Building WatchAPI.dev — From Idea to Product

WatchAPI started as a bash script duct-taped to cron. It pinged our internal services and posted a Slack alert if anything felt off. That rough tool solved a painful problem, so we turned it into something teams could rely on.

Phase 1: Validate the Pain

1. Shadow engineers. We sat with on-call teammates and watched how they debugged downtime. Their tools were noisy, expensive, and slow.
2. Prototype in public. Sharing early screenshots on X filtered signal from noise. The DMs we received shaped the roadmap.
3. Constrain scope. We limited v1 to HTTP checks, status pages, and dead-simple alert routing.

The goal was confidence, not coverage. Every conversation asked, “Did this check make your day calmer?”

Phase 2: Build With Constraints

• Edge-first checks. Users wanted real-world latency, so every probe runs close to their customers.
• Opinionated defaults. We ship with SLA templates, dark-mode friendly status pages, and prewired incident workflows.
• Transparent pricing. Credits instead of tiers keep finance conversations short.

Keeping constraints visible prevented feature creep and made documentation easier to trust.

Phase 3: Ship a Story, Not Only Features

Customers buy a promise. Each release paired notes with a short Loom walkthrough and a doc describing the philosophy behind the change.

| Artifact | Purpose | | --- | --- | | Changelog essay | Explains intent and trade-offs. | | Loom demo | Shows the calm experience, not just screens. | | Upgrade checklist | Gives teams a confident path to adopt. |

What’s Next

• Native synthetic transactions so teams can cover entire purchase funnels.
• AI-assisted incident summaries that translate logs into executive-ready notes.
• A richer public API for provisioning checks straight from CI.

Building WatchAPI reminded me that the best products feel obvious in hindsight. Keep the problem close, keep the story human, and let clarity be your unfair advantage.