Concept
Stored Value
Stored value is what users put into a product through their own work, such as content, data, followers, reputation or skill, which makes the product more useful the more it is used and is the investment phase of Nir Eyal's Hook Model.
In Hooked, the investment comes after the reward: the user does a little work for the product, and that work both stores value and loads the next trigger, as when a message sent brings a reply back later. Eyal connects it to well-known tendencies: people value what they have helped build, and act consistently with what they have already done. Timing is the practical lesson. Effort asked for before any value spends goodwill; the same request right after a good result feels natural. What is easy to miss is the ethical edge. Value that keeps people because it serves them is a strength. Value that keeps people because leaving would cost them their work is a trap.
A real-life example
A personal-finance app in Istanbul stops asking new users to tag forty transactions before they see anything. It shows last month's spending first, then asks them to correct three categories. Each correction improves next month's summary, which arrives on the first of the month. Users tag more than before, and an export button lets them take their history with them.
How to use it
- 1Move every request for effort to just after the user has received something of value.
- 2Make each investment visibly improve what the user gets next time.
- 3Let users take out what they have put in.