How do to demo an “API”?

If you are a product manager for an API, you most certainly would be called upon to do a demo of your API.

If you expect to present your API’s and expect the “ooh!” and “aah!” from the audience much like the last person before you who showed off the shiny new mobile app redesign, prepare yourself to be disappointed.

A basic principle of any good “demo” is be prepared to speak such that the least informed audience in the room is able to fully grasp what you are trying to say. Needless to say this strategy completely falls apart if you don’t know your audience, at which point you are reduced to guessing the “api maturity” of your audience.

My immediate personal inclination when I am requested a demo is to open up Postman or GraphiQL and start showing them different kinds of request one can send and the request one can receive. Sadly, overtime I have realized 90% of my audience just don’t care for this level of “detail” and I loose them pretty quickly (don’t ask me why the same group of people would love to “test” the new UI for the mobile app).

A good demo is one that marries the “API maturity” of your audience with the type of “API Demo”