In this third part of the blog series on Minimum Lovable Products, we delve into the lifecycle phase where the “minimum” in MLP has been achieved, and you are at the point where the product should be launched, developed further, and/or maintained in production.
Once the minimum lovable product has been built and perhaps already in use, it is time to build on the minimum to reach a more fleshed-out product with increased technical robustness and all the nice-to-have features that were skipped during the initial development.
Depending on the product, the focus might be on ensuring that a one-and-done product is stable and maintainable for the rest of its lifecycle or, as more often is the case, continuing the development and building on the lovable foundation of the product.
Launching the product
If you’ve read our earlier posts, the initial development process has heavily involved its different users, and with a lovable product, these users can be your best ambassadors for the software. This may come in the form of expanding the adoption of the product in a business setting or as early adopters of a consumer application.
While many business decisions at this stage are technical in nature, scalability deserves some special attention. If your product becomes successful, you’ll need to address infrastructure challenges. “Under the hood” issues like load balancing and increased data volumes can slow down response times, potentially eroding the lovability that worked so well with your test group. These are common software challenges, but when you’re banking on lovability, even minor UX disruptions can damage your reputation with crucial early users. Whether through word of mouth or direct experience with a new tool, poor first impressions are particularly difficult to overcome.
There is also a chance that the user testing that yielded the lovable end result might have had some unrealized bias that doesn’t reflect the wider real-world user groups. Here you have to have your fingers on the pulse and find out if the user test representation is a feasible user group in the real world or if you need to pivot somehow — what are the lovable and unlovable things about your product; what can be salvaged and what should be scrapped.
Maintaining lovability and developing it further
Lovability is a context-specific quality. When software reaches the maintenance stage of its lifecycle, it should be clear what the lovability is actually based on. This might mean “under the hood” technical aspects such as fast service times, which would prompt special care to the infrastructure upkeep and scalability.
Technical debt is a tricky thing that, when unchecked, can stack up in an exponential manner and become a blocker in development. This means that you might not be able to ship new updates and features on a desired schedule. Here you have to keep in mind what makes your product lovable: at what point will shortcuts taken in initial production come back to haunt you in a big way? It might very well be worth it to change that quick and dirty database implementation to a distributed, scalable system if it means your lovable product won’t fold over if and when your lovable software gathers traction beyond the initial user base of early adopters. On the other hand, a lovable product might gather eager users demanding new features, and delays may infuriate some users. Examples of this occurring are often found in the games industry.
Often, however, it is the UX that might go through some changes with continuous development. With the case of an ever-developing software product, there is a temptation to add more and more features for different use cases or connections to different outside services. The bloat can be an issue that dilutes the lovability of the UX, devolving a slick and simple UI to a swamp of elements and options. However, additional features may well be what the users want or need. There are ways of integrating new elements without compromising the lovability. Depending on the case, this might mean customizable UI for the user or separating less used features to optional views.
Even with the temptation to add more features, one should also take into consideration whether they can be added as lovable features. If the main features of your product are crafted with design, love, and care, a clunky feature will stick out like a sticky spacebar in a keyboard. On the other hand, there are business decisions to be made: are the features worth the clunkiness? There certainly are cases where a solid core product and fluid basic use cases make the product worth using, even if there are some more tedious but seldomly used features.
The path forward
Often, minimum lovable products are aiming for growth. There are many ways to achieve this, but each option has pitfalls and requirements. Keeping the app lovable is in itself a business decision that involves costs but also might help you retain the competitive edge. In the cases where you are building software for a predetermined use case, such as a public transport ticket and route service, the decision whether or not to emphasize the lovability and ease of use in continuous development affects the lives of your users and, by extension, can be the best reference of your work quality.
In closing
Building lovable products, even minimum ones, is a commitment of time and effort. Software craftsmen may be tempted to preach that MLPs should be the starting point of every software product, as building nice things is often more appealing to them.
The truth is, however, that sometimes the quick and dirty solutions or disregarding the polishing may be the most effective option, such as in cases where the users will not care about the UI visuals but just want to get the job done. MLP is not the solution to every software you’re going to build, but whenever the case is that you have to win users over and retain them, switching the mindset to building a lovable product might be the right choice.
With the end of this series, we hope to have provided you with insights regarding efficient product development in a lovable fashion. If you’ve read through these all, we think you might benefit from getting in touch with us to evaluate whether or not we might be able to help you deliver something lovable to your users.
Part 1: Web Applications: How We Build Minimum Lovable Products in 2025 – Gaining a Solid Understanding
Part 2: Web Applications: How We Build Minimum Lovable Products in 2025 – Building a Lovable App
Part 3: Web Applications: How We Build Minimum Lovable Products in 2025 – Launching the Product
