed this because we want to ensure our analytics has robust that integrity and governance features before it’s used for billing purposes.”

This wasn’t just about technical dependencies – it was about building trust. When analytics data would eventually be used for billing purposes, it needed to be unquestionably reliable.

Learning from Large-Scale Operations

Moesif’s product development philosophy was partly shaped by Derric’s experience at Intel. “How do you make sure you have an efficient team? How do you plan a good roadmap and strategy?” he reflects. “For example, you don’t want to ever over promise delivery of a feature. When it comes to product management and project management, you always have to have a budget for bugs and fixes and everything.”

Cross-Functional Product Strategy

Instead of building siloed features, Moesif developed their product to expand across organizational functions. “We might start with the product, but then we can expand into the engineering use case, into success and support use cases, to sales, to marketing and so on,” Derric reveals.

This approach allowed them to create what Derric calls “one plus one equals three” relationships through strategic partnerships with “a lot of different API gateway vendors, large cloud vendors, gateways like Amazon and Azure to open source ones.”

Market-Driven Feature Prioritization

Their product evolution was guided by clear market signals. “API products are no longer just something that a developer is talking about in the background,” Derric notes. “When we talk about microservices now, you hear about founders and C suite and executives talking about an API based product strategy.”

This elevation of APIs from technical implementation to strategic priority informed their feature roadmap and go-to-market strategy.

The Platform Evolution

Looking ahead, Moesif’s product development strategy mirrors successful platform companies. “We definitely want to be the number one growth and experience platform for any API business out there,” Derric shares, drawing parallels to HubSpot’s modular growth model where customers can start with core features and add specialized modules as needed.

For B2B founders developing complex products, Moesif’s framework offers valuable lessons: perfect your core offering before expanding, build features that enable cross-functional adoption, prioritize based on market signals, and always maintain margin for technical debt and improvements. Success in B2B product development isn’t about building everything – it’s about building the right things in the right order.