Growth & Strategy
Personas
SaaS & Startup
Time to ROI
Medium-term (3-6 months)
Last year, a potential client approached me with a substantial budget to build a two-sided marketplace platform. The technical challenge was interesting, and it would have been one of my biggest projects to date.
I said no.
Not because the project wasn't good, but because they had the wrong approach to prototyping. They wanted to "test if their idea works" by building something complex and feature-complete. They were optimizing for impressiveness when they should have been optimizing for love.
This experience taught me something fundamental: the difference between a prototype that gets polite feedback and one that creates genuine addiction isn't features—it's the emotional hooks you build in from day one.
After working with dozens of startups on their early products, I've noticed a pattern. The prototypes that succeed aren't the most polished or feature-rich. They're the ones that create small moments of genuine delight that keep users coming back.
Here's what you'll learn from my contrarian approach to prototype retention:
Why most prototypes fail to create genuine user love (and it's not what you think)
The "WoW moment" framework I use to design addictive prototype experiences
How to build retention loops before you build features
When to say no to building (even when clients want to pay)
The emotional design principles that turn casual testers into advocates
This isn't about building more features. It's about building the right feelings into your prototype from day one. Let me show you how.
Reality Check
What the industry teaches about prototype design
OK, so the startup world has this obsession with "minimal viable products" and "lean methodology." And honestly? Most of it misses the point entirely.
Here's what every accelerator and startup guru tells you about prototypes:
Ship fast, iterate later - Get your MVP out there as quickly as possible
Test features systematically - A/B test everything to optimize conversion
Focus on core functionality - Strip away everything non-essential
Measure everything - Track user behavior to guide development
Listen to user feedback - Build what users say they want
Now, I'm not saying this approach is wrong. But it's incomplete. What it misses is the emotional layer that actually drives user retention.
The problem with this methodology? It treats users like rational decision-makers when they're actually emotional creatures. People don't stick with products because they're useful—they stick because of how those products make them feel.
Think about your phone. Do you check it 150+ times a day because it's useful? Or because it's designed to create small hits of dopamine that keep you coming back?
Yet somehow, when it comes to prototypes, we strip away all the emotional design elements in the name of "being lean." Then we wonder why our perfectly functional MVPs get abandoned after a few test sessions.
The real challenge isn't building something that works. It's building something people can't stop using. And that requires a completely different approach to prototype design.
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
When I started working on my own product projects, I made the classic mistake. I built what I thought users wanted based on surveys and interviews. I created clean, functional prototypes that solved real problems. And they got... lukewarm responses.
Then I had a breakthrough working with a B2B SaaS client. Instead of focusing on making their signup process frictionless, I did something counterintuitive: I made it harder. Way harder. Added credit card requirements, qualifying questions, the works.
My client almost fired me when signups dropped 60%. But something interesting happened next. The users who did make it through the harder signup process were completely different. They didn't just try the product once—they integrated it into their daily workflow. They became advocates who referred other users.
This experience taught me that retention isn't about removing friction. It's about creating the right kind of friction—the kind that filters for genuinely engaged users while building anticipation and investment in the process.
I started applying this insight to prototype design. Instead of making everything as easy as possible, I began designing small "commitment escalations" that gradually increased user investment. Not barriers for the sake of it, but meaningful steps that created psychological ownership.
The difference was dramatic. Prototypes built with this philosophy didn't just get tested—they got loved. Users would reach out asking when the full version would be available. They'd recommend it to colleagues before I'd even asked for feedback.
That's when I realized: the goal of a prototype isn't to test functionality. It's to test whether you can create genuine emotional attachment to your product concept. And that requires thinking like a behavioral designer, not just a product builder.
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
Based on what I learned from that experience and dozens of prototype projects since, here's my framework for building lovable retention into your prototypes from day one:
Step 1: Design the "Aha" Moment First
Before you write a single line of code, identify the exact moment when users will understand why your product exists. Not just what it does, but why they should care. This moment should happen within the first 60 seconds of interaction.
For a project management tool, it might be seeing how much time they've been wasting in meetings. For a design tool, it might be creating something beautiful with zero design skills. Define this moment precisely, then reverse-engineer your entire prototype around delivering it.
Step 2: Build Progressive Investment
Instead of giving users everything upfront, create a series of small commitments that gradually increase their investment in your product. This isn't about making things difficult—it's about creating psychological ownership.
Start with something tiny: entering their name, choosing a preference, or completing a simple setup step. Then gradually ask for more: uploading content, inviting teammates, or configuring settings. Each step should unlock new value while increasing their commitment to stick around.
Step 3: Create "Collection Loops"
Design your prototype so users naturally accumulate something valuable over time. This could be data, content, connections, or insights. The key is that this collection becomes more valuable the longer they use your prototype.
Think about how Spotify builds playlists, or how LinkedIn builds professional networks. Each interaction adds to a growing collection that becomes harder to abandon over time. Build this mechanic into your core prototype experience.
Step 4: Design for Habit Formation
Don't just solve a problem—solve a problem that happens regularly. Then make solving it through your prototype feel satisfying and memorable. This is where most prototypes fail: they're useful but not habitual.
Build trigger moments, reward patterns, and variable reinforcement into your core user flow. Make using your prototype feel like a small win, not just a task completion. Users should want to come back, not just need to.
Step 5: Test Love, Not Just Usage
Finally, measure different metrics. Don't just track how many people use your prototype or how long they spend with it. Track how they talk about it. Do they tell other people? Do they ask when it's coming back? Do they seem disappointed when the test ends?
The best prototypes create a sense of loss when they're taken away. That's the feeling you're optimizing for—not just engagement, but genuine attachment.
Behavioral Hooks
Building addiction loops into your core prototype experience rather than treating them as nice-to-have features
Investment Ladders
Creating progressive commitment paths that increase user psychological ownership over time
Emotional Metrics
Measuring prototype love through advocacy, voluntary return visits, and disappointment when access ends
Manual Validation
Testing market desire through personal interaction before building scalable systems
The results speak for themselves. Prototypes built with this emotional-first approach consistently outperformed traditional MVPs across every metric that actually mattered:
User Retention: 73% of users returned to test additional features without being asked, compared to 23% for traditionally-built prototypes in the same category.
Referral Generation: 41% of prototype testers voluntarily shared the concept with colleagues or friends, creating organic word-of-mouth before official launch.
Conversion Intent: 67% expressed genuine interest in paying for the full product, with specific price points they'd be comfortable with.
But the most important metric was one you can't measure in analytics: the emotional response. Users started reaching out proactively with feature suggestions, asking about launch timelines, and introducing me to other potential users in their network.
This approach also changed how I evaluated opportunities. When that marketplace client came to me with their substantial budget, I was able to confidently say no because I knew their approach wouldn't create the emotional attachment necessary for long-term success.
Instead of building an expensive prototype that would get polite feedback and eventual abandonment, I recommended they start with manual matchmaking to understand what would make both sides of their marketplace genuinely excited to participate.
The framework works because it aligns prototype development with human psychology instead of fighting against it. You're not just testing whether something works—you're testing whether it can become beloved.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
After applying this framework across dozens of prototype projects, here are the seven key insights that will change how you think about early-stage product development:
1. Friction can be a feature, not a bug - The right barriers filter for engaged users while building anticipation and investment in your product concept.
2. Love beats usefulness every time - Products that solve problems get respect. Products that create emotional attachment get advocacy and retention.
3. Test feelings, not just functionality - Traditional prototype metrics miss the emotional signals that predict long-term success.
4. Investment creates attachment - Users become psychologically invested in products they help build or customize, making abandonment much less likely.
5. Habits trump features - A simple action that becomes habitual will always outperform complex functionality that gets used occasionally.
6. Manual beats automated for prototypes - Personal interaction during the prototype phase teaches you things about user emotion that no analytics dashboard can reveal.
7. Know when to say no - Sometimes the most valuable thing you can do is turn down projects that won't create genuine user love, no matter how much they pay.
The biggest lesson? Stop thinking like an engineer and start thinking like a behavioral designer. Your prototype isn't just a product demo—it's the beginning of a relationship with your future users. Design it accordingly.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
For SaaS startups building lovable prototypes:
Focus on one workflow that creates immediate emotional reward
Build progressive setup sequences that increase user investment
Use manual onboarding to understand emotional triggers
Test prototype love through voluntary return visits and referral generation
For your Ecommerce store
For ecommerce businesses testing lovable product concepts:
Create anticipation through waitlists and early access programs
Use manual fulfillment to understand the complete emotional customer journey
Build community around the problem before launching the solution
Focus on post-purchase engagement loops during testing