Emmanuel Paraskakis

Cohort 1 - Build AI-Ready APIs: A Hands-On Workshop for Engineers and PMs

Cohort 1

API Fundamentals for Product Managers, Cohort 2

Cohort 2

Cohort 4

Cohort 3

Cohort 5, API Fundamentals for Product Managers

Cohort 5

API Fundamentals for Product Managers, Cohort 1

API Product Mastery for Experienced PMs, Cohort 1

Prolific 1

API Fundamentals for Product Managers, Cohort 3

Prolific 2

API Product Mastery for Experienced PMs, Cohort 2

API Product Mastery for Experienced PMs Cohort 5

API Fundamentals for Product Managers - Cohort 6

Cohort 6

Build AI-Ready APIs: A Hands-On Workshop for Engineers and PMs - Cohort 4

API Product Mastery for Experienced PMs - Cohort 6

Build AI-Ready APIs: A Hands-On Workshop for Engineers and PMs - Cohort 5

Get this 20-point checklist to assess your organization's API Governance readiness.Share the Google Sheet with your team, and once complete, use it as an action list to improve!

API Lifecycle & Governance Checklist

In the coming months, you’ll want to make sure your API Product is usable by Agents. Use this checklist to develop your API Product Roadmap. Score your organization and prioritize the gaps in your roadmap to address them.

Build AI-Ready APIs

Learn about API&nbsp;standards&nbsp;and&nbsp;conventions, and why it's a good idea to adhere to them. Ensure API users are not surprised&nbsp;and make&nbsp;API products usable&nbsp;and compatible with tooling. Contents:<ol><li>Web API Styles and when to use them</li><li>How APls Work</li><li>Naming, Vocabulary, and Data Types/Structures</li><li>Conventions and Best Practices</li><li>API Design Patterns</li><li>Authentication Types and Standards</li></ol>

API Design Fundamentals

❓Most people think API Product Management is a technical discipline. ❗️ But in reality, it's mainly about the business aspects of APIs. ✅ This information sheet clearly explains API business terms, audiences, personas, growth drivers, and high-level use cases to help you ship APIs as Products.

The Business of APIs

🚨 Many API Providers focus on the API and Documentation and forget that API adoption is all about the user journey. 🧑‍💻 But the API Developer's user journey has to be meticulously designed and measured. ✅ Here’s what you should know about the 4 stages of DX onboarding, including goals, metrics and what tools to introduce at each stage.

The Four Stages of the API Developer Experience (DX) Funnel

🧑‍💻 Most API Product Managers go with the metrics collected by engineering. ❌ But your Datadog dashboards alone won’t help you make informed product decisions. ✅ Here’s what you should be tracking (12+4 Metrics) instead and why.

API Metrics for Product Managers

Visualize and plot your API PM Career progress on this canvas from my How to break into API Product Management lesson.

API Product Manager Career Canvas

A Hands-On Workshop for Engineers & PMs:
Design, build & deploy MCP-enabled APIs that LLMs & Agents actually use.
 

15+ years in APIs | Product Consultant for AI-Forward Companies | 3x VP PM

IT Manager

Become an expert API Product Manager and learn how to scale and manage an API portfolio.

API PM Executive | 15+ Years, VP-Level Experience

API Product Mastery for Experienced PMs

Group Product Manager

Senior Technical Product Manager - Track API at FedEx

Enterprise Products API Lead

API Product Manager

Digital Product Manager.

Sr Director

Become an API Product Manager. Go from generalist to specialist and ship winning API products.

API Fundamentals for Product Managers

Senior Product Manager 

Product Manager

Learning Engineer

If you’ve shipped an API product—or more—and you want to level up your expertise, API Product Mastery for Experienced PMs is for you. You’ll learn how to design and deliver API products that not only meet technical standards but also drive measurable business impact. We’ll go beyond the basics, digging into real strategies for building APIs that empower both developers and business stakeholders, all while solidifying your role as an API thought leader within your organization. By the end of this course, you’ll be able to speak confidently about APIs in product parlance, build robust solutions your engineering teams will appreciate, and design Developer Experiences that rival the best in the industry. My core goal is to help you sharpen your capabilities so you can set bold KPIs, exceed them, and demonstrate the ROI of your API initiatives. You’ll walk away with a practical toolkit for everything from rapid prototyping to scaling API products for high-volume use. Whether you’re perfecting an existing product, tackling a new launch, or even guiding a team of product managers, you’ll have the structure and know-how to succeed: Understand APIs at a deeper level—enough to earn the respect of peers, leadership, and technical teams• Drive business impact by setting stronger goals and hitting KPIs for your API products• Build a clear path to product growth through monetization, internal advocacy, and advanced Go To Market strategies• Deliver a stellar Developer Experience with better documentation, security, and onboarding flows• Become the API champion who can confidently guide decision-making and position APIs as a strategic advantage within your organization• Explore the future of APIs as they evolve with Model Context Protocol (MCP) and Agent API consumption, including design and building of APIs with the help of LLMs. After 15+ years managing API products, I’ve seen firsthand how to thrive as an API PM—and I want to share what I’ve learned! When you complete this course, you’ll have the skills and perspective to deliver real value and confidently guide and scale the next generation of API portfolios. UPDATE: With this course we'll be including a full year's subscription for Lenny's Newsletter, worth $200!With it you get full access to an impressive set of AI tools such as Replit, Lovable, Bolt, n8n, Linear, Superhuman, Granola, Perplexity and more - yes that's worth more than the price of the course! Check more details about the bundle here: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/productpass ﻿Please note that this course is not endorsed by Lenny or the community and that I'm including this bundle at my cost so that students have the tools to complete course exercises and access to the wonderful Lenny's community too!

Accelerate Your Career and Become the Go-To API Expert in Your Organization

Course syllabus

Five live sessions covering each module, with projects and group discussion.

Tuesdays, Thursdays & Fridays

Due the Tuesday after course completion.

Build and Demo an API Prototype Project

The session is on the Tuesday after course completion.

AMA & Demo - 1 session

Course schedule

Product Managers with some API PM Experience who want to take on more responsibility and become experts at shipping public and internal API

Product Managers who have shipped API Products but want to gain a deeper understanding and scale to an API Portfolio

Product Leaders who want to hire and manage a team of API Product Managers.

Who is this course for

What you’ll get out of this course

<ul><li>Adopt API-first and secure executive buy-in to build an API portfolio.</li><li>Make API governance, security and compliance a part of your roadmap.</li><li>Explore how MCP &amp; Agents will drive the next wave of API consumption.</li><li>Identify how API businesses succeed by examining real-world business m</li></ul>

Define a Winning API Strategy for the Future

<ul><li>Evaluate modern API architectures (REST, GraphQL, Async, gRPC) to choose the right approach for your use case.</li><li>Craft consistent API designs using standards, OpenAPI, and style guides.</li><li>Plan for API evolution by creating a deprecation policy and implementing effective versioning.</li></ul>

Understand How Great APIs Are Made: The API Lifecycle

<ul><li>Develop a frictionless Developer Experience, from clear documentation to Dev Portals with PLG.</li><li>Optimize usage and revenue by analyzing API metrics, refining pricing models and tracking churn.</li><li>Implement clear pricing strategies—like tiered or usage-based pricing—supported by data.</li></ul>

Drive API Adoption with an Effective Go-to-Market Approach

<ul><li>Use AI tools to iterate on your API design for usability, consistency , and standards.</li><li>Gather feedback from users through documentation and mock services.</li><li>Implement your API prototype using AI codegen.</li><li>Deploy your API behind an API Gateway and view Analytics</li></ul>

Design and Build a Working API Using Best Practices

<ul><li>Demo the API Prototype you built to the class.</li><li>Group discussions where you can learn from others.</li><li>AMA session with the instructor - bring the topics you’d like to cover!</li></ul>

Network and Collaborate with your peers

Verisk

Moodys

Oracle

SmartBear

Precisely

This course will help you bridge the gap between your current expertise and the technical knowledge needed to build products that power experiences for millions of users. Here’s why an API PM role might be your next big career move:• You’ll develop deep technical skills without needing to be a full-time coder.• You can position yourself as a niche specialist, potentially earning a premium salary.• You’ll have greater autonomy once you understand the ins and outs of APIs.• You’ll build and launch products that are core to modern digital ecosystems. API Fundamentals for Product Managers focuses on the essentials, getting you up to speed quickly so you can confidently talk to developers, gather requirements, and launch your first API product. Here’s a preview of the topics we’ll cover in this live, cohort-based course:• What makes an API Product successful• Gathering API requirements from customers• Examples of strong API design and usability• Building a great Developer Experience as a PM• Monetizing APIs• Key metrics and KPIs for API Products After 15+ years managing API products, I’ve seen firsthand how to thrive as an API PM—and I want to share what I’ve learned! By the end of this course, you’ll have the skills and perspective to deliver real value and confidently guide the next generation of API-driven products.

Are you a PM looking to accelerate your journey into the world of APIs?

Two Live Sessions a week, covering an entire module, with breaks, exercises and group discussion.

Thursdays & Fridays

Optional Q&A after each session

Product Managers with no API experience who want to launch and manage winning API Products.

New API Product Managers who are transitioning into the role.

Leaders who want to hire and manage API Product Managers.

<ul><li>Articulate the importance and business impact of APIs.</li><li>Define relevant stakeholders and use cases.</li><li>Understand the API Product Manager’s pivotal role.</li><li>Identify key success factors for real-world API products and how they drive business value.</li></ul>

Build a Strong API Foundation

<ul><li>Explain how APIs work, illustrate core design principles that drive usability, and discuss why good API design matters.</li><li>Demonstrate how to invoke and test APIs using client apps, interpret responses, and ensure high-quality and relevant content.</li><li>Practice with real-world APIs.</li></ul>

Gain Hands-On API Skills

<ul><li>Develop a clear business strategy for API products.&nbsp;</li><li>Work through prototyping, customer discovery, and validation.</li><li>Learn how to define the unique value of your APIs.</li><li>Explore strategies for monetizing APIs.</li></ul>

Master the Business of APIs

<ul><li>Build a compelling DX by understanding how developers evaluate, learn, and adopt APIs</li><li>Write clear technical requirements and measure API success through key metrics.</li><li>Analyze real-world Developer Portals, dissect their design, and evaluate their DX to uncover best practices.</li></ul>

Deliver Exceptional Developer Experiences

<ul><li>Group discussions where you can learn from others.</li><li>Four projects, working hands-on to evaluate real-world products.</li><li>Optional Q&amp;A after the main sessions with the instructor - we'll stay in the session as long as needed.</li></ul>

The API landscape is shifting. LLMs and AI agents are rapidly becoming critical consumers of APIs, but most existing APIs weren't designed with them in mind. Organizations shipping these APIs struggle with integration failures, poor discoverability, and miss the emerging opportunities of the agentic economy.This intensive workshop bridges that gap in just 6 hours. You'll move from traditional API thinking to AI-first design, from basic endpoints to MCP-enabled services, from static documentation to AI-enhanced developer experiences.You won't just learn theory—you'll build, test, and deploy a working AI-ready API prototype using the exact tools and workflows that the best API companies are adopting today. By the end, you'll have a functional MCP server MVP and the skills to transform any API into an AI-native service.More importantly, you'll become the person who can confidently lead API initiatives in an AI-dominated future. The architect who designs systems that last. The PM who ships products that win. The executive who drives market conversations and charts a forward-thinking API roadmap. The leader who sees opportunities while others see obstacles.

From API builder to AI-economy leader: Ship APIs that agents love to use

Use AI to Design & Deploy a Mock API for Market Validation

Build Your First AI-Generated API MVP

Create Professional API Documentation That Developers Love & Agents Can Use

Deploy & Monitor Your API Like a Pro

Ship Your First MCP Server and Publish to a Registry

Create an AI-Ready Roadmap for Your Organization

This is a fast-paced, hands-on course, and while you don't need to be a coder, it helps to understand HTTP basics or to have shipped an API.

Some API knowledge is required

Consider taking API Fundamentals for Product Managers first: https://maven.com/emmanuel/api-pm-fundamentals

If you need to brush up on your API skills:

We'll walk you through building with LLMs and AI Codegen tools, even if you've never used them before.

Little or no AI experience is expected

Software Architects &amp; Engineers who want high-quality, scalable APIs that Agents will use long into the future.

Product Managers who want to stay ahead of the curve and quickly deliver API products that win in AI-dominated markets.

Founders &amp; Executives who want to transform their companies and fully leverage AI &amp; Agentic opportunities.

Fix Your Broken API Process

Gareth Faull

Senior Product Manager @ LSEG "The API Product Guy"

Evaluate your delivery flow step-by-step and find the biggest blockers to API consistency and speed.

Score your API process live with a 20-point checklist

See how top organizations structure governance that actually accelerates development.

Discover what “good” looks like for real API teams

Turn messy handoffs into smooth collaboration using shared API lifecycle rules.

Align PMs, Engineers, and Architects around one process

Understand how strong governance prepares your APIs for agents, automation, and scale.

Make your APIs consistent, secure, and AI-ready

Walk away knowing your score, your next prioritized actions, and a template to start improving tomorrow.

Leave with your own API improvement plan

Build Your Own AI-Powered API for n8n

Timothy Maguire

Product Manager & API Developer

See how an idea tested in a chat window evolved into a fully deployed Flask API with OpenAPI docs.

How to turn a ChatGPT prototype into a production-ready API

Learn how to balance LLM flexibility with deterministic logic for predictable, auditable results

Design AI-Powered APIs that blend reasoning and rules

Explore tools such as n8n, ChatGPT, Claude, and marketplace APIs work together to automate publishing across platforms.

Build and Orchestrate AI Workflows

Understand practical methods for creating automated evals, tracking accuracy, and managing model drift and rate limits.

Test and Evaluate AI APIs in production

Take away real work insights on managing API governance, cost control, and reliability while shipping quickly.

Lessons from Building an AI API for Marketplace Taxonomies

Use AI To Build Your AI Product

Sagar Batchu

Co-founder and CEO, Speakeasy

Curate MCP servers for day-to-day work in Revops, GTM, Customer Support, Documentation and Analytics.

Changing the way you build with AI

Bake prompts into your product and understand their lifecycle.

Prompt versioning

Ensure customer experience with AI dev tools remains high-quality.

Eval testing

Prevent hallucinations and model changes from affecting your product.

Safe rollout of LLM-based features

Agent Impact: From Chaos to Clarity

Abhijit Kane

Co-Founder at Postman

In our case, solving issues one-by-one slowed progress. Shifting to graph-level analysis unlocked scale.

Identify the (large) problem

Generate actionable insights from all you issues, feature requests and use comments.

How an AI agent can synthesize thousands of issues

Give everyone in your organization instant, citation-backed access to community knowledge.

Integrating an agent into Slack

Save time for product managers, designers, and engineers, freeing them to focus on building rather than just reading.

Quantify the outcome

12 Things Every API Product Needs to Be Agent-Ready

80% of your API Product Roadmap should be getting ready for AI/Agents. Learn the 12 essentials you need to cover.

Define Your 2026 API Roadmap

Model Context Protocol lets Agents and LLMs "see" your APIs. Find out why you need to get started today.

Understand How To Get Started with MCP

MCP lets Agents "see" your APIs. We'll explore what you need to do to optimize them so that they are actually usable.

Prioritize Design Changes to Your API Product

You'll determine the improvements you need to make to embrace the incoming agent wave and embrace new opportunities.

Prepare Your Infrastructure for AI Agents

Hands-On MCP: From API to Live MCP Server in Minutes

Instantly transform your existing APIs into MCP servers - no coding needed.

Generate an MCP server from your OpenAPI

Quickly validate your MCP integrations with live AI-agent tests on Claude.

Test your MCP tools locally on Claude

Easily publish your MCP server publicly, expanding your API’s reach.

Deploy to an MCP Registry to make it available to the world!

We'll take your questions and talk about where to learn more about MCP and securing your MCP servers.

Plan for Next Steps

The AI Collective is a non-profit, grassroots community exploring the frontier of AI. 
NOTE: We'll use Roam, not Zoom!

Session sponsored by AI Collective

Build AI-Ready APIs with MCP

Identify how Model Context Protocol enhances API integration with AI Agents & LLMs.

Recognize MCP’s Importance for API Providers

Examine the latest developments and applications of MCP in the industry.

Discover the Current State of MCP

Learn to create an MCP server using your existing OpenAPI specifications.

Generate an MCP Server from OpenAPI Specs

Define steps to integrate MCP into your API development plans.

Incorporate MCP into Your API Roadmap

AI Agents are Coming for Your API - Are You Ready?

Zdenek Nemec

Founder & CTO, superface.ai

Recognize common issues AI agents face when connecting with current APIs.

Identify AI Agent Integration Challenges

Learn how Large Language Models interact with APIs using tools such as Model Context Protocol (MCP).

Understand How LLMs consume APIs

Use a checklist to evaluate gaps in your APIs so you can prepare and prioritize what to address.

Emmanuel Paraskakis

Emmanuel Paraskakis

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