Want to Automate? APIs and Webhooks are Everything

Software needs to talk to each other, that's the foundation of all business automation. In this episode, Alane and Micah break down the three critical ways platforms communicate and why understanding these basics determines whether your business stays competitive or gets stuck in manual mode.

What You'll Learn:

• APIs: When you need to ask for something (get customer data, create invoices, update records)
• Webhooks: When you're listening for something to happen (payment received, form submitted)
• MCPs: The AI version designed specifically for agents and task delegation

Key Insights:

• Why "Does it have an API?" should be your first question about any software
• How to spot automation-friendly tools before committing to subscriptions
• Real workarounds when your current software doesn't play well with others
• Using AI to research API capabilities without diving into developer docs

This episode gives you the knowledge to make smarter software decisions and understand why some integrations work seamlessly while others leave you copying data manually between platforms.

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Transcript

Micah Johnson (00:01)
If you want to automate workflows in your business, but don't understand the difference between APIs, webhooks, and MCPs, keep listening. Cause this episode is for you.

Alane Boyd (00:11)
These really are the basics of automation that I find myself talking about almost on a daily basis with people, especially if they're asking me like, can we build an agent for that? Can we do an automation? And I'm like, well, what software are you using? Does it have API capabilities? does this look like?

Micah Johnson (00:31)
It's the first question for everything, right? Like, well, I don't know. Can we build an automation? Can you build an agent for it? The only way we can is, or the only way anybody can is if the platforms that they're using have APIs, webhooks, or MCPs.

Alane Boyd (00:50)
So, Micah, why don't you explain, and I like the way that you've worded these in the past, is what's an API, a webhook, and an MCP?

Micah Johnson (00:58)
Sure. So an API, you can think of like an API when you need to ask for something. So one system or an agent or an automation needs to ask for something. Webhooks are for like, when you're listening, you're waiting for something to happen. And MCPs are kind of like, they're designed specifically for AI and agents, but it's almost for like delegating. And so maybe it'd be helpful if we

went into each of those in detail.

Alane Boyd (01:29)
Yeah. And let me just say like the way that I think of it from just the most basic concept of what these three are, it's how software can talk to each other. And that's like the, at the end of the day, that's all you need is you need software to be able to talk outside of it's with like, like Pipedrive CRM. If it could only work within Pipedrive, that's a very limiting software. We wouldn't be, it can't communicate outside of itself.

Micah Johnson (01:38)
Totally. That's a really good way to put it.

Alane Boyd (01:56)
And so we couldn't build an automation with it. Now it does have these capabilities. And so it becomes a very useful software because it can communicate outside of itself with the use of APIs and webhooks.

Micah Johnson (02:07)
Yeah, I mean, honestly, Pipedrive's APIs are top notch, but there are, yeah, there's a ton of CRMs that we run into with people that we talk to companies and founders that we work with where they're like, I'm using this CRM and I can't find, I want to automate. I want to integrate with it. I want to do these things with it.

Alane Boyd (02:11)
Good example.

Micah Johnson (02:30)
And the first question we ask is, it have an API? And they're like, I don't know. And then we look at it together and sure enough, no API. that's extents. That's pretty much a roadblock. That's a, well, you might need to use this. Yeah.

Alane Boyd (02:44)
Right, there's nothing we can do to fix that. It's just

not going to work.

Micah Johnson (02:49)
Yep. All right. So an API is again, let me ask for data or I want to make something happen. So examples would be, let me get the last 100 customers that were added to the CRM or let me create a new invoice in QuickBooks or Xero or let me update this deal record in a CRM or let me update this task or project in Asana or ClickUp or Monday.

All of those are one system to another and asking to do something or let me make something happen or let me get some data or some information. And the only way you can do any of that, and you can't just invent, I want it to do this because it has an API. It has to have the API endpoints, which are the actual actions that you can take. And so if it has an API and it's super limited, you're limited.

Alane Boyd (03:28)
Mm-hmm.

there's nothing you can

do with it. Or there may be, there's limited things you can do with it. And that's one thing that I think is a harder concept to understand. Cause you're like, do a quick Google. You see that the software that you're using does have API and API and you're going, all right, we're good. And it's, that's the start, but you're limited to what is available in the API to be able to work with. So.

Micah Johnson (03:46)
Yeah, you're limited by the API. Yes.

Alane Boyd (04:14)
That would be the next layer down. It's like, okay, well, what data are you trying to get out of it? Can it send that data? Can it communicate like that? And so that would be the next layer of capabilities with the software.

Micah Johnson (04:25)
Yeah. And, and I would say we get questions like, well, you know, I'm working with the team who's making this software. Maybe I can just pass them to make the API. You can ask them. It might go in the development backlog, but the reality is probably not going to happen because it's a lot of work making APIs on the development side.

Alane Boyd (04:36)
Sure. Right.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, it isn't just a quick fix. And even if you do have an inside channel with a team, like you said, it would be added to a backlog. Sometimes they wait for a number of votes. You know, just because it's your priority doesn't mean it's their priority.

Micah Johnson (05:03)
Yep. Absolutely.

Alane Boyd (05:05)
So, Micah, I also hear you saying, and this is, see them when we build things. one of your massive marketing agents that we have is all from webhooks. And I think it's listening from stuff from Airtable maybe. And so sometimes I'll even hear you say, it's like, well, for this, don't necessarily have to have an API if we could just use a webhook.

Micah Johnson (05:27)
Yeah, so a webhook is kind of a part. It's different than an API, but it's like hand in hand. It's like the other side of the coin. So where an API, you want to like request things to happen or create new things in a platform. A webhook is like, I'm just going to wait for something to happen. Or the webhook actually tells me or tells the agent or tells the automation when something happens.

And so if we didn't have webhooks and years ago, we didn't, we would have to have an API and we would have to go, Hey, any new deals come into the CRM yet? Like every five minutes or every 15 minutes or every hour, like, Hey, any new deals, any new deals, any like huge waste of resources, very poor design. You know, you don't want to just have something sitting there doing this over and over and over again.

Alane Boyd (06:07)
It had to be constantly checking.

Right.

Micah Johnson (06:25)
That's what webhooks solve. So instead of pulling the API over and over, you're legitimately having an agent or a workflow that just sits there and goes, ⁓ I'm going to chill. You tell me when a new deal comes in. And when that happens, cool. Then I'll take some action. Otherwise, I'm just going to be sitting here drinking my virtual Mai Tai.

Alane Boyd (06:41)
you

Yeah, so what really happened is it could be a real trigger. It wasn't that it had to keep checking for the trigger. It could really be like, ⁓ this field and Airtable just got changed and the webhook heard it happen and it could run that trigger and run that automation.

Micah Johnson (07:09)
Yeah. And what it's actually doing is sending data, what's called a payload, technically to the automation or to the agent to give it that contextual information. you know, a couple of examples would be, Hey, a payment came in on Stripe. Cool. That triggers a web hook and the information that it sends is, well, who's the customer? What's their email? What's the ID of the transaction? All the stuff or most of the stuff that an automation or an agent would need to go,

I can handle this from here. I know what to do from here. Or say a new user signed up on your ⁓ community, or something in a form happened, or a file finished uploading or processing. Those are all events that happen in one system that can transmit a webhook to an automation, to an agent, to something that would actually be able to take that information and take action on it.

Again, the webhook has to exist. You cannot invent webhooks with wishful thinking and hope like, well, I hope this happens.

Alane Boyd (08:15)
Mm-hmm.

These two things are really important because a lot of the conversations I have and Micah, you know, you might be having them as well where a Company isn't sure what their tech is going to be yet They they're basically looking to say I need a CRM or I need this software for this and what am I looking for? these are the two key components when you're vetting software that you want to validate that they have an API with API docs and

and they have endpoints. If there's only two endpoints, highly unlikely that it's gonna be really usable.

Micah Johnson (08:56)
Totally. And this is so important these days, because if you have older software that doesn't have this, you're not integrating with it. You're not using AI. You're not staying competitive. When you're picking new software, like you're saying, Alane, it has to have this stuff. And it has to be capable enough for you to leverage AI, for you to make automation, for you to build these workflows. Otherwise, you're stuck with manual processes.

Alane Boyd (09:12)
Hmm.

Micah Johnson (09:26)
while your competitors have picked software that have these things and are quickly automating the busy work.

Alane Boyd (09:29)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, then you're going to always have to have people pull data out and you're not going to be able to put it as part of an automated workflow. So Micah, I've been hearing things about MCPs and where does this fit in with APIs and webhooks?

Micah Johnson (09:47)
Yeah,

so MCP is model context protocol. And I guess we should say what API stands for, application programming interface. We're not going to quiz you. Who cares, right? is the just acronyms drive me nuts these days. And I come from a tech background, but who cares? It's an API. It's an MCP. MCP is like an AI version of an API.

Alane Boyd (09:57)
It really clears everything up.

you

Micah Johnson (10:13)
It's a way that AI agents can connect to other things like an API, but it gives tools and extra context to the AI models to be able to make better decisions without you having to spell everything out. But MCPs are pretty new. They came out a couple of years ago. Most agents and most integrations that you're gonna do are still API based. So if it has an MCP, great. If it doesn't, but it has an API,

Fantastic. Still works.

Alane Boyd (10:42)
Yeah,

you're still golden. Yeah, that's what I was even wondering is because this is such a new piece of technology, how many software platforms have even gotten there to have this available?

Micah Johnson (10:56)
Yeah, I mean, we're still in the world where some software doesn't even have an API, let alone webhooks. sometimes, and I've seen this, I can't think of which software I saw this last on, but they've kind of jumped past APIs and went straight to MCP. Cool. As long as you know what you're looking for,

Alane Boyd (11:02)
I'm writing so much less at MCP.

Micah Johnson (11:21)
then you can start understanding is this software worth buying? Is this subscription worth it? Can I integrate it? What would that mean for my automated workflows in my business?

Alane Boyd (11:31)
Mm-hmm.

What are the automation platforms like N8n? they, I mean, I know APIs and webhooks are available in N8n and Make and Zapier, but are MCPs already a part of, I'm assuming already a part of N8n. Do you know if they're also available to integrate within Make and Zapier?

Micah Johnson (11:53)
Make-in Zapier, I don't know off the top of my head. N8n 100%, they introduced that months and months ago. I believe they were the first to introduce it, just like they were the first to introduce agents. And so they made it, you know, with N8n, it's possible to connect to an existing, what's called an MCP server. And so you basically take your agent, you give it an MCP tool, and then,

Alane Boyd (12:13)
Mm.

Micah Johnson (12:20)
that connects to the MCP server on the platform that you want to integrate with. And then you just pick what you want the agent to be able to do with it. And that's kind of it. It's really incredible.

Alane Boyd (12:32)
That's super cool. It's really the next version of automation. Like people always say, like, what's next? Like this will be the next piece of building automation and agents.

Micah Johnson (12:42)
Yeah, yeah. And we talk a lot about in this episode, if it doesn't have an API, you're of SOL. But there are some workarounds. They're not great. And they're usually manual. So Alane, I thought it would be just worth mentioning. You could have a VA export stuff manually into a spreadsheet. And then,

Put that in Google drive and feed that to your agent or your integration. So you might be able to automate 50 % of that, but there's still that first manual step. without MCPs, without webhooks and without APIs, there's usually something like that where it's like, okay, we have to get the data somehow. Maybe AI and maybe automation can help us transform that data. And then it's ready for a workflow.

Alane Boyd (13:32)
Mm-hmm.

Micah Johnson (13:36)
So.

Alane Boyd (13:38)
glad you actually said that because even thinking about some of the ones that I've been a part of with ones that we've built for clients, that was the workaround. And maybe it's a really industry specific software platform and there's just no other options and it is what it is, but you want to be able to pull data out. And that CSV one is probably the most common one that I've seen. like, okay, well, it doesn't mean that nothing can be automated. It just can't be automated with a trigger that's not

Micah Johnson (14:05)
Yes, yes, exactly right. And I think maybe to wrap up this episode, Alane, the final mention or the final thought of all of this is, how do you determine if it has APIs, if it has the right endpoints and the actions that it can take, and whether it has webhooks and MCPs or all three, possibly. And the easiest way to do it is to Google it. But.

Alane Boyd (14:26)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm

Micah Johnson (14:32)
That, you know, the old school way is Google it and read the API docs. But those are written for developers and yeah, I'll admit like it takes practice to even understand where the hell am I going to go in this API doc to figure out what the hell I'm looking at. So yeah, yeah. The alternative is let AI do the work for you.

Alane Boyd (14:37)
Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, it's not a fun read. It's pretty bland.

Micah Johnson (15:00)
Ask Gemini, Ask ChatGPT, Ask Claude to search the web. This part's important. Search the web and find the API docs or the API endpoints or the webhooks or the MCP servers for the platforms that you have or are thinking about buying. But make sure it cites the actual links so that you can click on them and see, yes, this is real. Because this is one area where AI is like, I think it can do this. I'm just going to say it can.

Alane Boyd (15:28)
Mm-hmm.

Right. It will make things up. It will give you false information. You know, just like we would say, hey, I saw it on TV and our parents would be like, you can't believe everything on TV, is that you've got to verify that if it says there's an API endpoint for that, that you do go and double check that it's accurate.

Micah Johnson (15:50)
Are you telling me the sham wow does not work as effectively as they led me to believe?

Alane Boyd (15:56)
⁓ The ShamWow definitely works. They weren't lying on TV. That was truth.

Micah Johnson (15:58)
Okay, thank God.