Hooked

by Nir Eya with Ryan Hoover

The is one of my favorite books on product development. It changed the way I managed my own services, and how I consulted clients to manage theirs as well.

If the goal of a product is to be sold as much as possible, then a product doesn't just have to be valuable, it has to be habit-forming.

For example, how many times a day do many people check their Facebook, portfolio, email, singles dating website inbox, menu to the restaurant around the corner, video games, etc.? Clearly, there are products and services that exist that people are truly addicted to.

Here are a few of the notes I wrote in the back of my book to give you some golden nuggets:

1. Reward customers who make your products/services a habit. The best way to create habits is to create incentives for habit forming behavior.
2. When customers have to put some labor into using or buying the product or service, they'll be less inclined to abandon it and move to a competitor because their labor/time is valuable investment to them.
3. Don't ever let your store, products, service, etc. become a novelty. People get bored fast and need change to stay interested. Always be improving based on feedback, and add as much valuable variable change as necessary to your customers' experince as possible.
4. The founder of Candy Crush used to metrics to determine success early on: How many people signed up, and how long each person played for. The longer people are engaging your "stuff", the more habit forming it will become.
5. The less work it is to access your "stuff", the easier it will to make your stuff a habit.
6. Your product MUST seem exclusive. Nobody pays attention to a world-class violinist in a subway.
7. Consumers love to hunt and gather, so use this information to make your process more enjoyable. How many people spend an hour a day finding "the best" movie on Netflix or On Demand?

There are a number of useful charts, graphs and formulas in this book for manipulating (in a good way) your audience, and convincing them to keep revisiting your stuff.

I highly recommend this book if you're serious about selling the same stuff, to the same people, as many times as humanly possible.

Enjoy!

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