My assertion is that your software’s documentation *must* be considered part of your overall go-to-market product offering strategy. Developing your APIs is only one-half of the work required to have your software platform ready for the market. The other half is ensuring its widespread adoption by those potentially interested in consuming its APIs. And this entails developing great documentation to go with your primary product.
If this is unfortunately lacking, there is a very real possibility that your platform may fail to gain valuable traction from early adopters, more so because this creates the perception of lack of will on the part of the principal developers to help the developer community or, even worse, apathy. And this is not good news at all, especially after you have invested immensely large amounts of time and resources in getting your product ready for the market.
Documentation is about as significant as the primary product itself, and has the power to make or break adoption of your platform. Not to forget that it’s not just your code, but the overall package of code + clear documentation that makes for great IP (Intellectual Property). High-quality documentation is that important.
