---
title: "What Is an API-First Company? | Postman"
description: "Are you an API-first company? API-first is the new model of software development in which applications are conceptualized and built as an interconnection of internal and external services through APIs."
url: https://www.postman.com/lp/api-first-company/
---

# What Is an API-First Company? | Postman

> Are you an API-first company? API-first is the new model of software development in which applications are conceptualized and built as an interconnection of internal and external services through APIs.

## What is an API-first company?

API-first is the new model of software development in which applications are conceptualized and built as an interconnection of internal and external services through APIs.

An API-first company is an organization that has adopted the API-first development model.

Before API-first, there was code-first.

Code-first is a development model in which applications are built by welding together monolithic pieces of code in cumbersome, fragile ways. Issues and outages are frequent. Developers at code-first companies waste time dealing with problems, and innovation is often hampered by the limitations of yesterday's technology.

Unfortunately, most companies are still code-first companies, and most companies want to become [API-first](/api-first/).

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## Are you an API-first company?

API-first companies answer yes to all the following questions:

- Do you have APIs to operate most of your data?

- Do you make APIs available to your customers and partners?

- Do you know how to organize and discover your APIs?

- Do you have standardized processes to build APIs?

- Do your APIs meet regulatory requirements?

- Do you know the security risk to your API perimeter?

Can't answer yes to all the above questions? Keep reading to learn why and how companies are becoming API-first.

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## Why should you become an API-first company?

API-first companies:

- Build innovative products faster

- Build higher-quality products

- Minimize regulatory and security risks

Developers at API-first companies:

- Focus on innovation rather than recreating mundane software

- Choose the technologies, platforms, and programming languages that they like

- Take pride in the quality of the software that they've built

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## How do you become an API-first company?

Take the following actions to become an API-first company:

- Inventory your databases, applications, and services—understand exactly how many APIs you have, and where you lack APIs

- Understand your organization's approach to producing APIs—identify where standard processes exist, and where they don't

- Define your business domain boundaries and map your organizational structure to those boundaries

- Adopt an API platform, and standardize on it

- Train your engineering, DevOps, and product management teams on API-first practices

Build your first API-first API!

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## Developers at API-first companies are happier.

Developers at API-first companies:

- Don't waste time debugging someone else's code

- Don't waste time in meetings

- Aren't limited by yesterday's technology

- Create beautiful software

- Actually like being on call, because issues are rare and easier to fix

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## Still curious about API-first?

Check out _Breaking Changes_—the weekly API talk show hosted by Postman Chief Evangelist Kin Lane—where industry leaders discuss, debate, and solve the latest topics around APIs and API-first

[Learn More](/events/breaking-changes/)

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## Broken collaboration leads to broken APIs.

Ninety-three percent of API teams still face collaboration blockers. The 2025 State of the API report reveals how you can unlock the productivity gains that API-first promises, but scattered tooling prevents.

[Read the Report](/state-of-api/2025/)