Creating a Desire Engine for Your Startup
- August 23, 2012 · 6:30 PM
Your startup needs to be addictive.
In an age of increasing online distractions, companies need to be able to create habits in their users to stay relevant. Nir Eyal discusses the latest in persuasive technology to explain how businesses create addictive products.
About Nir Eyal
Nir Eyal founded and sold two tech companies since 2003 and today is an advisor, consultant, and investor in several Bay Area companies and incubators. Nir's last company, AdNectar, received venture funding from Kleiner Perkins and was sold in 2011. He is also a contributing writer for TechCrunch and Forbes. Nir blogs about the intersection of psychology, technology, and business at www.NirAndFar.com
Who is this talk for?
Any entrepreneur trying to get customers to do a particular behavior.
When I leave this talk I should...
...be able to design behavior so that using my product becomes a habit for my customers.
TK Says:
This sort of knowledge is critical. Human beings aren't just robots who look for a checklist of features. We are creatures of habit and superstition.
This is more than just "gamification" as a feature. ("Let's just add badges!") It's behavioral design.
I've also asked Nir to talk a bit about how to apply the same behavioral desire techniques to our individual behaviors so that we can form good habits as a startup team.
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Tristan Kromer
So, editing and hosting the video for this event turns out to be non-trivial. While we search for a more permanent hosting solution for all LSC's video needs, the video will be available publicly on my dropbox once it has uploaded here: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/3421449...
August 29
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Miha Ahronovitz
Psychology in product development, elevated to art.
For those who have not attended have a look at the video
http://bit.ly/PudJZ7August 24
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A former member
Loved it! It was great tactical advice and connected the dots with strategy and psychology beautifully. Especially relevant for the experience we are building for ManageUp.
August 23
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Tim McCormick
"Your startup needs to be addictive."
In a sense I'm interested in the opposite of this: how to help users *avoid* addiction, how to maximize their agency, attention conservation, and prioritization around values. I'm coming to behavioral design from the viewpoints of user-centered design, "information diet" and Quantified Self as applied to communication patterns and time/attention use. Particularly interested in developing professional/researcher reading & information tools.August 22
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Tim McCormick
Tristan, as you say, those beneficial activities are "habits" -- this is the term usually used by BJ Fogg and others in behavioral design. "Addiction" means continued behavior that has negative consequences (for the user). I think it's helpful and normal to distinguish these, and to consider which, or what combination of which, one's product is creating or aiming for.
To me, designing for beneficial and non-addictive, even counter-addictive information-use behavior is appealing for multiple reasons: a) it's an interesting problem; b) information overload & anxiety is a huge problem for productivity, health, and happiness, and thus potentially a huge market opportunity; and c) it's ethically informed.
August 23
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Shahriar (Shar) Marachi
Perhaps the way to reframe it is to replace with "addictive" with "compelling". Coming from an education in neuroscience, I don't take it to mean addiction in the clinical, academic sense. Like building a "killer" app, or going to a "sick" concert, creating an "addictive" app/venture means the users can't live without it as well, and are compelled to use it regularly.
Looking forward to it...
August 23
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Pedro Vieira
maitaiz.com will provide a service to travelers (creating online the concierge feeling that travelers used to have when they went to traditional brick-and-mortar travel agents stores).
Our challenge is: how to you apply some of these design concepts to a site that people only really need very infrequently?
We're also looking for developers. We have a team that knows the space quiet well and has had successful exits. Drop me a line if you're interested (pedro at maitaiz.com)
August 23
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Miha Ahronovitz
"How to help users not be addictive' is just a trick to make the users your users and not somebody's else. Like real estate agents teaching you how to buy and sell a house. Other way of saying this is "How to make people addicted to your business, without using the word "addictive" "
August 23
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