Why Openpath Built Mobile Apps Before They Had Revenue

Why Openpath Built Mobile Apps Before They Had Revenue

Ask most startup advisors about building native mobile apps before product-market fit, and they’ll tell you you’re insane. Build web first. Validate the concept. Add mobile later if customers demand it. Don’t waste resources on premature optimization. In a recent episode of Category Visionaries, Scott Dorey, Co-Founder of Openpath, explained why they ignored this conventional wisdom—and how investing in iOS and Android apps from day one became the decision that made everything else possible.

The “Wasteful” Decision

Building and maintaining native mobile applications is expensive. Two codebases to manage. Platform-specific design requirements. App store approval processes. Ongoing updates for OS changes. For an early-stage startup with limited resources, it seems like exactly the kind of premature investment that kills companies.

Scott and his team made the investment anyway. “We built it on AWS. We built a iOS and Android app from day one,” he explains. Not after proving the market. Not after raising Series A. From the very beginning, before they had a single paying customer, Openpath committed to native mobile apps as a core part of their product.

This wasn’t recklessness—it was strategic clarity about what would create sustainable competitive advantage. The access control industry was dominated by systems built around badges and physical card readers. Mobile access existed as an afterthought, if at all. Openpath bet that mobile-first would become the primary interface, and that getting there first with quality apps would create a moat competitors couldn’t cross.

Mobile as Category Redefinition

The decision to build mobile apps from day one wasn’t about adding a feature—it was about redefining what access control could be. Traditional systems required physical badges. Lost your badge? You couldn’t enter the building. Forgot your badge? Turn around and go home. Want to grant temporary access? Issue a physical credential.

Mobile-first architecture eliminated all these friction points. Your phone was already in your pocket. Temporary access was a push notification. Lost credentials were a non-issue. Remote management became trivial. The user experience gap between legacy systems and Openpath wasn’t incremental—it was generational.

This UX advantage showed up immediately in sales conversations. Prospects could see the difference in minutes. Legacy systems felt like using DOS in a touch-screen world. Openpath felt like the consumer apps users already loved. That visceral difference closed deals that features and pricing couldn’t.

The Sales Advantage of Consumer-Grade UX

Scott’s insight was recognizing that B2B buying decisions are made by humans who use consumer apps every day. Those humans expected enterprise software to work like their favorite consumer experiences. Legacy access control systems violated these expectations at every interaction.

The mobile apps gave Openpath something competitors couldn’t match: the ability to demonstrate superior user experience in real-time during sales conversations. Sales reps could hand prospects their phones, let them unlock a door, and watch the realization happen. This wasn’t a feature comparison spreadsheet—it was an emotional experience that made the alternative feel obsolete.

This demonstration advantage accelerated sales cycles and increased close rates. When prospects could feel the difference immediately, objections about “unproven technology” or “staying with the incumbent” lost power. The mobile experience made switching costs feel worth it because the improvement was so obvious.

Mobile-First Enabling Market Expansion

The investment in mobile apps created market opportunities that wouldn’t have existed otherwise. When COVID-19 hit and Openpath’s office building customers disappeared overnight, the mobile-first architecture became their salvation.

Scott describes the impact candidly: “Obviously during COVID, it wasn’t ideal for us. We were definitely impacted. People were not renewing, they were going out of business, they were not in their offices.” But healthcare facilities desperately needed touchless access to reduce transmission risk. The mobile apps that were built for convenience suddenly became safety infrastructure.

This pivot only worked because mobile was already built and polished. If Openpath had been planning to “add mobile later,” they wouldn’t have had a solution when the healthcare opportunity emerged. The premature investment created optionality that saved the company during existential crisis.

The Compound Advantage Over Time

Early investment in mobile apps created compounding advantages as the market evolved. While competitors scrambled to retrofit mobile capabilities onto badge-based systems, Openpath was iterating on mobile features and refining the experience. Each development cycle widened the gap.

Building both iOS and Android from the start meant Openpath could serve the entire market without platform limitations. Competitors who built iOS first and added Android later (or vice versa) gave Openpath openings with customers using the other platform. Comprehensive platform coverage from day one prevented these losses.

The mobile-first architecture also enabled features competitors couldn’t easily replicate. Push notifications for temporary access. Location-based auto-unlock. Integration with mobile device management systems. Offline access that synced when connectivity returned. Each of these features was natural in a mobile-first architecture but awkward in retrofitted systems.

Enterprise Requirements Met Through Mobile Investment

As Openpath moved upmarket, the early mobile investment paid dividends in unexpected ways. “In the last couple of years, we’ve moved much more up market. We’re going after the big buildings, big customers, enterprise, Fortune 500, 1000 type customers,” Scott shares.

Enterprise customers demanded capabilities that mobile-first architecture made possible: seamless integration with enterprise mobile device management, remote access provisioning across hundreds of locations, real-time access logs and analytics, temporary credentials for contractors and visitors. Legacy systems struggled with these requirements. For Openpath, they were natural extensions of mobile-first design.

The mobile apps also simplified enterprise deployments. No need to issue and manage thousands of physical badges. No badge printers or card stock procurement. Just provision access through existing mobile devices. The operational simplicity became an enterprise sales advantage that justified premium pricing.

The Cost That Became an Investment

Looking back, the decision to build mobile apps before revenue seemed expensive but proved to be one of the highest-ROI investments Openpath made. The ongoing cost of maintaining two mobile platforms became a barrier to entry for competitors. New entrants faced the same mobile development costs but without Openpath’s years of refinement and iteration.

The broader architectural choice Scott describes captured this strategic thinking: “We wanted to build something that was inherently cloud native from day one. Everything was designed to be in the cloud, API first, mobile first.” Mobile wasn’t a feature—it was a foundational architectural decision that shaped everything else.

This foundation created advantages across the entire go-to-market motion. Sales cycles shortened because demos were more compelling. Implementation simplified because users already had the required device. Support costs decreased because mobile UX was intuitive. Expansion accelerated because adding users meant pushing credentials, not issuing badges.

The Framework for Premature Investment

Openpath’s mobile-first decision offers a framework for founders considering similar “premature” investments. The question isn’t whether you have revenue to justify the cost. The question is whether the investment creates sustainable competitive advantage that compounds over time.

Premature investment makes sense when it redefines category expectations, creates demonstration advantages in sales, enables market pivots or expansions, builds barriers to entry for competitors, and aligns with where the market is moving rather than where it is today.

Scott’s team understood that mobile-first access control was where the market would eventually go. They could either build it early and lead the transition, or build it late and follow competitors. The “wasteful” early investment created the space to define the category on their terms.

The Counterintuitive Truth

The conventional wisdom about lean startups and MVP approaches works for many situations. But in markets dominated by legacy players with outdated technology, strategic “premature” investment can create unbeatable advantages. The key is identifying which investments create compounding advantages rather than just burning capital.

For Openpath, mobile apps from day one created a moat that competitors with decades more resources and market share still haven’t crossed. That’s the difference between an expense and an investment—one costs money today, the other makes money tomorrow. Scott’s team chose the latter, and that choice made everything else possible.