Why You Can’t Stop Using Certain Products
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“The Stickiness Factor says that there are specific ways of making a contagious message memorable; there are relatively simple changes in the presentation and structuring of information that can make a big difference in how much of an impact it can make” — Malcolm Gladwell
I vividly remember the first time I started using an app called Strava on my phone in 2015; it was an interesting experience, to say the least, and I eventually found it to be more addictive than any other app on my phone by far — which included Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and many others I considered to be some of my favorites.
Initially, I was unsure of why this was the case; how a seemingly unknown and new app (for me) was able to somehow find its place on the front screen of my phone and dethrone all others within a matter of days. I found myself going back to this app on a very consistent basis throughout the day and even felt slightly ashamed that something like this was able to easily control my behavior and screen time.
So I went digging on the internet, as well as speaking with fellow angel investors, product manager friends, and found some interesting nuggets that explained my strange but completely expected behavior (in hindsight) — it all boiled down to a product’s ‘stickiness’ factor and its ability to completely influence a user’s behavior and their ability to ‘stick’ with the app, service, and/or product. I found that companies who could develop good stickiness on a product or service, would be the ones who succeeded — I’ll explain more about this later.
Wait, What’s Strava?
For those who don’t know, Strava is a social platform targeted at amateur (and professional) athletes designed to share their sporting activities i.e. running, cycling, hiking, swimming, etc. with their network (or the world, if they choose to). It’s currently the most popular social network for athletes in the world with a growing user base of 100+ million as of 2023.
But why is it so popular?
Strava is a good example to explain the power of ‘stickiness’ as it demonstrates a lot of the features and reasons how these products and services are able to capture our attention. But it’s not just Strava; it’s any product you use that has the ability to retain users.
Strava is prime example (at least for me) here because I’m kind of an exercise, sports, and health nerd, but it can be a completely different product for you (the reader) in a different sector i.e. gaming (Fortnite), social media (TikTok), shopping (Amazon), or even entertainment (Netflix).
Getting Sticky With It
A product’s stickiness is simply a feature that is able to generate repeated usage and also makes it challenging to switch to another platform (if available).
The purpose of this feature is to keep users hooked and committed to using the product consistently. This is important because it generates a strong community (especially important in social platforms) and it is a sign of recurring revenue.
Product stickiness isn’t usually the first objective of a company, but if it’s at least given a bit of thought at the beginning and integrated systematically over the product’s lifecycle, it can provide a strong ROI in the long term.
Stickiness can be designed and implemented in a number of ways, but there are specific core tenets that should be followed when making a product sticky.
Let’s take a look at some of these principles and understand how these can help better shape your understanding of what this means.
Sticky Design
Minimizing time-to-value
Providing user value from the get-go is always ideal, but never usually the case in the real world. However, finding ways to deliver incremental value over time is much more doable (even for an MVP). The quicker your user base (customers) can identify and utilize this value, the more likely you’ll be able to retain them and use them to develop that community.
Strava: Strong athlete community, tracking progress and performance over time and seamless integration with other third-party services
Solving a frequent problem
This one is a no-brainer. Find a solution to a problem that people need or think they need. If the solution provides enough value, you not only have potential product-market fit but also a good foundation to start building a strong community.
Strava: At its core; being able to share activities with their friends and family who can support each other in their fitness journey.
Creating habits
Good habit creation is fundamental to a product’s success. However, making a habit addictive is even better. To some, “addictive” might have a negative connotation, but it can also be positive and help users become better people if done correctly. Social media products do this well by triggering dopamine events i.e. notifications (likes, kudos, comments, etc.) for users and forcing them to open the app.
Strava: Similar to the ‘like’ button, Strava enables users to give ‘kudos’ to other athletes on their activities. This triggers a dopamine release.
Solid User Experience (UX)
User experience can sometimes be underestimated. Google does this well. Not only do they have a superior search engine compared to Yahoo, but their landing page was also simple — just a plain search box (even to this day). On the other hand, Yahoo was too bloated with ads, news, and the search box combined together.
Good UX design can make or break a product. A product in a low-barriers to entry market should invest in UX. It could be the difference between users staying with one product over the other. Remember, effective UX design doesn’t have to be sophisticated or complex. Keep it simple and user-friendly.
Strava: Check this out — https://www.strava.com/navigation
Removing friction
We all hate friction. We like products and services that are able to remove friction from our lives. Amazon executes this well, by making the shopping experience sublime and easy to use (especially on the phone). Twitter/X makes it ridiculously easy to tweet.
The fewer steps it takes to onboard a new user/customer, or the reducing the time it takes for the user to acquire the product’s value i.e. uploading a post on the gram, watching a movie, transferring money between friends, etc., the more inclined they’ll be willing to use and stick with the product.
Strava: Uploading, viewing activities is straightforward. Viewing your overall health, track record and performance is also seamless; with only 2–3 taps from opening the app.
Positive experience
At the end of the day, we all want to feel good and have a positive experience. In a nutshell, the goal of every product is to make its user happy. Companies create positive experiences by exploiting Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and find ways to trigger put users in a heightened state of happiness, ecstasy, achievement, and contentment.
Strava: Showcasing your entire history of activities and providing detailed metrics on your performance and fitness certainly puts a smile on my face.
The ecosystem
Having a robust ecosystem is another value-add to ‘stickiness’. Apple, Amazon, and Google do this well with their suite of personal and home devices all integrated into a single pane of glass — all of your data, profiles, preferences are synced with each other. Third-party integrations also play a role by providing value through external vendors. All of this integration means companies now make it difficult to switch to other competitor platforms with high costs involved. Slack provides deep integrations with plenty of enterprise services amongst a host of other useful features — companies find it hard to switch once they get onto this platform.
Strava: You’re able to seamlessly link and upload your fitness activity straight from your GPS smartwatch, or bicycle head unit with zero effort. There’s also easy integration with Peloton and other fitness equipment.
So next time you come across a product or service you find yourself coming back to time and again, perhaps step back and ask what aspects of it are keeping you engaged. Chances are that some of these principles are responsible for your very behavior.
These principles are meant as a guide and can help both companies develop great products but also help users make informed decisions about using them
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