Exploring Famous MVP Pivots: Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube Success Stories

Do you have an idea for an app and are determined to develop it? Congratulations! But what if your idea had to be modified and your solution would need to pivot? Check out why many popular apps and web solutions had to change to attain success.

What is MVP?

When you take the first steps on the road of app development, you have to make a very important choice. You can develop every feature that you have imagined for your web or mobile app or you can just develop the necessary features to know the user's feedback and decide what’s next. At Bright Inventions we often recommend the second option called MVP (Minimum Viable Product).

MVPs are low-cost products that you can show to early adopters and receive first feedback. Thanks to that investors don’t risk too much and can quickly check if the MVP has business potential. Why is that important? Because sometimes MVP shows that your product should pivot. Although app pivoting feels scary, it isn’t such a unique thing. It was done by the greatest ones.

What are the top reasons to pivot?

Too strong competition [Twitter]

The perfect example is Twitter’s origin story. Before the Twitter team started to develop a popular microblogging they had been working on Odeo. That was a place where people could listen to podcasts and share music. At that time Odeo struggled to compete with iTunes. So the team pivoted and started to develop a new solution. They also decided about rebranding and that’s how Twitter was born.

Different users’ needs [YouTube]

The best feedback always comes from users. Every idea may be verified by users that could use your solution in totally different ways. Sometimes it is very difficult to follow users' feedback because it can lead to changing the whole idea for the product. However, the story of YouTube shows that listening to your users is the key to success.

At the beginning of its existence, YouTube was nothing like the platform we know today. It was a video dating-ish website. Surprisingly (or not) people didn’t want to upload videos on dating websites but they were more than happy to upload other videos related to their passions, holidays, family, or friends. In YouTube's case, users practically did the whole pivoting for the owners.

Long for simplicity [Instagram]

Developing all the features that you have imagined for your app may not only be costly but also confusing for your users. That is something that Instagram learned at the very beginning when it was known as Burbn. It was supposed to be a photo&note sharing solution and loyalty app. The number of features made the prototype too complex so the owners decided to focus on photo-sharing. This is the 1.01 MVP approach – focusing on the key feature first. Creating Instagram as MVP was a cornerstone of its success.

Adapting to market trends [Netflix]

Netflix is the best example of the perfect response to market changes. Netflix started as an online rental platform for DVD movies that were mailed to American households. Eventually, Netflix transformed into a digital content service. As you know, they don’t just gather content, they create their own movies and TV series. They pivoted their product following or even starting marketing trends.