Mobile FIRST, yet we didn’t build an app.
Mobile is the future, no one argues with that. People expect services to be available on their phone, and that trend is only going to increase. People probably think we are crazy for not having an app in the Apple or Google Play store. We specifically didn’t build an app to start and this is why.
Bootstrapping a startup with one on the tech side means dev time is like fairy dust. Shit needs to get done quickly, and features need to be in front of customers in hours not days. This is not an excuse, and an app is in the works. However we carefully thought about this and pushing an MVP app to the app store is definitely not necessary to test the concept. So far we have had 3 successful iterations of our current mobile web product, all of which are shaping our app. Building a mobile web first product has allowed us to quickly test the user experience and instantly get updates in front of a limited customer base.
Your early stage customers are the most important, alienating them by forcing upgrades or not supporting devices is not excused by anything. If someone wants to use your product, its the companies job to facilitate that.[1]
Check out www.eatstackd.com on your phone and let me know your thoughts.
- This only holds true for products where software is the facilitator. If the software is the core product and has requirements in order to function properly, then this does not apply. Our core product is food, we use technology to make bringing food to people, quicker, cheaper and easier.
