Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products

Marc Goodman (Founder/Future Crimes Institute)

Recommended by Marc Goodman in "Tools of Titans".

Raluca Radu (Owner/MTH Digital)

In terms of business, some of the must-read books I would mention are Hooked by Nir Eyal, Web Analytics: An Hour A Day by Avinash Kaushik, Call To Action and Always Be Testing by Bryan Eisenberg, Epic Content Marketing by Joe Pulizzi, How To Build Websites That Sell by Peep Laja, Content Chemistry by Andy Crestodina.

Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten (Founder/The Next Web)

The book everyone in Silicon Valley is talking about.

Matt Mullenweg (Founder/Wordpress)

Hooked gives you the blueprint for the next generation of products. Read Hooked or the company that replaces you will.

Rory Sutherland (Vice-Chairman/Ogilvy & Mather)

The most high bandwidth, high octane, and valuable presentation I have ever seen on this subject.

Leah Lizarondo (Co-Founder/412 Food Rescue)

I am reading Nir Eyal's "Hooked" - how to build habit-forming products. I have this overarching question in my head -- how do we use technology as a tool to make doing good a habit for someone?

Sanja Zepan (Co-Founder/Homey)

My favourite business book is Hooked, by Nir Eyal. It talks about building habit forming products, apps that integrate into people's lives and make them easier or better in some way - but to do that, these products have to create a new habit, like putting your expenses in a budgeting app, adding missing ingredients to a shopping app, or in our case marking chores as done in Homey app. Almost every consumer facing startup needs good engagement, and I've recommended this book to countless founders. It's definitely not only for apps that rely heavily on gamification, as many people thought. It provides real world examples for many different business cases, and the ideas are usually easy to apply, test and integrate. We've used some ideas from this book, but we're still not done with it.

Jeff Tan (Peak Performance Pilot/REV Inspires)

I’m reading 3 books now and it really depends on my mood.

• (1) Homo Deus by Yuval Harari
• (2) The Influential Mind by Tali Sharot (re-reading it) and
• (3) Hooked by Nir Eyal.

What do I expect to gain? With the 2nd and 3rd books, it’s to reinforce stuff I already know and both also point out useful tips for my business. The first is just a fascinating read about human nature and it’s purely for pleasure.

Erik Cheong (Co-Founder/Park N Parcel)

Previously, I was reading this book called “Hooked” by Nir Eyal. It’s about how to build habit forming products, another must read for founders who care about driving customer engagement. This book showed me the case study of how Facebook, Youtube & Uber turn technologies into compulsions if not fully-fledged addictions. It provided me the step by step on how I can position my product into a “painkiller” that solves real problems, instead of a “vitamin” that appeals to users’ emotional rather than functional needs.

Marius Ciuchete Paun (Web designer)

I am now reading “Hooked” by Nir Eyal. I expect it to give me more and better insight on how to build the next level products.

Darshan Gajara (Founder/ProductDisrupt)

Question: What books would you recommend to young people interested in your career path? Why?

Answer:

• ‘Design for a Perfect Screen’ by Tal Florentin. Reasons: Basics of design, user psychology, designing for business.
• ‘Hooked’ by Nir Eyal. Reasons: Learning about habits and its impact on digital products.
• ‘The Ultimate Guide to Getting More Clients From Your Website’ by Matt Olpinski
Reasons: Personal branding, freelancing, finding clients.
• ‘ANYWHERE’ by AND CO. Reasons: Working remotely, work + travel, networking.

Javed Khatri (Co-founder & Chief Everything Officer/Kustard)

Hooked had a huge impact on me. It has turned me into a better product guy, it has taught me how I can get into the minds of the end users and make them do what I want them to do (of course in a positive way). The book and the hook model itself is well researched, interesting and thought-provoking.

Tee-Ming Chew (Co-Founder/Seedly)

Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products by Nir Eyal. It changed the way I think about product and helps you to be hyper focused on what matters rather than what is cool for your users.

Irina Marinescu (Product Manager & Co-Founder/Save Potatoes)

Already a classic about how to build successful products. Also, retention is a priority goal for any Product Manager, but you can't have retention if you are not setting a good engagement rate. It was a great starting point for me as part of my first startup and continues to help me today as acquired knowledge about user behavior.

Chandini Jain (CEO/Auquan)

[One of the five books Chandini would you recommend to young people interested in her career path.]