From Prototype to Product: How We Took Six From a No-Code MVP to the Next Level

If you’re the founder of a new product, this might sound familiar: you have a tight budget, a big vision, a number of early adopters and you want to build a captivating, robust product offering.

You’re not alone. A new challenge we are seeing at Input is how to turn no-code prototypes from Bubble, Loveable, V0 (the list goes on) into scalable, lasting products for our clients.

This is how we addressed a 0-1 build for Six, a platform that enables businesses to drive sales through personalized customer recommendations.

Phase 1: Refine the Brand and Product Identity

To kick off the project, we poured over the Six team’s market research, user feedback, and business goals to inform a fresh product identity and enhanced brand for Six.

This is always a fun way to kick off a project and we took time to explore the personality of the brand and what it should communicate. We thought carefully about how it would come through in both marketing materials and the product interface, from colour and logo choices to typography.

Our next deliverable was wireframes for the existing flows, with thoughtfully refined UX to resolve user pain points and bring delight to the user experience. An important part of defining a product’s identity is looking past what it needs right now and imagining where it’s headed. That vision helped us shape the product architecture from the very beginning. During our UX phase, we mapped out these future flows so new features can be introduced smoothly as the product grows.

We truly worked as an extension of the Six team, meeting frequently and tapping them in for quick feedback to iterate on the work together.

It was then time to combine the product identity and the wireframes during the UI phase. And I must say, it feels like absolute magic when our killer design team presents their initial pass at UI.

At this point, we had in depth conversations with Six to solidify the product vision and scope for the 0-1. We made sure to explore out-of-scope features and then paired the designs down. This allows Six to integrate those future features when they are ready.

Phase 2: The Build

With the designs ready, it was time to start building!

During the build, I shared context on future goals and walked through the in-scope and future designs so our developers could make technical decisions that allowed the product to scale for current and future users. All these decisions, big and small, brought polish to the user experience. One of my favourite examples is the sharing via QR code feature that ensured early adopters could share their Sixes with anyone, tying a core action to a natural path for user growth.

One of the complexities of Six was keeping mobile and web in parity while building simultaneously to maintain an ambitious timeline. Our teams worked closely, talking through any interface changes to ensure the product was the same no matter how users accessed it.

As new features were completed, we tested internally and regularly tapped the Six team in so they could test the platform at every stage and share feedback as we built.

Phase 3: Go Live

With Six ready to go live, we did a final test of the production platform, ensuring metrics were setup and ready to track real user data to help identify what to refine, expand, or build next.

We also worked with the Six team to prepare the app store submissions for initial review, drawing on past experiences with minor issues that the stores often flag. Once the apps were approved, Six was officially ready to go live!

When you’re in the weeds on a project it can be hard to remember how far you’ve come. Looking back at the original prototype made the transformation even clearer. By grounding our work in Six’s market research and customer insights, we were able to turn an early-stage, no-code concept into a scalable, high-performing product that the team fully owns and can continue to grow.