---
published: true
layout: post
title: I Want You to Own the Integration
image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/apievangelist/api-evangelist-images/i-want-you-to-own-the-integration.png
date: 2026-09-03
author: Kin Lane
tags:
  - Integration
  - APIs.io
  - Kin Score
  - Discovery
  - Governance
  - Strategy
  - Onboarding
  - APIs
---
There are a lot of middlemen in the software integration realm. After [leaving Naftiko](https://apievangelist.com/2026/09/01/leaving-naftiko-behind-to-focus-on-api-evangelist-and-apis-io/), I spent the month of June assessing what is needed to standardize integration across many different platforms. With the residue of my venture-backed startup hat still soaking into my head, I was looking to build a solution or a tool that would simplify and standardize integrations for both providers and consumers. After [reviewing and writing about onboarding with 25+ leading providers](https://apievangelist.com/2026/07/02/what-36-providers-taught-me-about-programmatic-api-onboarding/), I resisted the impulse to inject myself into the middle of integrations. I want consumers to own their integrations, and I want providers to own the level and quality of the integrations they make possible.

I did not want to be just another middleman in a long list of successful and failed middlemen. I want to be successful in generating revenue from what I build for [APIs.io](https://apis.io) and API Evangelist, but I do not want to repeat the same restricting patterns of the past. I also want to put more of the ownership and accountability on providers and consumers. If an API provider's platform is not programmatic in the ways they are marketing and selling it, they should own that. If an API consumer's needs are more business or regulatory than technical, they should own that. After 15 years of this work, I feel like integration and interoperability are more about business and politics than they are about technology, and if I delivered yet another technical "solution," I would just be kicking the can forward.

This is why I leaned into the [Kin Score](https://apis.io/rating/). I am looking to serve the needs of two personas: 1) people wanting to make decisions about providers and the markets they serve, also known as consumers, and 2) people wanting to be at the top of my search index and the lists of the markets they operate in, also known as providers. I do not want to be in the middle of the integration runtime. I want to be in the middle of the discovery and governance of integrations. I want each of these parties, both provider and consumer, to own their integrations. I do not want to be another commercial or even open source solution in the middle, but I do want to ensure that everything is discoverable and governed from the outside in, in a programmatic and balanced way that reflects the needs of everyone involved. I do not claim to be neutral or unbiased, but I will always work to find the balance required to support the interests of both provider and consumer.

As I work through the thousands of providers indexed on [APIs.io](https://apis.io), I am reminded every day of just how many API resources and tools we depend on to operate our businesses. That number is growing exponentially every year, and I just do not want to be another middleman between businesses and those APIs. I do want to contribute to the conversation, and to provide solutions that help both providers and consumers make sense of and optimize their integration portfolios. This is why I [stop short of offering integration solutions](https://apievangelist.com/2026/07/27/i-stopped-building-the-onboarding-fix-now-i-keep-score/). I want to provide the discovery and governance of integrations, along with other potential solutions, but I do not want to own the integration. I will keep telling myself this over and over as I do my work, resisting any attempt to expand what I offer, making sure I stay focused on helping providers and consumers own their integrations. I will let them choose who they integrate with, and what commercial and open source solutions they employ to help automate and standardize those integrations, at the levels of quality that matter to their businesses.