9 questions to help you decide if you should build an app or not

I founded an app. So it’s common for friends or acquaintances to come to me when they’re thinking about doing the same.

These conversations have varying questions, but my answer is always the same.

Commonly asked:

“I’m thinking about starting an app. How do I do it?”

“Our company needs an app. How much do you think this will cost?”

“I have a great app idea and want your feedback.”

No matter the question, I pretty much always say the same thing:

“You probably shouldn’t do this.”

You missed the gold rush

The mobile landscape has changed significantly since the days of Snake (the first mobile app) or even the first iPhone. Still, so many people think it’s still the wild west for apps and there is a pan of gold waiting on you. (There isn’t.)

The truth is we’re closing in on multiple decades since the iPhone launched—the app stores are highly saturated. Millions of apps are competing for attention, and most of them will never make it to 36 months. Only 0.01% are ever a financial success.

So when people come to me to share their idea and I poo poo all over it by breaking down development fees, ongoing maintenance, the challenges of keeping up with app store changes, and talking through realistic churn expectations, it’s not because I’m a curmudgeon, it’s because I care and think most people don’t realize what they’re getting into.

An app will eat you alive if you’re not careful.

For a small business or especially a startup, getting into an app is a monster commitment. I have seen competitor after competitor for us enter the market, only to be out in 18 months.

We need to reframe the question from “how much to build my app?” to “do I need an app at all?”

When most people think they need an app, what they actually need is a mobile first mindset.

Let’s tackle this like a good critical thinking exercise in grade school. And sure, we can have snacks after.

Why even have an app?

Track how many questions you answer with “Yes.”

1) Will your audience be without internet access when using your app? [YES] [NO]

2) Do you need to access the phone’s hardware? (GPS, camera, microphone) [YES] [NO] 

3) Are push notifications critical for your app? [YES] [NO]

4) Realistically, will your customers / users use your app daily? [YES] [NO]

5) Are you trying to achieve something numerically complicated? [YES] [NO]

6) Are you ready to hire 2X more developers to have an app? [YES] [NO]

7) Have you built a financial model that leads to profitability? [YES] [NO]

8) Do you need to integrate with third party services or hardware? [YES] [NO]

9) Are you OK completely ignoring the power of SEO? [YES] [NO]

If you answered yes to one or two of these, you may need an app. If it’s straight nos, then you need a good mobile web experience—not an app.

An app has a ton of advantages over a good mobile website, namely that it can tackle all of the challenges above. However, after working through these nine questions, most companies will find they don’t actually need the app.

Let’s talk break each one down.

1) Internet access

Recently someone called me to ask about building an app for an outdoors audience. The functionality would be an activity tracking app that would have a journaling feature, combined with third party integrations. The product was going to often be used out of cell range, which means native app is the only way it would function. This was easy to recognize—it had to be an app, not a good mobile website. It was a great product idea, but ultimately through our discussion, it became clear the monetization was going to be tough (see question seven).

2) Hardware

Products like OnX or AllTrails absolutely cannot function as a mobile website. The apps tap into GPS, allowing the product to work with little or no cell service. Similarly if you need to tap into the phone’s camera or microphone, you likely need to build an app to have the proper controls over this hardware. If you’re simply uploading photos, this is likely not the case.

3) Push notifications

If your product is going to rely on reminding users to do an activity or push constant information, you need push notifications. I’m not a developer, but I know you can tap into push with Progressive Web Apps (I’m not digging into this today, but effectively PWAs are a good hybrid option to consider). However, I still believe in the power of a native app for this type of app. This kind of app might be a news app like Artifact, or a weight loss app that is reminding you to log food for calorie counting.

4) Daily use

If you need to pull people back to your app early and often, a native app will have advantages, purely from convenience. Combining a powerful push strategy to help build the habit of using your app (I recommend the book “Hooked” for learning more about this), an app is the better tool. Training someone to come back to a web browser with limited login functionality is just inconvenient and not the experience you’ll need to have good retention. Frequently used products (think workout, news, weight loss, journaling for good examples) are not going to work well as a mobile web product.

5) Complex computations

If your product is going to require complex computations for analytics or reporting, this is going to function much better with a native product. It’s hard to get into this with a few sentences, but essentially these tasks can be a heavy lift for a mobile web product, and relying solely on good Internet connections for this may cause slow load times (not to mention your servers may not love you). You can build this functionality natively into the app to help with speed, either loading charts or graphs in the background or at least relying less on web connections.

6) 2X the developers

Make no mistake, if you’re going to build a great native app, you will need at least a backend, Android, and iOS engineer. I will tell you it’s a horrible mistake to not have a web product if for no other reason than No. 9 on this list. Many people will tell you that you can find one developer to do it all, but that’s just not been my experience. I have developers on our team who can do backend and one client (iOS or Android), but generally you’re going to want specialists to build a great product.

7) Financial model

Most people completely overlook this. You are not building Flappy Bird, which was making $18M per year before the creator shut it down. Most profit and loss statements that I see completely ignore major factors for apps, such as churn, and they overestimate usage significantly. It is critical to think through how you’re going to monetize your app, because it’s going to have a very high cost (generically, just plan on $100K to $250K to get a good product live, and no less than $10K/month to maintain on two platforms—these are very generic numbers that will vary wildly per product, but for someone with no experience, this should give you an idea of how much revenue you’ll need to generate).

8) Third party hardware

If your product needs to integrate with devices such as smart watches or bluetooth devices, you may need an app. We could have built our Garmin and other smartwatch integrations with a web-only product for the import of data, but the actual display and use of haptics to replicate heart rates would have never worked on a mobile experience.

9) Ignoring SEO

This is where I reiterate No. 6—you still need a web experience. Search Engine Optimization is a critical component for most businesses, and if your product is only operating in a closed ecosystem, you’re not going to rank well on Google. This was a misstep on my part with GoWild. We went app only for years, ignoring the power of the content we were creating. In contrast, AllTrails focused on using its community’s knowledge for reach, and that content helps the platform reach tens of millions of people per month with organic SEO on its website. They have completely owned any searches for trailheads through SEO. App-first or only has many proven downsides.

Conclusion and alternative paths

Mobile apps have evolved over the years, and they still very much have their place. However, most of the time when I run through this list of questions with people who reach out with a great app idea, we land on the simple fact that they don’t need to build an app. They need a great mobile-first website. I would also encourage you to explore Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) if you’re really exploring this debate.

Many people have come to me wanting to create a social product for their community, and this is a no brainer—but you still likely shouldn’t build this custom. GoWild is a custom built platform, and I will stand strong that this was the right path. Our platform has a ton of unique functionality that had to be custom built for our audience. But for the functionality that most people want—the ability to connect a community—there are great white label options out there.

Mighty Networks is my No. 1 recommendation for social networks and community powered courses. You can have a branded community app that will get you to 90% of what you need out of the box. I’ve been in several communities that use Mighty Networks, and from what I’ve experienced as a community member, it’s a great product that gets you that branded app in the app store without the six figure development bill.

Most importantly in this list, I encourage anyone considering building an app to really stress test a profit and loss statement. Apps aren’t cheap to build, and have to have a path to profitability if you want to avoid being among the stat that most die before three years. Trust me, I’ve seen too many fall victim to the ongoing maintenance and churn problems. You need a solid plan and path to generating revenue, and it should go beyond ads.

Note: If you enjoyed this read, please share it on LinkedIn and tag me. I’d love to hear your thoughts there in a post.

Who I’m listening to: Charles Wesley Godwin

What I’m reading: “Elon Musk” by Walter Isaacson

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