One of the most common traps in product development is thinking the next step is to just “build the thing.”
But what if you’re not even building the right thing?
That’s the question I had to face with CAC Tracker — a tool we developed to help track customer acquisition costs across digital campaigns. We had a working desktop version. Users were asking for mobile access. And the options weren’t obvious:
Do we leave it desktop-only?
Build a full mobile app?
Make the site responsive?
Or create a Progressive Web App (PWA)?
Every option had trade-offs — cost, development time, deployment complexity, and maintenance burden.
So we paused, and did what most businesses should do before writing a single line of new code: we created a simple decision matrix.
We broke down each option by:
Technical lift
Deployment path
Long-term maintenance
User experience
Business goals
Then we made the call: go with a responsive website that can be upgraded to a PWA.
The result?
A fast, accessible version for users on any device
No app store approval headaches
A better experience without ballooning our dev budget
The lesson: decision-making frameworks + expert guidance are your best defense against wasting time and money in product development.
It’s not just about building faster. It’s about building smarter.