Are Viral Loops Or Viral ?Oops' Driving Your App's Growth?

Editor?s Note: Nir Eyal writes about the intersection of psychology, technology, and business at NirAndFar.com. Follow him @nireyal. Recently, MessageMe announced it had grown to 1 million users in a little over a week’s time. The revelation captured the attention of envious app makers throughout Silicon Valley, all of whom are searching for the secrets of customer acquisition like it’s the fountain of youth. “Growth hacking” has become the latest buzzword, as investors like Paul Graham profess it’s functionally that matters. Clearly, everyone wants growth. To someone creating a new technology, nothing feels better than people actually using what you’ve built and telling their friends. Growth feels validating. It tells everyone the company is doing things right. At least that’s what we want to believe. Good Growth, Bad Growth Sometimes viral loops drive growth, because the product is truly awesome, while in other cases growth occurs for, well, different reasons. As an example of good growth, it’s hard to top PayPal’s viral success in the late 90s. PayPal knew that once users started sending money to each other, mostly for stuff bought on eBay, they would infect one another. The allure that someone just “sent you money” was a huge incentive to register. PayPal nailed virality. Both sides of the transaction benefited from utilizing the platform and a classic network-effects business was born. In order for users to get what they wanted, they had to open an account and the product spread because it was useful and viral. However, sometimes viral loops are less about the customer?s interests and more about short-term greed. When the product maker intentionally tricks users into inviting friends or blasting social networks, they may see growth, but it comes at the expense of goodwill and trust. When people discover they’ve been tricked, they vent their hatred and stop using the product. Unfortunately, we’ve all encountered the ways companies drive growth in deceptive ways known as “dark patterns.” Viral Oops Good and bad growth is relatively easy to identify. What is harder to decipher is the gray zone in between. A “viral oops” occurs when users unintentionally invite others, but when they look back on what happened, they blame themselves, not the app. When MessageMe pre-selects everyone in my contact list as a default, I’m likely to think that only those who are un-checked will be invited. However, the opposite is true. With two taps, my

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