Notes

Idea to IPO - Nir Eyal - Stanford GSofB
vita or painkiller - Pain addresses burning need. vita is nice to have. Feels good to have. Repetitious use of vitamins makes it a painkiller. automatically use them based on new habit formed originially pleasure..

Imagine someone sends you a message inside of some medium. Picture it. Think about the feeling of reading/seeing that message. -feelings of anxiety, stress, excitement, anticipation. THIS is the itch. A physical reflection of the psychological attachment to the idea.

NOT going to talk about addiction - We want to talk about lack of conscious thought. Use habits for good.

2 most important things in forming habits.
1. frequency - eg flossing. flossing more will contribute to more habit building. Self perpetuating. Precipitous dropoff of habit building is AFTER 1 WEEK.

2. attitude change - Shifting perception of the behaviour. Flossing from tiresome to meh.

Unprompted user engagement-

Lean startup - build measure learn ; Form better product hypotheses

Design pattern - hook - CONNECT USER PROBLEM TO YOUR SOLUTION WITH ENOUGH FREQUENCY
4 steps - Trigger, action, reward, investment

Habits are not built, they are built upon like a pearl. Layer by layer.

Triggers - External/Internal -
External: Information in what to do is within the trigger. EG signs, new mesage, etc
INTERNAL: queue for what to do next. Informed through an asssociation in the user's memory. Routines based on location, emotional ties, situational.
The most powerful of these is NEGATIVE emotion. Lonelyness, tension, boredom (EG clinically depressed people check their email more often). RELIEVE this negative emotion of boredom/depression.

CASE STUDY: Instagram - External acquisition of users. See the instagram. CAPTURE the moment for fear that it fades away. Users taught other users about the instagram moment. It's also a social hook/network. FEAR OF MISSING OUT (FOMO).

Action - Simplest behavior in anticipation of an reward.
BJFOGG 6 factors of motivation. EG. Sexualization in fast food is because it is a salient motivator for teenage boys with expendable wealth.
Ability to do : Time Money Physical Braincycle SocialDeviance Non-routine. :::: We want to develop based on existing behaviours models. Motivation+Ability+Trigger = Action.
Case Study: Twitter. from 2009 to now... Your front page doesn't need to advertise you, nobody accidentally reaches your site. Twitter reduced the load on their frontpage, now its focused on signup, signin, download.

Reward - Nucleus Accumbens. Animals and humans will subject themselves to pain to do this. THIS DOES NOT STIMULATE PLEASURE. It stimulates the STRESS of DESIRE. It is active in anticipation of a reward. This activates the itch.
The unknown is fascinating. Variability increases focus and engagement.
EG . Pigeons will tap a food button significantly more when it DOESNT consistently reward with food.
Reward of the hunt - Information reward ( EG casinos, the information FEED ) Just from the reward of finding a good post in the feed, people will scroll forever and ever.
Reward of the self - Intrinsically motivated. Variable reward of the self, mastery, control, consistency. EG Games, clearing your inbox. GAMIFICATION often fails here when they fail to provide a reward to addresses the original ITCH that brings people in.


Investment phase - User "invests" in future benefits. User does it in anticipation of future benefits/rewards. Investments load the next trigger -- eg sending a message, pinterest takes place of bookmark, etc
Investments store value -- they become more and more valuable with use. Itunes, Mint, Twitter followers.Positive cycle. Accruing stored value that makes it difficult to lead. Reputation stored value :