I apologise for shipping the piece late. It was a very long & stressful weekend so it was near impossible to find time to write here.
I promised to write more articles around Habit forming techniques using lessons from the book Hooked by Nir Eyal. Today's piece is no exception. Read, implement & share.
PAINKILLERS solve an obvious need, relieving a specific pain, and often have quantifiable markets. Think about Paracetamol or Panadol and their promise of reliable relief. It’s the kind of ready-made solution for which people are happy to pay.
VITAMINS, by contrast, do not necessarily solve an obvious pain point. Instead they appeal to users’ emotional rather than functional needs. When we take our multivitamin each morning, we don’t really know if it is actually making us healthier. In fact, studies have suggested that vitamins might be doing more harm than good.
Today's hottest consumer technology companies: Facebook, Twitter, Google, and Amazon. What are they selling—
vitamins or painkillers? Most people
would guess vitamins.
Painkiller don't always solve physical pain, it could be a psychological itch that a product can ease. When you have an itch to search something online, you use Google to alleviate the pain. When you want to send your friend a message online you use WhatsApp or Facebook (Meta). When you have the itch to find out what's going on around you, you can use Twitter. When you want to compare prices or buy something online you use Jumia or Amazon.
While designing your product/solution, think about the psychological itch you want to ease first. Then start to create a product/solution that fits & solves the pain in a simple manner. If you can't be a painkiller, be a really good vitamin. Show up consistently in your customer's faces like a steadfast nurse and compel them to use your 'drug' as frequently as they can.
Talk to you soon.