There was a great blog post on the Mode Blog, “Facebook’s Aha Moment is Simpler Than You Think,” which provided a straightforward strategy to creating Aha moments. Aha moments when a player or user understands the value of your product are widely considered the key to growth.
The key point of the post was that you create the aha moment through simple math and strong messaging; it is not a complex task that requires advanced analytics. Take Facebook’s self-defined aha moment, acquiring seven friends in ten days. In practice, this is not a binary. Some people may fall in love with Facebook after getting three friends in a week; others may need to get twenty friends in thirty days. This fact does not take away from the aha moment, it is actually the point of the aha moment. The blog post states, “Facebook’s decision to define their ‘aha moment’ in such simple terms suggests they weren’t trying to optimize it to be precise as possible. Other “aha moments”—30 follows, 1 file upload, 2,000 messages—follow the same pattern: they emphasize simplicity over science…. Because “aha moments” aren’t about precision, but about defining a core principle and a quotable rally cry for the entire company. “
Defining the aha moment
To create a useful aha moment, you need to tie it to a metric that defines customer value. Keep in mind that it is not one “moment,” Facebook’s aha moment is over ten days and requires seven different actions (friending seven people).
The most useful metrics for quantifying your aha moment are based on retention. Customers who find value come back. If you identify which actions separate retained customers from lost ones, you will know what drives customer value and then have your “aha moment.” Continue reading “Creating that Aha moment”