Tiny Birds
How would your product look like if you could change habits of your users? According to BJ Fogg, now you can. Using #tinyhabits. And it’s not just the approach that’s cool. BJ really blew my mind with his minimum viable product.
BJ Fogg, a professor from Stanford, has been studying human behavior for 18 years. And he has discovered a very simple way to help anyone install a new habit. All it takes is to pick 3 tiny habits and stick to them for a week. And follow these simple rules:
- Pick a really tiny-tiny habit. My favorite is “write one sentence”. BJ often gives the example of “floss one tooth”
- Chose an established habit to link your new tiny habit too. “After I brush my teeth, I will floss one tooth”. “After I turn on my computer and start my browser, I will write one sentence in my blog”. Make it super easy to remember and do the new habit. I made my blog my home page
- Congratulate yourself on doing your new habit
It is so simple, it took BJ a couple of hours to create a bare bones minimum viable product. He launched by publishing a Google Docs “signup” form via Twitter. The instructions were described in a Google Docs document – still being edited as I was reading it. An email reminder was sent manually every day. You had to reply with “y” if you’ve done your tiny habit, and another “y” if you wanted to go on the next day. And for a “yy”, you’d get a reply back with an encouragement. I was one of the first users and I loved it. Along with a couple of thousands of others.
He has obviously discovered a problem worth solving, and validated a very simple solution – that can surely easily be automated.
The question for the rest of us: how can you launch tomorrow, or in a week, to get the first validation? It looks so cool when you read about it, but how do you translate this example to your own product? Not just talk to customers, but let them sign up and use a bare bones version.
Change your user’s habits
But there is another exciting promise. BJ is not into self-improvement. No, he’s after something bigger. He wants to teach innovators the mechanics of installing new habits, so they can instigate such changes on their users. He wants to help entrepreneurs change the world. Nice leverage!
With my product, I want to introduce simplicity in what is normally a dreadfully complex process. I want people to breath out a big sigh of relief when they log in to start using Grant Snap. Doesn’t this imply new habits? Will I have to spoon-feed my users a tiny habit every couple of days? Does it mean I need to start with something people are already used to (e.g. e-mail), and gradually introduce a series of tiny new actions that repeat themselves before they become automatic?
What do you think? Please let me know using the comments below.
How would your product look like if it could change habits of your users?
I think the problem you are solving with GrantSnap is such painful (and complex) that I would not need to take an habit. However I would be delighted to go through the process actionable step after actionable step (which I could receive by email).