Work From The Inside Out 206: Follow Your Curiosity and Just Get Started with Nir Eyal
For most of his career, Nir Eyal has worked in the video gaming and advertising industries, where he learned and applied (and sometimes rejected) the techniques used to motivate and manipulate users. He helps companies create behaviors that benefit their users while educating people on how to build healthful habits in their own lives. Nir is the author of two bestselling books, Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products and Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life, which was named one of the Best Business and Leadership Books of the Year by Amazon.
As a child, Nir was clinically obese. Growing up in Florida, where kids spent lots of time at swimming pools, he was often the object of bullying. Nir managed to transcend those early years in his teens by reading nutrition books and changing his food choices, although he blamed the fast food industry for creating the problems he struggled with. Then he turned the blame into fascination, a critical factor in his ability to transcend the challenges inherent in his obesity. Eventually, Nir became interested in how companies like General Mills could grab customers’ attention and change behaviors.
Today, Nir writes, consults, and teaches about the intersection of psychology, technology, and business. Previously he was a Lecturer in Marketing at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford. Since 2003, Nir co-founded and sold two tech companies. The M.I.T. Technology Review called him “The Prophet of Habit-Forming Technology.”
As an active investor, Nir puts his money where his mouth is by backing habit-forming products he believes improve lives. Some of his past investments include Eventbrite, Anchor.fm (acquired by Spotify), Kahoot!, Canva, Homelight, Product Hunt, and Byte Foods.
In this week’s Work From The Inside Out podcast, learn more about Nir’s journey:
- Bloomberg Businessweek wrote, “Nir Eyal is the habits guy. Want to understand how to get app users to come back again and again? Then Eyal is your man.”
- In addition to blogging at NirAndFar.com, Nir’s writing has been featured in The New York Times, The Harvard Business Review, Time Magazine, and Psychology Today.
Learn more and connect with Nir here:
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