HOOKED How to Build Habit-Forming Products - NIR EYAL - 5. Investment

INVESTMENT.md

HOOKED How to Build Habit-Forming Products - NIR EYAL

5. Investment

Changing Attitude

escalation of commitment: The power of commitments we make have a powerful effect on us

The more users invest time and effort into a product or service, the more they value it. In fact, there is ample evidence to suggest that our labor leads to love.

We Irrationally Value Our Efforts

• People who made an origami creation values their origami 5 times higher than other people who didn't do

Ikea Effect

Customers assemble the furniture, they adopt an irrational love

We Seek to Be Consistent with Our Past Behaviours

Little sign in a window can lead to big changes in future behaviours

We Avoid Cognitive Dissonance

Fox: "The grape must be sour"

Cognitive Dissonance: The fox changes his perception of the grapes and in the process relieves the pain

Beer, spicy food, coffee. Many people do not like the first taste. But as they see other people enjoining them, try and get used to.

• The more effort we put into something, the more likely we are to value it

• We are more likely to be consistent with our past behaviours

• Finally, we change our preferences to avoid cognitive dissonance

• Video game: You invest your time for playing the game. You'll want to be stronger thus you pay money.

Storing Value

The stored value users put into the product increases the likelihood they will use it again in the future and comes in a variety of forms.

Content

• iTunes: More content users add, the more valuable the music library becomes

The collection of memories and experiences, in aggregate, becomes more valuable over time and the service becomes harder to leave as users' personal investment in the site grows.

Data

• LinkedIn: More information users add, more likely they come back

The company found that the more information users invested in the site, the more committed they become to it

Followers

• Twitter
  • The more users curate the list of people they follow, the better the service will be at delivering interesting content
  • The more followers one has, the more valuable the service becomes

Investing in following the right people increases the value of the product by displaying more relevant and interesting content in each user's Twitter feed. It also tells Twitter a lot about its users, which in turn improves the service overall.

Reputation

• eBay: Both buyers and sellers take their reputations very seriously

Reputation makes users, both buyers and sellers, more likely to stick with whichever service they have invested their efforts in to maintain a high-quality score.

Skill

• Adobe Photoshop: Users have to learn how to use, and the knowledge does not translate to competing applications

Once users have invested the effort to acquire a skill, they are less likely to switch to a competing product.

Loading the Next Trigger

Uses set future triggers during the investment phase, providing companies with an opportunity to reengage the user

Habit-forming technologies leverage the user's past behaviour to initiate an external trigger in the future.

1. Any.do

• Teaches how to use the app
• The follow-up action is doing what the app tells the user to do
• The variable rewards arrive in the form of a congratulatory message and satisfaction of mastering the app
• Access to user's schedule - the app send a notification after a meeting - user add more tasks

2. Tinder

• Loading the next trigger more likely with each swipe
• The more swipes, the more potential matches are made

3. Snapchat

• Users load the next trigger every time they use
• Users pass through the investment phase of the Hook Model each time they send a selfie
• Each photo contains an implicit prompt of respond - easy reply
• The feature encourages timely responses, leading to a back-and-forth relay that keeps people hooked into the service by loading the next trigger with each message sent

4. Pinterest

• The rewards of the tribe come from the variability of posting images
• Invest in the site every time they pin an image of their own, re-pin, comment, like
• The investments gives data it can use to tailor the site to each user's taste

Do this now

• Review your flow. What 'bit of work' are your users doing to increase their likelihood of returning?
• Brainstorm three ways to add small investments into your product to:
  • Load the next trigger
  • Store values as data, content, followers, reputation, and skill
• Identify how long it takes for a "loaded trigger" to reengage your users (...)