APIs are a piece of technology, but they do have a business purpose and a user, or rather a developer experience which makes them either good or horrible to use and develop. Without great business-oriented APIs, there can be no API economy. In general lean architecture methods exist but are not used enough. They are useful for DevOps and Agile development, but APIs need special attention. There is a need for a “double loop” of DevOps with APIs, that’s one thing. The more important thing is to use methods which help you to treat your API as a product while covering all important business model and architecture areas. Discussions and collaboration is the key to any successful architecture. Still, many of us design our APIs and software in endless meetings or alone, using no methods at all or methods and language known only by IT professionals. The world could do with a lot of better API designs which translate into better business. These were all reasons to develop the creative-commons licensed open and lean APIOps Cycles method (www.apiopscycles.com). This talk tells the basics of the method, plus some examples of how companies have used it.