Turning Vision into Reality: Developing Heartfelt’s Go-to-Market MVP

Our Challenge

Heartfelt.film is all about storytelling—deeply personal, beautifully crafted films that leave a lasting impact. But behind every great story is a solid foundation, and their digital platform needed fine-tuning to match their creative vision. With a Series A launch fast approaching, they needed a tech-savvy partner to strengthen data analytics, optimise their marketing integrations (Martech) stack, streamline UX, and fix critical bugs—ensuring a seamless, investor-ready platform. To bring their vision to life, Heartfelt.film needed a digital experience as polished and powerful as their films.

Project Scope

Website: UX, Design & Build

Launch Location

Europe

Industry

Media

Target Audience

B2C

Our Approach/ Strategy

We inherited a work-in-progress prototype that required a rapid development approach to transform it into a market-ready MVP. Through structured monthly sprint plans, we provided ongoing development support, refining features and ensuring stability. Additionally, we played a key role in the technical council, helping to prioritise development efforts and define a clear strategy for future enhancements.

The Solution

Through a combination of technical development, UX refinement, and Martech enhancements, we delivered a fully developed MVP ready for market launch. Key components included:

User Experience (UX) Enhancements:

We worked closely with Heartfelt’s team to evaluate the existing user experience, identify pain points, and create a structured roadmap for feature development and prioritisation. This ensured a seamless and engaging user journey.

Quality Assurance & Bug Fixes:

We set up a local UAT environment for thorough testing and allocated dedicated development time to resolve high-priority P1 bugs rapidly.

Technology Review & Scalability:

A deep-dive into Next.js, Vercel, and Typescript ensured long-term performance and scalability improvements, positioning Heartfelt for future growth.

Conclusion

The fully refined, investor-ready MVP positioned Heartfelt for further investment, while an optimised Martech stack streamlined marketing workflows, enhanced analytics with Amplitude, and improved tool integration. A prioritised UX roadmap addressed key friction points, ensuring a seamless and engaging user experience. Additionally, a comprehensive technology review of Next.js, Vercel, and Typescript ensured the platform was built for long-term scalability and performance.

Client testimonial

“We worked with Polar on developing the first version of Heartfelt’s D2C video documentary MVP. The team were able to appraise our needs and get moving fast to stand up a highly responsive, high quality offshore dev team. Polar offer high level strategy where needed complemented by the ability to deliver first class production capabilities at a competitive price point. I’ll definitely be using them again!’’