Hooked

Summary

Nir Eya goes into building habit forming products

Review

Lots of actionable advice. This book + The Lean Startup are probably going to be enough to bootstrap most ideas to profitability.

Takeaways

• habits are built on existing desires, must occur with certain frequency/utility
• hooked model: trigger -> action -> variable reward -> investment
• habits come from avoiding pain or gaining pleasure
• easier to increase user ability to accomplish a habit than increase user motivation
• to make a habits, variable reward must be paired with investment to complete the flywheel

Key Points

habits

• actions must cross certain frequency/utility threshold to become a habit (Habit Zone)

trigger

• a feeling that turns into an action
• habits are not created but built on (eg. pleasure/pain, hope/fear, acceptance/rejection)
• 4 types of triggers: paid, earned, relationship, owned

action

• B = MAT (behavior = motivation ability trigger)
• to make habits stick, either increase motivation or ability, motivation is harder to increase then ability, hence better to focus on simplifying the product

variable reward

• novelty causes attention
• novelty comes from tribe (social media), hunt (gain), or self (growth)

investment

• flywheel where product becomes more useful over time
• after variable reward because people are primed to invest after getting something

Concepts

Habit Zone

internal trigger

external trigger

fogg behavioral model

Notes

intro

• triggers will start a behavior

1 - the habit zone

• for something to become a habit, must help gain pleasure or avoid pain
  • habit is intersection of frequency and utility
• habits cannot form outside of habit zone (frequency and utility)

2 - trigger

• habits not created but built upon
• trigger has cue for what to do next
• negative emotion very powerful trigger for habit
• once habit is formed, feeling -> action
• 4 types of triggers: paid, earned, relationship, owned

3 - action

• B = MAT (behavior = motivation ability trigger)
• humans are motivated by 3 things
  • pleasure/pain
  • hope/fear
  • acceptance/rejection
• motivation vs ability, hard to increase motivation, focus on making it easier
• some tips for simplifying (heuristics)
  • scarcity, framing, endowed progress,
• timing - make sure trigger is present when motivation arises
• ability influenced by:
  • time, money, physical effort, brain cycles, social deviance, and non-routine

4 - variable reward

• variable rewards add novelty to product that makes humans pay attention
• 3 types of variable rewards
  • the tribe: social reward (so points)
  • the hunt: material resource (ebay)
  • the self: intrinsic reward (fitness)
• make sure user has autonomy when designing variable reward process

5 - investment

• investment = anticipation of future reward
  • happens after variable reward phase because users are now primed to reciprocate
• investment continues because
  • we value our efforts (more effort in past, more future effort)
  • we want to be consistent with past behavior (do what we've always done)
  • we avoid cognitive dissonance (rationalize our choices)
• makes service better the more it is used
  • store value in form of
    • content
    • data
    • followers
    • reputation
    • skill

6 - what are you going to do with this

• building responsible behaviors
  • 4 quadrants:
    • facilitator: would use product, believe that it makes peoples lives better
    • peddler: would not use product, believe that it makes peoples lives better
    • entertainer: would use product, does not believe that it makes peoples lives better
    • dealer: would not use product, does not believe that it makes peoples lives better
  • be a facilitator

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Children

1. Concepts

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Backlinks

• Books (kevin-public)