Prioritizing What to Build When: MVP strategy under tech constraints and KPIs
Product Strategy & Experience | Mobile App | Entertainment & Media
Context
One of Brazil's leading entertainment platforms (gshow), focused on reality shows and TV program content had high organic traffic but struggled to convert casual visitors into an engaged and returning user base. The strategic challenge was transforming casual visitors into engaged users and creating an ecosystem that encouraged frequent app returns.
Challenge
The platform faced low long-term engagement, with users accessing the app anonymously and high uninstall rates. The lack of personalization resulted in generic experiences that failed to create emotional connections with different fan profiles.
Product goals
Increase logged-in user base
Expand user data and preference collection
Increase average session time
Increase app return rate
Reduce uninstall rate
Technical constraints
With a small team of engineers and mobile developers shared with another squad, each dev sprint had a high opportunity cost.
The codebase was years old without significant refactoring. Any changes to the login flow required dealing with accumulated technical debt. Estimate: nearly half of dev time would be refactoring, not new features.
Login features depended on an external team's API with its own roadmap. This created critical dependencies: any feature touching authentication required alignment with technical stakeholders outside our control.
Solution Approach
To navigate the challenges of limited capacity, technical debt, and external dependencies, we structured the project into three strategic phases:
MVP
Prioritized achieving the KPI of increasing logged-in users. This was the simplest and fastest solution to execute without touching legacy code, allowing us to validate the hypothesis that "simplified login increases conversion" within a few weeks. During this phase, with a simplified experience and reusing existing functionalities, we launched the preference selection and content management flow, login incentives, ran recommendation algorithm tests, and monitored app performance.
Consolidation
We launched new features that increased perceived value and platform engagement, such as new personalization features in the recommended feed, walkthroughs for new features, review of existing functionalities, creation of the preference management environment, and direct impact on previously created algorithm routes.
Evolution
Based on observation and data collection, we decided it was time to expand functionalities and revise the entire app experience. New personalization and interactivity features, revision of the preference management environment, and redesign of other app environments (home, content area, user area, etc.).
The new immersive experience with relevant content delivery established a stronger connection between users and their interests, positioning "meu gshow" as an essential platform for Globo entertainment fans. The solution also achieved its proposed KPIs: doubled increased logged-in user base within 2 weeks, decreased uninstall rate, and improved app return rate.
Strategic Differentiators
Constraint-driven strategy turned limited resources and technical debt into a forcing function for ruthless prioritization. We didn't try to build everything, we decided to built what moved the needle and was technically feasible
These achievements reflect collaborative work with talented teams across dev, design, editorial, and research.
