The million-dollar projects that have allowed many entrepreneurs to come to light are characterized by one thing: they create consumption habits. And as we all know, creating habits is not easy.
There is a lot of talk about how to create habits and we see hundreds of articles every day with recommendations for acquiring a healthy diet, going to the gym and even for acquiring the habit of not procrastinating. This amount of information on the same subject is just proof of how difficult it is to adopt habits that last.
Ironically, without realizing it we are acquiring new habits for which we did not have to put the slightest effort, such as waking up and checking Facebook or Twitter.
There are many millionaire projects that have created habits in us, for this reason Nir Eyal, entrepreneur, author and educator, wondered if there were common factors between the products that appropriate a part of our lives. It turns out that yes, and he shares his research with us in the book titled Hooked: How To Build Habit-Forming Products. Nir, he identified 4 components that have those “million dollar projects” that make us return to them again and again:
How to create millionaire projects (4 components)
1. Triggers
In general, apps have buttons within them that encourage us to buy or play some type of content, we will call that “external activators”. Within us are the internal triggers, which are all those habits that we adapt when we are in a certain place, with certain people or in specific situations. Do you know people who only smoke when they are around people who smoke? The most powerful activator is emotions and especially negative emotions.
Studies show that people with depression check their e-mail more, because they see in this activity a salvation for their condition. But at some point we all fall into the same thing, have you started watching funny videos on YouTube when you’re bored?
After there is even an activator that encourages us to carry out a certain activity, the…
2. Action
Our habits are the actions that precede a reward. All our actions aim to make us feel good and the way to calculate how likely it is that we will carry out the action is given by the sum of how motivated we are here to do it + how much ability we have to do it + an activator. For example, you are waiting for the doctor to see you and you are bored (activator), that makes you start checking Instagram because you want to see the photos from the last party (motivation), so to see them all you have to do is scroll down the news feed (ability).
If there is already an activator, the more motivation there is and the easier it is to do it, the probability of hooking your consumer will be much higher and from there you will have what is vital to create a million-dollar project.
And once we carry out the action comes the…
3. Reward
A part of our brain called the nucleus accumbens is to blame for making us want our reward and it kicks in when we want something. Being more specific, it reaches its climax just before getting what we want.
It turns out that the factor that most stimulates our desire to carry out an action is the fascination for the unknown, such as going to Facebook and not knowing what awaits us on our wall.
Nir says that the products that attract us the most show at least one of these 3 kinds of rewards (which intrigue us because we don’t know what will happen):
- Tribe: It’s all positive rewards that involve more people. For example, seeing a friend’s photo at the Eiffel Tower and feeling happy knowing that she fulfilled her dream of going to France or knowing how many likes the profile picture uploaded by a friend who changed her haircut had.
- Hunting: The origin of this reward is obtaining resources to live. The most common case is the casino, where we seek to earn money. We insert our ticket into the machine and since it is a matter of chance we do not know what will happen. In the same way, we go down our news feed looking for something that we find interesting and no matter how many posts give us satisfaction, we will always go looking for more.
- individual: They are those rewards that do not come from someone else or from obtaining resources or information; they come from our own satisfaction. The most common example is games. How far did you get playing Candy Crush? Apparently you don’t receive anything for advancing a level, but the motivation to want to continue passing levels is very high. Other simple examples are the urgent need to check our inbox or simply click on that new notification on our social networks.
The purpose of these rewards is to give the user what they came for, with a bit of mystery to pique their curiosity and give them enough reason to do it again later.
4. Investment
The million-dollar projects that have products that create habits in us, have a characteristic and that is that, unlike material goods, they gain value over time. If you buy a car in 2015, surely by the year 2020 it will have lost at least 20% of its value, while, for example, the apps in which we invest so much time, over time become better and better and the more we use the more benefits we get. A simple example can be Ebay or Airbnb, the more time spent, the higher the reputation and therefore we can charge more for our service.
The reason why a product that creates consumer habits is better than one that doesn’t falls under its own weight. So now you know, if you want to have a million-dollar project, find ways to Activate your consumers to run a actionwhich will later give them their reward and let them see how the invest longer, it will make your experience much better.
And remember, if you are really interested in creating your own business, you can read our book “How to create a company while working: Discover how to manage your time, manage your money and motivate yourself while creating a company and working for another” , where you will find all the information you need to found your own company, without having to leave your job.
