Epi 27 | Bridging the AI Gap in API Development | 18 Year-Old Wiz Kids | Co-Founders Christopher Fitzgerald & Nicholas Van Landschoot

Christopher Fitzgerald and Nicholas Van Landschoot, best friends and co-founders of APIGen

Christopher Fitzgerald and Nicholas Van Landschoot, co-founders of APIGen, discuss their journey from high school debate partners to startup founders (but they are still only 18 years old,) highlighting the challenges and innovations in API development. They emphasize the importance of debate skills in their entrepreneurial success and explain how APIGen simplifies API creation for non-developers.

APIGen Interface Example

Conversation Summary:

• Introduction and Background: Christopher and Nick share their backgrounds, meeting in high school debate, and how their debate experiences helped them develop skills crucial for pitching and starting their company, APIGen.

• APIGen’s Mission and Functionality: They explain APIGen’s mission to simplify API creation for non-developers by allowing users to generate APIs from natural language prompts. They highlight the platform’s ability to handle both the design and internal logic of APIs.

• Technical Challenges and Solutions: The co-founders discuss the technical challenges they faced, such as integrating various libraries and ensuring accurate code generation. They also mention their strategies for overcoming these obstacles.

• Market Research and Validation: Christopher and Nick talk about the market need for their product, citing statistics on API development and their experiences pitching to the Rocky Mountain AI interest group. They emphasize the growing market for API management.

• Future Applications and Innovations: They share exciting future applications of their technology, including controlling drones with APIs and expanding into the IoT market. They also discuss the potential for their platform to handle more complex medical device integrations.

• Personal Insights and Advice: The episode concludes with personal insights from the co-founders, including their favorite pieces of advice, superpower wishes, and historical figures they’d like to meet. They also express their appreciation for the supportive environment in Boulder, Colorado.