Successful apps are ones that are able to capitalize on things that we all innately desire or can’t stop doing.
By observing apps that captivated the attention of large audiences like Friend.tech, or even STEPN, we can infer that it is much easier to insert your crypto dApp into something familiar that people are *already doing* like talking in gated chats or walking, than it is to try and get them to break their routine and do something completely new.
To get someone to break with their routine, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow needs to be so massive people will jump through all the hoops to get there, no matter what. In the bull market, the case for why someone would do this is clear, but in the depths of the bear market, crypto tends to default to ‘factory settings’ in the form of gambling or circular reasoning feedback loops of gamified rewards.
To achieve a large amount of adoption, a speculative layer on its own is not enough to propel an app to global status, you end up with a worse version of an offshore casino. The magic happens when you take a familiar habit and weave a speculative experience into something that people are already doing:
– Billions of people already watch sports, sports betting & fantasy leagues introduce a win/loss dynamic which raises the stakes
– Billions of people already walk around their city, Pokémon Go introduced the ability to catch rare Pokémon on the path people already walk daily
– Billions of people already play video games like Counter-Strike, weapons cases and loot boxes give the ability to earn thousands of dollars by getting a rare item while playing CS
– Billions of people take photos with their phones, Instagram gave them a place to upload their camera roll to show their friends
The list goes on and on. People come for the routine, and stay for the speculative or engaging activity. There are millions of actions that form part of users’ daily routines. If you are building an app, take a look at something that people do every single day and carefully weave your gamified application or experience into the very fabric of their daily lives.
You don’t have to build the hook and the anchor, you can attach your hook to someone else’s anchor.