After years of grafting and sleepless nights, I finally felt ready to launch our product. We were given a great opportunity to launch Complete Anatomy (3D4Medical’s flagship product) on stage at Apple’s Keynote in front of millions of adoring Apple fans. My team and I were ready for it to become a sensation. It seemed like our hard work was finally about to pay off.

We were wrong.

When tens of thousands of people downloaded our software they were quick to drop off. Users were getting stuck either at the registration process or elsewhere in the application. Customers felt frustrated and were closing it down as soon as it got difficult. We thought we had crafted a brilliant product. Instead, we had an app that was full of friction points.

We had made a vital mistake: the product was not loveable.

We had to act fast. After gathering data we addressed the issues and worked to amend them. Soon, user experience improved. We constantly refined and eventually, we had a loveable product – with five star reviews – on our hands.

A loveable product can be judged not by what it is, but by what it is not. They lack friction points – or anything that prompts frustration or confusion. They’re usually beautiful and accessible, but most of all a loveable product is easy to use. Identify friction points and remove them. Do sample testing, and work towards making the user’s experience second to none.

It’s astounding the number of entrepreneurs who invest their efforts into every area of their business – advertising, sales, marketing – while neglecting their most important asset: the product itself. By product, I mean services too, including websites, software, hardware – anything that can be sold. Throwing money at selling an unloveable product is just stupidity. It may work for a while, but ultimately it is doomed to fail.

Conversely, if a product is loveable it will scale by itself.

Once Complete Anatomy was loveable it took off by itself. Users began to tell their friends, their friends told their friends. Now, with over one million registered users, it is the world’s most successful medical learning platform.

Loveable products gain fanatical followings and go viral – just look at Instagram or the iPhone. Your product has the potential to do the same.