We’ve been hearing rumors about it for over a year. It was finally available for pre-order on April 10, 2015 at midnight PST (3:01 a.m. for us east coasters). Within the first fifteen minutes delivery dates were pushed months beyond it’s first delivery date of April 24, 2015. Great for Apple. But, what does it mean for your business? The answer is an obvious one that you’ve most likely already answered: it depends upon what your business is. However, for most businesses, you’ve got time on your side (pun intended).

Unless you have an idea for an app that is specific to the Apple Watch (see below), there are two important considerations for most businesses that should come first:

1. A responsive website
2. A mobile app (if applicable)

On the first item, a responsive website, most small to medium-sized businesses haven’t taken a look at their web site in quite some time. More than likely, it’s not mobile-friendly. A responsive web site allows your business to meet customers at whatever device they choose to view information about you: mobile, tablet or web. Since there’s not any browser on the Apple Watch (and it would be very hard to navigate if it were) there’s no need to build a site that gets down to that level. However, with Google recently announcing they are suppressing non-mobile friendly pages, it might be time to take good hard look at your web strategy.

On the second item, when it comes to creating a mobile app, people ask us all of the time, “How hard is it to create an app?” The truth is, not very hard. An app can be created in a few days. The “hard” comes in creating an app that will be useful to your customers. Many businesses will never need an app, which is why having a responsive website will be more than enough. That said, here are a couple of reasons that you might want to consider having an app:

1. Remaining Current: If it’s important to demonstrate to your clients that your company is technology savvy and current (even an app that doesn’t do much), the fact that you have an app will most likely be attractive to clients. But, here’s the rub, while they may initially see it as cool, if it’s not relevant to them, it may cause them to question your advice in other areas. That said, launching your app as an MVP (minimum viable product) for learning and improving can be respected by clients. However, you need to have a plan to keep improving the and don’t let it grow stagnate.
2. Engaging Customers: If you want to provide deeper engagement with your clients, an app could be a perfect fit. But, the caveat here (again) is that it needs to be worth their time to find and download app, create an account and peruse it. there should be more than just finding your local stores. Otherwise, you could quickly lose credibility.

So, back to the Apple Watch app. As we said above, unless you have the next greatest idea for something specific to the Apple Watch, or have an existing App that can serve a greater purpose to your customers by creating an Apple Watch app, our recommendation is to sit tight, and keep an eye the space for potential opportunities. In the meantime, be sure that your current web site is meeting your customers and prospects on the other devices they finding you on. In the end, ironically, it’s all about timing.