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title: Your business probably does not need an app
author: Giacomo Balli
published: 2026-08-09
url: https://BigBalli.com/blog/your-business-probably-does-not-need-an-app
tags: SaaS, Product, Growth, Disruption, Reading
---

# Your business probably does not need an app

*By Giacomo Balli* | *Published: August 9, 2026*

Your business probably does not need an app.

I have shipped apps since 2010, so this is not a position I hold lightly. It is what the numbers say. Most customers of most businesses will not install anything. The ones who will already have forty apps they do not open. An app you have to convince people to download is a marketing cost disguised as a product.

An app is the right answer in a narrow set of cases.

The customer uses you often enough that a tap saves them real time: daily, weekly, on a schedule. A coffee subscription, a gym, a field crew clocking in.

The phone does something a website cannot: the camera, the GPS, a notification that has to arrive, a device that has to pair.

The customer is already on their phone when the need arises and the mobile web version would lose them at the login screen.

Or the app is for your own people, not your customers, and it replaces a clipboard.

If none of those describe you, the $150k app proposal on your desk is going to produce a very good app that a few hundred people install and a few dozen use. The agency will build it well. That is the problem: it will work exactly as specified and change nothing about the business.

Fix the website. It is where your customers already are.

[Discuss on LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7503834676776828928)

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**Tags:** SaaS, Product, Growth, Disruption, Reading

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