You have an entirely different onboarding story on the web. You can test easily, cheaply, and fast enough to make a difference on the web. You can fix a critical bug that crashes your app on load 15 minutes after discovery. You can show 10 different landing pages and decide in real-time which one is working the best for a particular user. You can also close a viral loop: A user can click an email and immediately be using your app with you. You can’t put parameters on a download link and people don’t download apps from their computer to their phone. Without the barrier of a download + opening the app to try your product, you can prove value to the user immediately upon their first impression.
Vibhu Nirby on why he’s pivoting EveryMe from mobile-first to Web-first. Fair points, sure, but he’s really railing against mobile-only, not mobile-first businesses.
As a result, he rightly closes with: “You certainly need a mobile app to serve your customers and compete, but it should only be part of your strategy and not the whole thing.”