Uber, Airbnb, WhatsApp, and Instagram exemplify modern business success—forerunners of the sharing economy, digital disruption and $1B valuations with teams of fewer than 60. But how did they do it?
As startups, they were seen as more agile, able to adapt faster and better at adjusting to changing market conditions than their large enterprise competition.
But the reality is these companies succeeded because of their approach. They chose to compose applications and leverage APIs rather than writing code from scratch for every part of their offering.
Instead of using resources to create maps and define directions, Uber calls the Google Maps API— and in less than a second—incorporates the geographic details that drivers and customers need right in the app. This means fewer resources were required to bring a solution to market that indelibly disrupted taxi and limousine industries. Plus, their team could focus on developing the business, not developing code.