Scalability & Growth
AppDirect's catalog management was built for tens of products, not thousands. As enterprise partners outgrew the platform, a new API-first approach was needed to unlock scale and recover millions in at-risk revenue.
The Challenge
AppDirect's partners had outgrown the platform. A decade ago, managing 10-20 products through the UI was fine. By 2022, partners routinely managed hundreds of products, some expanding into thousands of SKUs. The UI-based workflows weren't built for this scale.
The business trigger: 7 digits in total contract value at risk in year one. Sales Engineering compiled a list of partners citing "lack of API" as the deciding factor. Enterprise partners were hitting a ceiling on what they could do with AppDirect.
The complication: A preview (not-ready-for-production) version already existed, creating trust and alignment challenges with executive stakeholders.
My Role
Owned the Product Management APIs for catalog management as part of AppDirect's company-wide APIs and headless initiative. Led the rebuild from architectural decisions through delivery, coordinating across engineering teams while managing executive alignment on a project that required rebuilding internal trust.
Peush Patel, VP of Product, AppDirect | Thrive 2024 Product Keynote
Process
Validation:
Direct partner interviews on scale pain points
Sales Engineering input (the 7-digit risk list)
Account team feedback on partner dissatisfaction
Prioritization (data-informed): Analyzed product lifecycle patterns to sequence API capabilities:
Create → universal (all marketplaces need to add products)
Update → high-frequency, time-sensitive (Microsoft reprices regularly, branding changes like the Copilot rebrand require bulk updates)
Delete → low volume in typical timeframes
Key tradeoff: Ship APIs with the current product model (imperfect) vs. wait to perfect the model (and keep losing deals). Decision: ship now, protect revenue, iterate later.
Architecture decision: Chose event-driven microservices over patching the existing system. This added upfront work but delivered better reliability, avoided data consistency issues, and opened the door for future capabilities like versioning and audit logs.
Product Publication Workflow
Solution
Partners needed scale, not APIs specifically. The APIs established as the foundational enabler, but the full solution included:
Component | What it solved |
Product Management APIs (GraphQL) | Programmatic access for partners ready to integrate |
File uploader (Built on delivered APIs) | CSV bulk operations without direct API integration |
Simplified UI (Built on delivered APIs) | Reduced friction for manual workflows |
Documentation | Clearer guidance on the product model |
API capabilities delivered:
Product shell creation (core product type, settings)
Editions and pricing plan management
Listing/profile info (branding, descriptions, localization)
Integration configuration (webhooks, SSO, events)
Publication workflow (staging → production)
Bulk operations (single call for multiple updates)
Peush Patel, VP of Product @ AppDirect, presenting Catalog APIs during Thrive 2024
Impact
Concrete example: An enterprise HR software vendor updated 300 products in 16 minutes, unblocking a launch at their industry event. The same task previously took 25+ hours of manual UI work.
Foundation laid: The event-driven architecture and API framework became the backbone for subsequent platform capabilities, including the distributor integrations that enabled 500K+ SKU imports (see MSP Expansion case study).
Reflection
Core lesson: An imperfect solution that solves problems beats a perfect one that never ships.
The tradeoff to ship with the current product model was correct. Protecting revenue and retaining partners mattered more than architectural purity. We could iterate on the model; we couldn't recover lost customers.
Ecosystem impact: What started as "help partners scale" became "enable the ecosystem to build on top of AppDirect." The APIs powered the file uploader, simplified UI, and positioned the platform for enhancements to network catalog syndication.
— Nicholas Desmarais, CEO, AppDirect | Thrive 2025 Keynote
