If you want to understand the neuroscience of habit-forming products, Paras Chopraās āA primer on dopamineā offers a great starting point.
This 3rd point from the post set the records straight for me that I donāt know this topic and I should continue reading. So I did and here weāre now.
3/ Before we dive into what dopamine does, letās first make one thing clear: dopamine does NOT generate pleasurable feelings. (In fact, it is the other way around ā pleasurable feelings generate dopamine)
Paras has curated a lot of interesting details in one place. Itās fun to read, and if you like there are some good sources to refer to. Hereās one snippet that explains how dopamine works.
I love Parasās āInverted Passionā newsletter and his twitter feed. It always surprises me with ideas that are really well researched yet explained in a very simple way. Worth a follow!Ā
š Stages of Market Sophistication
I generally apply the ladder of product awareness when I am thinking of a product solution:
Do people have this problem? And, do they think of it as a problem?
Do they even care about solving it? Are they already doing anything?
Do they know if any solution exists already? Whatās stopping them?
It is a simple yet fairly useful way to explore. 1st and 2nd stage helps uncover a lot of my biases.
Once youāve a solution in mind, the Stages of Market Sophistication is a good lens to see the same journey from the point of view of maturity of the market that your product exists in.Ā
Hereāre the five stages:
"The Only:" Explain what you are and why that's good.
"The Better:" Amplify the benefits stated in stage 1.
"How It Works:" Focus on HOW your product achieves the benefits.
"The Even Better:" Amplify the benefits stated in stage 3.
"Who It's For:" Focus on how the product aligns with their identity and lifestyle.
I found this gem in Growth Newsletter #156 from Demand Curve. Itās a short post and does a fairly good explanation with the example of a toothpaste. Highly recommended for all the marketers in the group. It can give you some useful inputs on how to think about your communication strategies.
š Recomendo
I love Kevin Kelly & teamās Recomendo newsletter for the sheer joy of finding something unexpected every time. Each week there are 6 recommendations - from a product to a video to watch and anything & everything in between. They have been doing it for the last 7 years. This particular post is a curation of timeless recommendations from those past posts based on a single theme - Design inspiration.
Worth a read and a subscription. You will be in for a surprise or two every week.
š¤ AI, and everything else
Every year, Benedict Evan produces a big presentation exploring macro and strategic trends in the tech industry. For 2024 itās titled āAI, and everything elseā.
Iāve screenshots of some of my favorite slides below (all credit to Ben Evans), but I will highly recommend going over the deck for the complete story.Ā
On how new product adoption happens (as seen in case of GPT as well)
But these direct use-cases may not be the endā¦
Novel products & new interfaces have another problem to solve - how to make discovery easier
This one blew my mind. I never thought of excel blank sheet this way, but it does make a lot of sense!
Bundling & unbundling - another perspective from an expected angle.
Finally, how to measure the success of innovation?
And hereās a question to leave you with.Ā
I had covered his 2023 deck in post #97 last year. That was equally amazing as well, worth a visit if youāve not read that one.
āļø How to write more
āWrite moreā - That is a goal for me both personally and professionally. As a manager of a talented team, Iām also trying to encourage my team to pick this up as a way to learn more.Ā Ā
In āHow to write more,ā Andrew Chan shares some strategies that have helped him in his writing journey, particularly in a professional context.
This one bit is useful and has worked for me on most occasions.Ā
Let yourself write small
You should allow yourself to write things that are both big and small. But particularly, itās great to give yourself permission to do much shorter pieces ā tweets or LinkedIn posts ā and they can even be a few lines. The frequency of creating helps you build the muscle for more later. Short helps you get over perfectionism, or a feeling of imposter syndrome, etc
The idea of ātemplatesā is useful too ā these are commonly repeating versions of posts that you can repeat, over and over, that always generate interesting content.
The rest of the piece has some more useful nuggets including a warning against āquality obsessionā. The challenges that keep you holding are not very unique, so the solutions do not need to be.Ā
š° Magical Storytelling by MP Tourism
Madhya Pradesh Tourismās 2023 ad is doing rounds on twitter and many creative/advertising newsletters. It should - the ad is just brilliant and lives up to the tradition of super amazing storytelling masterpieces that MP tourism has been doing for almost two decades now.
How does a brand keep up the creative spark like this? The folks who would have got the courage of taking such a unique take would be doing something else by now. Still the game became better every year. What kept them going?
And MP tourism is not the only place. I think of Zomato and I find a similar story. They took a courageous step long back and started defining their own creative language. Years later, they are going strong on it and now it's distinctly Zomato. Most folks behind it would have moved to make new things at different places (and possibly repeat the Zomato story), still the fire continues.
My hometown Indore won the cleanest city in India award for the 7th consecutive year this year. Thatās 7/7 in the history of these awards. How does it do it? Indore was the cleanest city before this phase, but it is now. That 1st year (or may be years leading to it) someone did something magical and it just changed the city.Ā
In all the above cases, the idea became part of our culture, our identity. How did it become, I donāt have any great answer to that, and would like to know. If you have any leads, do share.
What itās like to work as a bookseller at a bookstore in a small town of about 500 residents (via The Boonly)
BOOM: As Colossal describes it - Itās just another pleasant day on the island among a flock of feathered friends when the earth comes literally crashing down. In a desperate bid to save their four eggs, two sparring bird parents try to reconcile their differences while making a grand escape down the side of an erupting volcano, attempting various ways to keep their offspring out of harmās way. Brilliant short animated film! (via Colossal)Ā
Amazing finds from the Instagram (all thanks to Dense Discovery)
TokyoBuild makes hyper realist miniatures of Japanese homes,
Dana Piazza (danapiazza) creates illusion of depth, movement and three-dimensionality with his simple pen sketches
That's all for this week, folks!Ā
I hope I've earned the privilege of your time.
Please leave a comment or send a message with your feedback. Itās highly helpful & encouraging. If thatās too much of an effort (or not required), at least hit the ā¤ļø at the start or end of the post to show your love.Ā
