Framework: What makes a product click (and stick)
I keep learning from people that I interact with: What apps and products they use, how they got to know about it, where they spend, their interests, etc. The answers vary with demography. But these questions have become a framework to do quick user research. This framework has helped me nail down a few key takeaways on what makes a product click (and stick) [at the end of this blog].
Learning how people discover new apps is really important for those who are also building them. The understanding of how people find new things in the market is crucial to growth. Because distribution is harder than building.
If you are a marketer, product designer, startup founder, an indie maker, ask these questions for the app/product you are building:
- Is this an app I’d (or someone would) recommend?
- What is the most relevant place for people to discover it?
- At what point they will spend on it and why?
- Will they be or should they keep looking for alternatives even after discovering your app? and so on (specific to your own app/product).
What do you use as a consumer?
Keep yourself in context and ask these questions: Apps/platforms that you use yourself, why you prefer those, where did you discover them, and on which of those you spend money. And also notice in which demography you keep yourself as a consumer.
The key data points that dictate my choices as a consumer:
- 23
- Android User
- MacBook Air User
- CS Graduate
- Living in Tier 1 city
- Interested in: Writing, Startups, Photography, Music, Politics, Tech, Dogs.
- Living away from home
- From Tier 3 city
- Travels 5 to 10 times in a year
It’ll be a great advantage if you develop an ability to predict the user demography by the set of apps they use and to predict the apps they use by their demography. Once you are in that mindset, you can never ignore an advertisement, new app launch, new app someone recommends you, and the trends on the Internet.
Looking at myself as a consumer, here’s the (almost) complete list of mobile apps that I use, how I discovered them, and why these apps retained me as a user. Remember the framework.
*Banking Apps*
Awareness: First Movers Advantage. These banks were close to my location in the tier-3 city that I grew up in. Still sticking to them because the switching cost is high.
1. SBI Yono (@TheOfficialSBI)
2. SBI BHIM
3. UCO MBanking+ (@UCOBankOfficial)
4. UCO MPassbook
____
*Digital Payments*
5. Paytm (@Paytm)
The only option for prepaid mobile recharge. Recommendation from friends. Started using in 2014. Newer use cases kept me engaged. Still a user. Became Paytm First Member in 2019. Goto payment app at shops. Highest distribution. I never liked @FreeCharge (had no use of the vouchers for me). Paytm Payments Bank feels like an overhead.
6. PhonePe (@PhonePe_)
Awareness: A college friend installed it on my phone forcefully for the cashback incentive in 2018. I uninstalled it later. I installed it again when someone asked me to pay via UPI. Cashbacks made it my goto UPI App. Only used PhonePe Switch for Metro card recharge. For me, it is the most seamless UPI.
7. Google Pay (@GooglePay)
Awareness: Google I/O India. Heavy cash backs = Goto UPI app. GPay to Gpay = Limitation. Linked with Uber (since Paytm+Uber needs to be pre-paid). I’m sticking to it because it is linked with my Uber and also because it just sits in my app drawer (no reason to remove it).
8. WhatsApp UPI
Awareness: News about Paytm being vocal about WhatsApp UPI.
When people send UPI links on WhatsApp, I use WhatsApp to pay them (without incentive). It is unfair for other payment apps to keep WhatsApp in this category.
*Social/Communication*
9. Facebook
Recommendation from friends in school days. 2010. No better alternative (Orkut was hard to understand) — everyone flocked onto FB for chatting, expanding friend list (network effect), and stalking. Likes and comments (engagement) were a big deal in the early days. I’m not using Facebook mobile for the last 5 years. But I do visit the web app a couple of times in a week.
10. Instagram
Awareness: Recommendation form friends + Searched Google for the best apps for photographers - in the year 2014. Signed up on Facebook-owned Instagram. I had no network in the early days. Told friends to join it. Cool effects. Instagram to Facebook sharing kept me on it (I don’t do it anymore).
Facebook’s content seemed irrelevant once I had enough followers/following on Instagram. At the same time (2014), I signed up on Flickr too. Looked limited. Uncool. Friends were not signing up on a recommendation.
11. Twitter
Awareness: Heard a lot about it in the news. Many known celebrities, news channels, politicians were Tweeting. Joined in 2012. Had no network on it for 3–4 Years. Now, everyone in my network is on Twitter.
12. YourQuote
Discovered #YourQuote on Instagram when some of my friends were posting text-over-images/micro-content. Signed-up after years — never used the app to post anything. Uninstalled it several times. But installed it to follow a few close friends and see what they are writing.
YourQuote is a great tool — Instagram Create Mode has become even better. Other apps to achieve the same thing that we can do in YourQuote are plenty. I am still keeping the app because I think it has the potential of being used to promote certain products.
13. Whatsapp
Awareness: Read about it in a Hindi newspaper (they covered it in a tech section), recommendation from friends, one of my school teachers asked “what is WhatsApp? Install it on my phone” (Nokia — Symbian OS). Installed it for the first time on my Nokia 5233 (Symbian OS). Not owned by FB yet. It was faster for chatting compared to Facebook Messenger. Simple. No alternative. Still a user.
14. WA Business
Awareness: Facebook global event. I installed it for one of my products. I haven’t used it properly yet. Great potential for building a bot/customer care, but a lot of technical limitations as of now.
15. Pinterest
Awareness: My designer friend sent a link to join Pinterest for mood-boarding. I asked, “What is Pinterest?”. Later, I created a few boards to collect ideas. Installed the app after years of being an active user.
16. Tiktok/Likee
Awareness: Memes, crossposting on Instagram, and the news of Musically acquisition by Bytedance. Installed it to reach out to influencers, watch trends, and see why it’s so popular. Didn’t signup yet. Will never become an active user too.
*Google Ecosystem*
Chrome, Gmail, Maps, Drive, and Android are powerful platforms. Google owns the product and its distribution.
17. Gmail
Awareness: My father told me about Rediff mail (they were using it in office). Created a Gmail account to signup on Facebook.
18. Maps
First got access to Google Earth on Chrome. Pre-installed in Android. The only option for navigation.
19. Photos
First got access to Picasa on Chrome. I don’t recall at what point I became so dependent on this app. Seamless sharing and unlimited storage. No alternative this seamless.
20. Drive/Docs/Slides/Sheets/Calendar
Gmail leads to Drive. Opening the uploaded word and exec files on the drive itself leads to Docs/Sheets. Slides — Better than PowerPoint. Powerful and seamless collaboration.
21. YouTube
Awareness: Chrome. I only started using it a lot during college days: music, trailers, funny videos, lectures, almost everything.
22. YT Music
Installed it after getting access to YT Premium.
23. Duo
Awareness: Google I/O. Not a frequent user. The WhatsApp network is so strong and the app is userfriendly, no one has ever asked me to video call using Duo. But this app is still sitting in my app drawer.
24. PlayGames/Authenticator/Admin
Needs lead me these. PlayGames: Login requirement for various games (Pubg). Auth: Login on crypto exchanges. GSuite — Admin.
Google is a monopoly. Seamless sync across devices and collaboration.
*Utility/Productivity*
25. Slack
When I first started working in teams, this was the only tool my teammates preferred. A lot of coverage in blogs about Slack and the news about Slack were also contributing factors. But honestly, I don’t see any other tool for organized communication around one project. The defensibility of Slack is the integrations available on top of it (that’s the only thing Slack talked about for years).
26. YourHour
Searched on PlayStore for a phone usage tracking app and this showed up among the top with a good rating. Satisfactory results and then I never bothered to look for other apps to track my phone usage.
27. Trello
The same reason as Slack. The products like Slack and Trello are part of a lot of lists/blogs on the Internet around *the productivity tools you need to stay organized*.
28. Goodreads
During my college days, I discovered that some students share their reviews for some book they read on Goodreads and then they post it on Facebook. Facebook was my first point of discovery for Goodreads. So I visited the website, signed up using my Facebook account and quickly saved the books I read on my shelf. Ever since I’m using Goodreads to keep the track of books I want to read and the books I’ve read and books my friends are reading. Also, the lists, ratings, reviews are so useful. I installed the Goodreads mobile app after years of using it. Defensibility; once you actually start using Goodreads, you can’t go back.
29. Guitar Tuna
This app gets the work done. No ads. Simple to use. When I searched for Guitar tuning apps on PlayStore, this showed up among the top and the interface felt clean in the screenshots. I never looked for an alternative for this.
30. Splitwise
Recommended by friends to keep track of group expenses. Once you put up the expenses on the app, you are obliged to keep the app on your phone until the expenses are settled. The interface is clean, gets the work done, never felt the need for an alternative. Also, to switch from Splitwise, I’ll need to convince everyone in my group to switch and switching is not worth the time and effort it’ll take.
31. Snapseed
I used to edit my photos in Lightroom and was looking for something handy to tune images on my phone. This is also the time where I’m done with Instagram filters and I want more control over photos without the pain of copying the photos from Camera SD card to my laptop, editing in Lightroom, importing, and emailing them to myself to post on Instagram. Snapseed did the job well, no ads, free, and easy to use.
32. Truecaller
I wanted to know who’s calling me if their number is not on my phone. And a friend recommended the Truecaller app.
This is the most interesting app I have found so far. Truecaller is the only app in the market that lets you know who’s calling if their number is not on your phone. No app is even remotely close to what this app does. The app is annoying though, seems very intrusive at times but I still need this app.
33. Lastpass
Remembering passwords is hard. Especially now when you have to remember a lot of them. I never looked for any password managers on the Internet, but I saw my techie friend using Lastpass, so I gave it a try. The defensibility of the product is strong. Once you are on Lastpass, you cannot get out of it.
34. MyJio
I never thought that the official apps by telecom companies will become so important one day. I need this app to keep track of my plan for Jio Fiber. The Jio has built a good subscription model bundled in a single point of sale, but so far I’m not using anything else from the bundle.
35. My Airtel
To keep track of my plans.
36. SnapVPN
I needed a free VPN app to login on Spotify every 14 days from the USA to get access to Spotify’s entire catalog (a lot of songs are not available in India). And this is the first VPN app I installed, it worked, and then I never looked for an alternative because this gets the work done.
37. Repost
The need to repost photos from other Instagram accounts with proper credits. I discovered it when a lot of photography accounts I followed on Instagram were using Repost. The app automatically puts #repost and mentions repostapp in every reposted photo.
38. Ads (By Facebook)
Professional needs. I only use to pause and resume campaigns and track the performance of the ads but never used it to create ads. But I’ve used Instagram’s built-in “Promote” feature because it takes away a lot of decision making from the process and is really good for running shot tests.
39. Keep Notes (by Google)
This app came pre-installed on my phone and I started using it. Once I had enough notes in the app, it became impossible to migrate to any other note-taking application.
40. Google Chrome
Internet Explorer was pre-installed on our desktop. I found out about Google Chrome from friends and also read about it in a newspaper in the tech section. Chrome is also mentioned in school computer books. Installing Chrome gave me instant access to everything Google. Google Chrome is a platform for google to push new apps to millions of users in an instance.
*Travel/Commute*
41. Uber
Awareness: Saw a traditional banner ad in the college canteen (2014) for the first time with only “Uber” written on it. I got curious, looked up the Internet and learned about the taxi booking platform. Used it for the first time only because of the free ride incentives. Heavy incentives were the only reasons for the taxi drivers to signup on this platform.
But from day 1 we felt that Uber as a brand was here to stay. The boldness to show nothing more than a logo and a name in their ads and spending money to acquire demand and supply in a market where no competition existed. But soon Ola, TaxiForSure, and Meru cabs came in to fight.
42. OlaCabs
Awareness: News. The only competitor for Uber we saw in India.
I never used Ola because the Uber experience and brand value were more attractive. The user experience on Ola’s mobile app is clumsy in comparison with Uber. I keep the Ola app on my phone in case I can’t find an Uber.
The seamless payment on Uber (Credit Card and UPI) is a plus, adds to the seamless experience. Uber for business is also seamless.
43. IRCTC
No alternatives to this.
44. Flights
I don’t use any particular app to book flights. I visit Google Flights and book the cheapest options available on the preferred dates. I’ve used MMT, EaseMyTrip, and Paytm so far. High cost. Low frequency. No Loyalty to any airlines or travel booking platform.
45. Oyo
Awareness: Identifiable (strong) offline presence and Ritesh Agarwal’s Story.
Oyo is “over promise and under deliver”. Still, high chances of becoming a repeat customer because of its huge catalog for selections. The hotels on Google Maps linked their business listings with their Oyo listing and that opened a floodgate for creating awareness.
46. Airbnb
Awareness: YCombinator.
For accommodation booking: I’ve (un)installed many times: Oyo (used it twice so far) and Airbnb (will use it for sure — I like the collection). Again, no loyalty to any platform.
Google Maps is preferred to find accommodations — locality (distance from important locations within city), photos, photos of nearby places, and reviews.
*Blogging*
47. Wordpress
When I first wanted to blog, I started by hosting a Wordpress on an AWS free-tier EC2 instance, purchased a domain from GoDaddy, used Cloudflare for DNS, and Xreach was live (only for 18 months).
I have realized, the apps/tools/products that we discover on our own out of needs are hard to forget and you often recommend these whenever someone asks about it.
48. Medium
When I started writing blogs, Medium seemed a legit place to read better bloggers and the best bloggers out on the Internet. Medium is like a supermarket. So I switched from AWS+Wordpress+Cloudflare to Medium. I keep the Medium app to jot ideas in my drafts.
*Music*
49. Spotify
+YT Music (covered above)
What else is there in the market for music streaming?
There was a time when we used to download pirated music and play it on the default music player in mobile phones. Then, for me, I started using Google Play Music.
Spotify was cool, not available in India (VPN), and Saavn/Gaana are limited in terms of the catalog.
*Food/Hyperlocal delivery*
I never used online food delivery apps with excitement but only with a sigh and only when I had no option. A lot of apps came and went by but only the ones who had the power to afford losses in the long term and diversified business to keep them relevant stayed in the market. As a consumer, I jumped form apps to apps depending on the offers because every app had the same catalog or restaurants.
50. Zomato
Zomato stands out among all because it was the only option back then for restaurant reviews.
Awareness: The restaurants on Google Maps used Zomato listing as their own webpage. They linked their google business locations with their Zomato page because not every restaurant in India can have a website to showcase their menu, photos, and reviews. That’s where I discovered Zomato. Later when I needed to order food, I tried their service. But they were late to the online food delivery party.
Purchased Zomato Gold in 2019.
51. Swiggy/Uber Eats (now shut-down)/Dunzo/Faasos
When I first moved to this tier-1 city I currently live in, I felt the need to order food online more often. And I installed every available app to order food online. The offers and cashback by wallets and the apps were the major behavior driving forces. Most of the time, you are so busy that the app that you open first ends the one getting an order from you. And that’s way top-of-the-mind marketing campaigning became a big thing for these brands. The Swiggy+IPL and Zomato+Twitter have worked for them pretty well. Uber was a bully in the market and didn’t survive the competition.
52. BigBasket/Grofers
Awareness: Ads featuring Shahrukh Khan. Mini tracks with their advertising on them carrying groceries for delivery.
Flatmate purchased the Grofers premium. Used it until the membership ended. When I changed the location, the flatmate purchased Bigbasket membership. And thus, I started using BB. Never felt the need to go back to Grofers. Also, when I was using Grofers, I never felt the need of even trying out BB.
I’m currently using Bigbasket.
53. BB Daily/Supr/Milkbasket
Flatmates used all of them in the last 18 months.
Awareness and conversion: Salesman who visited us at the flat to pitch the service and onboarded us with 15 days of free milk delivery.
*Ecommerce*
54. Myntra
Awareness: Ads and the news of acquisition by Flipkart. The only trusted e-commerce for apparel. I never used Jabong but browsed the products when got the news of its acquisition.
I keep Myntra’s app on my phone because browsing the catalog and sharing the links with someone else via WhatsApp is easier. Also, purchasing clothes, shoes, etc for myself or even for gifting is a slow and time taking process. Tracking the orders, returning, and tracking refunds. The mobile app is convenient.
I don’t keep the mobile apps of Amazon and Flipkart because the usage frequency is low. Also, once purchased, there is little possibility of returning the item (because we only buy from these e-commerce platforms when we know exactly what to buy and the prices are always comfortable (unlike apparel shopping)).
*Gaming*
55. Pubg
Peer pressure got me into trying the game for the first time last year. I never played it alone, the team factor is a big plus for Pubg, it is addictive, and it is the only multiplayer game that I’ve ever played on my phone. I play it a couple of times every week.
*Weather*
Always use the default/pre-installed widget on the phone. Never looked up an app for this purpose.
*Apps that I no longer keep on my phone*
56. Quora
Awareness: In college, some of my friends were reading and writing on Quora. I also started reading and writing on Quora. The initial validation that you get from upvotes and a few thousand views on your answers are enough to hook you to the platform.
Quora used to be my goto website to read interesting content, but then I started reading Medium, and now I only read a few blogs. My reading habit has changed over time. Now I search google to read blogs/articles when I need some information or insights on something. And discover new things on Twitter (this is not super-effective though).
57. Canva
Awareness: The blogs by Canva. They’ve got a lot of things covered on their blogs which is relevant to me: Marketing, Photography, Design, Branding, etc.
Also, during college, my designer friends suggest me to try it for creating presentations. I never used Canva to create a presentation, but now I use it every day to make content for Instagram.
Canva’s packs too many features to be fully utilized on a mobile application. Also, while creating content on Canva, I’m sure its users will also need to switch between tabs, upload photos, and do things that are more convenient to do on a laptop.
Now my major trustable discovery sources are:
A. YCombinator (for last 3 years)
B. YourStory (for last 6 years)
C. ProductHunt (for last 4 years)
Note: I never discovered an app from ProductHunt that I used for more than a day.
Ad Strategy ≠Growth Strategy
Distribution is not only a result of the growth strategy and ad strategy for a product. Both these keywords are used interchangeably but they are not the same.
Growth strategy is formed through decisions in the product design and applying learnings from the user research, market needs, and tech trends. Setting up a product for growth cannot be outsourced, ads can be. Ads do not need to be truthful, products need to be truthful to the users for growth that stays.
But there are also other known and unknown factors at play that can change with time, the geographical location of your offerings/customers, trends, market needs, competition, economic conditions, etc.
Following are the key takeaways that I learned in the past two years about making products that click (and stick):
1. One core utility
The apps/products that stick help you get one thing done without fuss. If the core utility gets clear to the users, they’ll stop looking for alternatives. But a product with larger distribution in the relevant industry can kill the new product by introducing it as a utility. So getting your product to do one thing right and best in the market is mandatory but not enough.
2. Defensibility / Lock-in users
When your product is the best to get things done (help users achieve one key goal), the next crucial factor is defensibility. In other words, what advantage does it provide you over the competitors if a user spends one or six months on your product? Does it become hard to leave? Does it fit seamlessly in their every day lives?
Note-taking apps, social media, online storage, communication apps are highly defensible. The more time we spend on them, the harder it gets to switch to a different app. Not all products can be made defensible just by taking the investments from the users in the form of their data.
Amazon is selling Prime membership to retain users for a year, food delivery apps too sell memberships to retain users. These plans help build defensibility for a product for a duration.
Medium knew it that bloggers will not like to move from their Wordpress blogs. So they gave a feature to import all the Wordpress blogs easily and by linking your Twitter, your twitter followers who are already on Medium automatically follow you. That’s a great way to make switching easy for the users.
3. You found it when you were looking for it
The first mover’s advantage is not only to those who enter the market first, but it is also when people discover your app when they are looking for it.
When you discover an app/product on your own on the Internet there are higher chances of using it. This brings us to the importance of creating a presence and being present at the relevant places.
On the Internet, it is not that easy. People who are searching for their questions/queries are looking to get something done, so the products with a clear utility and relevance with the queries get the advantage. The point/source of discovery should also be trustable.
4. Grow through a platform with bigger distribution
A lot of apps gained new users through their presence on Google Maps, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, news, blogs, and discussion forums. We as consumers visit some platforms every day for a utility and if we discover something that unbundles the utility further with ease, then we tend to try them out. Browsing hotels or restaurants on Google maps shows you link to Oyo, Airbnb, and Zomato. Sharing book reviews from Goodread to Facebook. Tweeting links to the medium blogs. Breaking into relevant WhatsApp groups and public discussion forums because people are liking the new app someone discovered. And so on.
5. First movers advantage
Platforms/apps that are first to the market gets a larger share of the pie. The second or third or any app in the same domain after that can only make it to the top if they are extraordinary, or the trends have changed (and the older player didn’t reinvent itself), or the new tech is being utilized such that the previous players cannot make that switch. There is already so much information o first movers and second movers advantage on the Internet. The first mover's advantage also gets to the apps that moved in your mobile phone before the competitors.
6. Recommendation
This is by far the biggest factor directly affecting the growth.
7. Peers/Someone else made a decision for you
This is another kind of lock-in effect. Products that are used in groups or for collaboration (Splitwise/Google Ecosystem), services that get your work done (you don’t care which app/brand it is) (GuitarTuna/Banking Apps), the old setup works just fine and the loss in switching is higher than the benefits in sticking with the older app/tool/product (Slack/Trello/), you only care about the end result as long as it works (BBDaily/Supr/Milkbasket/Flight booking/food ordering).
8. The initial buy-in was promising, it turned out useful, and now you are a repeat customer
We pay the price that we feel is justified for a product/service and there is a feeling of “I’m getting more than what I’m paying for”. If you ever feel like you are paying more for something that is not worth the price, you won’t make a repeat purchase. The best situation for brands is when people pay a high price and defend their expenses among peers with arguments on quality, brand, reliability, etc.
There must be many factors apart from these eight points that I analyzed. This list in no way is a complete list but seems a good starting point to build products with potentially infinite shelf-life.
The outcome of looking at yourself as a consumer, understanding your own demography, and then going through your phone to analyze all the apps you use builds empathy for the end-users.
When you ask yourself, Where did I discover this app? Why am I using it? Did I ever spend on it (why not? why did?), and what are the apps you no longer use? You see the market with more clarity. You also start looking at your potential users with more respect and develop a genuine urge to help them by building a better product, by building something that has never been built before.
