Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products

The study demonstrates the endowed progress effect, a phenomenon that increases motivation as people believe they are nearing a goal.

this book teaches innovators how to build products to help people do the things they already want to do but, for lack of a solution, don’t do.

Such is the nature of ingrained habits — behaviors done with little or no conscious thought — which by some estimates, guide nearly half of our daily actions

Instead of relying on expensive marketing, habit-forming companies link their services to the users’ daily routines and emotions.

2010 study found that some habits can be formed in a matter of weeks while others can take more than five months.

Many innovations fail because consumers irrationally overvalue the old while companies irrationally overvalue the new.”

An external trigger communicates the next action the user should take. Often, the desired action is made explicitly clear.

Too many choices or irrelevant options can cause hesitation, confusion, or worse—abandonment

Habit-forming products often start as nice-to-haves (vitamins) but once the habit is formed, they become must-haves (painkillers).

Painkillers solve an obvious need, relieving a specific pain, and often have quantifiable markets