The term mobile first is a pretty common catch word lately.  it seems to comprise all of responsive design as well as business approaches that focus on mobile customer.  We see two main distinctions

Mobile first business strategy:

Looking at how customers interact with the service or product my company is offering.

Looking at ways mobile technology can help communications within my business or organisation.

Looking at how personal devices play a role in my companies day to day communications.

Looking at company website portfolio and making sure its current and works on a plethora of devices and screen sizes.

Hooking into popular mobile social and other online services that may boost my company exposure.

Mobile first development style

Design new online properties starting from a position of simple -> complex.

Build responsive framework that matches need of content and minimizes overall bandwidth load times.

Integrate enhanced user experience features to make the experience easy and fast.

Rely on shared stack and cloud based services to provide as much global coverage as possible.

Iterate and expand the design into full HD desktop screen sizes, adding onto mobile scaffold.

 

You can see depending on what side of the equation ‘Mobile first’ can mean different things, but we are all talking about the same thing in the end, that is providing online mobile experiences that keep people coming back.