Book Summary of Hooked: How to build Habit Forming Products by Nir Eyal.

This book is written by entrepreneur Nir Eyal on a mission to reveal why certain startups are an integral part of pop culture. Years of research led to insights into how successful startups influence consumer behavior, and these insights were implemented in the Hook model.

What if a product or service could create a habit? A habit is the urge to perform an action with little or no conscious thought.

We do that every day. Habits can be put to good use. Hooks are experiences aimed at connecting user problems to your product. The hook model was a cycle event used for repeated participation by individuals. The Hook cycle consists of four phases.

Triggers

Actions

Variables

Investments

1. Trigger:
   To target consumers for the first time, you need triggers that call them to action. This can be done through paid advertising, email invitations and organic advertising. These triggers are classified as external triggers, whereas internal triggers originate from the consumer itself. An example of an external trigger is
   a. Boredom:
   This encourages you to use social media to connect with your friends.

2. Action:
   The purpose of the trigger is to promise a reward and show how to get it. The action should be flowing, engaging and simple. One important thing is to be able to remove as many steps from the process as possible. Forming a habit should be easier to do than you think.

3. Variable Reward:
   After the consumer performs an action, the reward should be received. B. Something interesting or useful. Rewards need to be variable to keep consumers in the loop and form habits. Otherwise, consumers will start expecting a return and eventually lose interest and won't come back.

4. Investment:
   Finally comes the reward. The process of soliciting small investments through personal donations. Engage consumers and maintain product value. We are shown to value our work above its actual value. Consumer investment in a product disproportionately increases its value. This is sometimes called the IKEA effect.
   It is an effect that saves a lot of money by doing that work ourselves.

Bottom Line:
Every investor wants to invest in the next pain-relieving idea, but some of the most successful startups, including Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram, are far from pain-relieving. For example, These companies are masters of the hook model. Hook models are very powerful. The question is how to use that power wisely.

I hope we all learnt something new.