[HN Gopher] Launch HN: SideGuide (YC S22) - Learn APIs by runnin...
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Launch HN: SideGuide (YC S22) - Learn APIs by running them in live
environments
Hey HN! It's Eric, Caleb, Nick, and Garrett from SideGuide
(https://www.sideguide.dev/). We give developers and technical PMs
an easy way to learn and evaluate API/SDK products using live code
environments. Our product is a lightweight, embeddable, online code
environment that lets you play with APIs and SDKs in one click.
Companies use us to let developers experiment with fully-configured
examples with zero setup. If you saw Hyperbeam's interactive
example on Show HN a few days ago
(https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32598062), that was built
using SideGuide. We originally started as a B2C coding education
platform after graduating college. Knowing how to use APIs has
become a critical part of solving meaningful coding problems, but
we watched hundreds of devs struggle to learn from API
documentation. API and SDK documentation is often lacking in depth
and interactive examples, leading to an incomplete understanding
both of the implementation process (how to get an API or SDK
working) and of the value (what you can actually do with it). We
repeatedly saw students floundering with this, then wasting hours
re-inventing the wheel instead of using an off-the-shelf solution.
Eventually we realized that the pain of getting an API or SDK
running wasn't just limited to students, but is something that
developers have to deal with all the time--especially when deciding
whether or not to use a particular product. When you just want to
quickly test an API, you shouldn't have to futz around with
installations, dependencies, and whatnot. Developers and technical
PMs should be able to quickly play with the real code before
investing time and money in a product. That is why we built
SideGuide. SideGuide allows API/SDK companies to create instant
live coding environments that help their prospective users
(developers) understand the implementation process and product
value through real guided examples. A company can create a live
code environment/sandbox from a GitHub repo of any product example
or lab. These online code sandboxes allow developers to quickly
play around and learn with no setup or friction and after they are
done they export the repo for use in their own projects. These
sandboxes can have optional guides that walk potential users
through different parts of the implemented code. The steps in the
guides can be attached to any file or code block in the project, so
nuance in the code or structure can easily be explained. In
addition, we provide observability and a feedback mechanism for the
sandboxes. This is so examples and guides can constantly be
improved and support can be delivered when it's needed. Getting
this right is a challenge because it's only valuable if you create
an experience that developers love. That means spinning up
environments quickly, tight integration with API
documentation/authentication, and flexible workflows for all of the
different types of developers. Our solution is different from
other online coding environments in two main ways. First, we are
focused on APIs/SDKs. We are building features to allow developers
to quickly play, test, and learn about _products_ instead of
providing a fully featured IDE like most other solutions. Second,
we give API companies a white-label solution, so they do not have
to send clients to another platform to play with their product.
This is what Hyperbeam did with their Show HN mentioned above
(https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32598062). As that example
shows, it allows for a more seamless solution all around. Since we
want devs to be able to experiment with examples with no initial
setup, we decided to build our own web-based editor with Next.js,
Monaco, and Sandpack. We built the UI with Next.js, which provides
us fast load times with hybrid static and server-side rendering. We
use Monaco for the code editor portion, which allows us to
integrate VScode-like features such as language servers. With
Sandpack we can take advantage of hot module reloading and npm
dependency support. Currently we only offer web based examples,
but runtimes like Python and Node are coming soon. Right now, we
host the application ourselves and provide a widget which companies
can embed on their docs/website/anywhere. In the future, companies
will be able to access a complete white label version of our web
app that they can host and integrate seamlessly into their existing
developer experience. As for pricing, we are charging a flat rate
per month for web environments but once we implement runtimes, we
will switch to usage-based pricing. If you want to learn more
about SideGuide please check us out at https://www.sideguide.dev/.
We'd love to hear any thoughts and feedback you have!
Author : ericciarla
Score : 44 points
Date : 2022-09-01 16:12 UTC (6 hours ago)
| benwhitehead21 wrote:
| Hey Eric (+ team), this looks fantastic! I am really looking
| forward to seeing how non web based runtimes are supported.
|
| I am interested in how developers can use said "observability and
| a feedback mechanism" in order to improve the effectiveness of
| their API documentation. Could you talk specifically about some
| of the tools you provide to developers in order improve their API
| documentation? What sort of metrics do you track and report?
|
| Great job again! :)
| nickca wrote:
| Thank you! Totally. When a developer is playing around with the
| demo we safely track and identify errors that occur in their
| environment and we let API companies reproduce that in their
| end. Aside from that, we provide customer journey visualization
| so API companies can see what steps the customer took and what
| made them do X rather than Y. The user also has the ability to
| provide immediate feedback if they are stuck.
|
| We also track aggregate metrics, like engagement time,
| conversion rate, etc.
| seandoh wrote:
| This is super interesting and something I definitely would have
| used running a previous API product. Best of luck!
| ericciarla wrote:
| Thank you! That is great to hear.
| coconut_t1 wrote:
| Saw your interactive Demo for Hyperbeam last week, super cool
| stuff! Excited to see where this goes.
| ericciarla wrote:
| Thanks man! Appreciate the support :)
| nickca wrote:
| Hi HN! I'm Nick, CTO of SideGuide, happy to answer your questions
| as well :)
| connorlu wrote:
| Eric, Caleb, Nick, and Garrett - this is awesome, definitely has
| a use case to explore the limits of an API in a quick and easy
| way.
| ericciarla wrote:
| Thanks man! We totally agree :) Hopefully this can become the
| standard!
| wenbin wrote:
| Is this supposed to be like RunKit [1], but for many different
| languages?
|
| Our Podcast API product [2] uses RunKit to provide "run node.js
| code right on our API docs web page". RunKit has been acquired by
| Stripe. It's unlikely that they'll support more languages.
|
| It would be great to let our api users try out all api endpoints
| using all different languages right on our web page.
|
| [1] https://www.runkit.com
|
| [2] https://www.listennotes.com/api/docs/
| nickca wrote:
| Hey there! So, kinda of, we definitely took inspiration from
| RunKit and in the future we want to support different
| languages. Our main goal right now is to focus on the core
| developer experience, illustrating how one can use a company's
| API with a real use case, instead of trying out a single
| independent API endpoint. Once, we nail that, we would like to
| move to new languages.
|
| I took a quick look at your podcast API product. First, this
| seems awesome! Would love to try it. Second, would love to see
| a web example consuming your API (if you don't have one). Maybe
| that's something that you could use SideGuide for and would be
| more aligned with our current state. Although I totally see why
| it would be awesome to execute all the api endpoints in
| different languages. Will keep that in mind and maybe explore
| that in the future.
| [deleted]
| mlejva wrote:
| Hey Eric, Caleb, Nick, and Garrett! Congrats to the launch. Great
| seeing another company trying to solve this problem.
|
| I'm co-founder of Devbook. We recently launched a live onboarding
| experience for Prisma https://prisma.usedevbook.com
|
| More than happy to connect if you want!
| ericciarla wrote:
| Hey man! Just checked out Devbook, it seems super cool. There
| may be some opportunity for collaboration :) Feel free to grab
| some time on my cal: https://calendly.com/eric-ciarla
| ericciarla wrote:
| Hi everyone! It is Eric from SideGuide. Caleb (ARRgonaute), Nick,
| Garrett, and I will be hanging out and answering questions if you
| have any :)
| bcjordan wrote:
| Love the name! Really evocative of what the product does / looks
| like concretely.
|
| Would be neat if you could e.g. earn credits to use a service or
| points towards swag as you complete tasks for a given API.
|
| Could see this expanding to encompass use cases like Applitools'
| Test Automation U https://testautomationu.applitools.com/
| ARRgonaute wrote:
| Thanks! We like the name too :)
|
| Gamification is always a fun addition. We want to focus on the
| core functionality at first, but maybe we could have some sort
| of leaderboard in the future (with swag attached). Cool Idea!
|
| Never seen Applitools Test Automation U. I'm taking a look now!
| CompuIves wrote:
| This looks amazing, really nicely done.
|
| I'm the co-founder of CodeSandbox and it's super cool to see
| Sandpack used this way in the wild! We've been working on a way
| to run VMs with Sandpack, maybe we could work together on it if
| you're interested!
| nickca wrote:
| That's awesome! We're big fans of CodeSandbox and we love what
| y'll are doing with Sandpack. Would love to get in touch!
| CompuIves wrote:
| Send me an email at my name @ codesandbox.io, then we can
| plan something!
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(page generated 2022-09-01 23:00 UTC)