Why API-First is the Only Way to Build

We built Ember API-first from day one. Here's why that decision has paid off enormously and how you can apply the same approach.

The Beginning

Every great product starts with a frustration. For us at Ember, it was watching our previous startup spend more time on tooling and infrastructure than on the actual product. We were context-switching between a dozen different tools — analytics here, integrations there, automations somewhere else. It was chaos.

We asked ourselves: what if all of this lived in one place? What if the platform itself was designed around the way startups actually work — fast, iterative, and obsessed with shipping?

The Build

We started with the analytics layer because it was the hardest part. Real-time data at scale requires careful architecture, and we knew getting it right would set the foundation for everything else. After three weeks of building, we had a working prototype that we immediately started using ourselves.

“Eating your own dog food is the fastest way to find product-market fit. We were our own first customer from day one.”

The integrations layer came next. We built a unified API that could connect to any third-party service, and then wrapped it in a beautiful no-code interface so non-technical team members could set up workflows without writing a line of code.

The Launch

We launched the public beta in December 2025. Within 24 hours, we had 500 signups. Within a week, we had our first paying customers. The response was overwhelming — people were tired of stitching together disparate tools, and they were ready for something better.

$ npm install @ember/sdk

import { Ember } from '@ember/sdk';

const ember = new Ember({ apiKey: process.env.EMBER_API_KEY });

// Track an event
await ember.track('user_signup', { userId, plan: 'growth' });

We're just getting started. The roadmap is packed with features our customers are asking for — and we're shipping every week. That's the beauty of building a product on your own platform: you never lose touch with what it means to ship fast.