I hear some version of this on almost every call.
The API works. The engineering is solid. But somewhere between your codebase and a developer's first integration, something breaks down. They get stuck. They file a ticket. They go quiet. They pick a competitor with docs they can actually follow.
You know the docs need work. You've known for a while.
Here's what nobody talks about:
You've brought up the documentation problem before. Maybe in a planning meeting, maybe in a 1:1, maybe in that Slack channel where things go to die. Engineering nodded. Added it to the backlog. Gave it a priority label that means “never.”
And you can't really be mad about it. They're shipping features. Hitting deadlines. Doing the work that shows up in release notes and board decks. Documentation doesn't demo well. Nobody gets promoted for writing a great quickstart guide.
So you let it slide. Again.
Meanwhile, the support tickets keep coming. Authentication questions. Rate limit confusion. “Where's the webhook example?” And when the tickets don't get answered fast enough, the customer wants a call.
So now your Solutions Engineer is on a Zoom, sharing their screen, fumbling through the same docs the customer couldn't follow. Hunting for the right page. Apologizing for the gaps. Walking them through something that should have taken five minutes to read.
That SE was supposed to be working on the enterprise rollout. Now they're doing docs triage. And they'll be doing it again tomorrow, because nothing got fixed. The docs are still broken. The next customer will hit the same wall.
Your team sees a backlog item. You see your best people burning hours on problems that shouldn't exist.
Pull up your support queue. Scroll through the last month.
How many tickets were authentication questions? Rate limit confusion? Webhook examples that didn't exist? “Where do I find...” requests that should have taken five seconds to answer?
Now think about the ones that never became tickets. The developer who gave up before asking. The prospect who “decided to go another direction.” The integration that got abandoned at 60% because the next step wasn't clear.
Each one of those is a cost. Not just the support time. That's the easy number. The real cost is the SE hours. The engineer interruptions. The context switching that kills deep work. The deals that die in silence because nobody wanted to admit the docs were the blocker.
Your API could be twice as good as the competition. If developers can't figure out how to use it, you'll never get the chance to prove it.
Picture this: A developer lands on your documentation. Cold. No context. Maybe they found you through a Google search, maybe a prospect sent them to evaluate your API.
Five minutes later, they've made their first successful call. No ticket. No Slack message to your team. No “can we hop on a quick call to walk through this.”
They keep going. Authentication clicks into place. The examples run the first time. When something breaks, the error message tells them exactly what to fix. Not some cryptic code they have to Google.
By end of day, they've got a working integration. They're already thinking about what else they can build with it. They send an email to their team: “This API is solid. The docs are actually good.”
Your SEs stop doing docs triage. Your support queue gets lighter. Prospects start closing themselves because they've already proven the integration works before the demo call.
The docs become the thing you show off instead of the thing you apologize for.
You don't need to convince engineering to prioritize documentation. You don't need to hire a technical writer and wait six months for them to ramp up. You don't need another tool.
You need someone who can look at your API fresh, figure out where developers get stuck, and build docs that actually get them unstuck.
We audit what you have. We find the gaps. The authentication confusion, the missing examples, the dead ends that make developers give up or file a ticket or ask for a call. Then we rebuild it. Quickstart guides. Authentication walkthroughs. Endpoint references. Code examples that actually run.
We use whatever platform you're already on. GitBook, Docusaurus, ReadMe, your custom setup. Doesn't matter.
The whole thing happens async. We ask questions when we need context. You review drafts when you have time. Your engineers stay focused on shipping. Most projects wrap in four to six weeks. Complex APIs with multiple products take longer, and we'll tell you that upfront.
I spent 15 years as a Solutions Engineer and engineering leader at companies like Healthie, ScriptDrop, and ezCater. API-first companies where integrations were the business.
I've been the SE on those calls. Screen-sharing with a frustrated customer, hunting through our own docs for the page that should have answered their question an hour ago. Apologizing for gaps we all knew existed. Promising to “follow up with better documentation” and knowing it probably wouldn't happen.
I've sat in the planning meetings where docs got deprioritized. I've watched support queues grow while the backlog stayed frozen. I've seen good APIs lose deals to worse products with better documentation.
I didn't read about this problem in a book. I lived it. And I got tired of watching it happen.
That's why I started API Docs Accelerator. Not because I love writing documentation, but because I know what it costs when the docs don't work. And I know how to fix it.
Book a discovery call. We'll talk about your API, where developers get stuck, and what fixing it would actually look like.
No pitch. No deck. If it's a fit, we'll tell you. If it's not, we'll tell you that too. Either way, you'll leave with a clearer picture of what your docs need.
You already know this. The question is whether you want to keep watching tickets pile up and SEs burn hours on triage, or do something about it.
We work with three clients at a time. If the timing works, let's talk.