Hooked Book Summary

Book Summary

15 min

Audio available

Brief Summary

By using their knowledge of psychology and how habits form, companies can successfully sell habit-forming products, create a dependent community of consumers, and gain big bucks in return!

About the Author

Nir Eyal is an American author, lecturer, and investor known for his best-selling book, Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products. He graduated from Standard University with an MBA and taught at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. He is an expert in the field of behavioral engineering and has published books about how psychology intersects with technology and business. He has written for popular journals such as Fast Company, Harvard Business Review, and The Atlantic. His second book, Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life, was published in 2019.

Topics

Hooked Book Summary Preview

Have you ever wondered why it is you can’t go the morning without your iPhone?

Or, even a few minutes?

How about why you can’t seem to start your day without a venti from Starbucks?

These items have made their way into your daily routine and now you have to have them or else your day just doesn’t feel right.

In “Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products” Nir Eyal tells us how companies use their knowledge of psychology to properly advertise their products to the public.

And, if you have your own business, then you’ll definitely want to scoop up this knowledge in order to create a campaign that no one can resist and in turn maximize your profits.

You Can’t Always Change Old Habits

New habits are hard to form. And, that’s because the old ones are hard to break. Our minds automatically go to our old habits because that is what worked previously, so why not do it again?

The way to successfully adopt a new habit is by doing it over and over again. Once you begin to repeat the same activity, it will become routine.

Habit-Forming Products Produce High Revenues

A habit-forming product is one that makes its way into a consumer’s daily routine. Such as our iPhones, a laptop, or a watch.

“79 percent of smartphone owners check their device within 15 minutes of waking up every morning.” - Nir Eyal

Companies that sell habit-forming products usually have long-term customers. That’s because these products are in their everyday lives, so they must do the upkeep or get a new one if it breaks or its lost. Simply because they don’t know how to function without it.

These companies also get the benefit of word-of-mouth from their loyal customers who gush to their friends, families, and co-workers about these products. It’s like free advertisement. So less money out and more customers in!

Another perk of selling a habit-forming product is that it is hard to compete with. If consumers already love one product, it’s hard to get them to switch. Especially, if it’s a product that is in their daily routine.

Companies can also choose to charge more with habit-forming products because they understand that people rely on them.

The Four Stages

Nir Eyal tells us that there are four stages of the Hooked model. This model describes how consumers get addicted or hooked on a product.

The Trigger: Something external such as an advertisement.

The Action: What is required from us to use the habit-forming product. This could be downloading an app or signing up online.

The Reward: Fulfillment and happiness from the purchase.

The Investment: Whatever we’ve given for the product such as money or time.

These four stages are repeated over and over again. And, with this repetition, they start to internalize and become habit.

The Trigger Explained

The trigger is always external because it’s not in the person’s daily routine yet. This trigger could be an ad, but it could also be that another friend bought the product, so you just have to have it too!

“Users who continually find value in a product are more likely...