Product Development that Creates Magic Moments
Time to "Holy Shit, how did I live without this?"
Time to Holy Shit is the measure of how quickly a user reaches the moment where they think "holy shit, how did I live without this?"
Products should optimize for delivering these moments as fast as possible and as regularly as possible.
Every feature must answer: "What story is this telling to the user?" If it's about showing off tech → FAIL. If it eliminates user friction → PASS.
Build contextual understanding from the foundation. Default to intelligence over asking users to configure. Show, don't ask.
Every piece of intelligence should eliminate user decisions, not create them. Make products smart to reduce complexity, not increase it.
Does this reduce complexity for the user or create it?
Will users think it's magic or just convenient?
Does this get smarter with context or stay static?
Does this enable regular surprise moments?
Most effort on foundations that enable multiple magic moments
Being technically impressive but not personally relevant. Building for demo day instead of daily use.
Asking users to set up before showing value. Making intelligence optional instead of default.
Shipping the org chart instead of user value. Building features because data exists, not because users need them.
From signup to first contextually-intelligent action
How often users experience contextual features
% of actions leveraging contextual intelligence
Retention after experiencing holy shit moments
The question is not "How long will this take?" but "How much holy shit can we deliver within our constraints?"
Focus on leading indicators. Accept temporary traditional metric degradation. Build measurement infrastructure for magic moments.
Balance leading and lagging indicators. Optimize TTFM as primary north star. Track magic retention cohorts.
Traditional metrics improve as natural consequence. Focus on magic frequency and depth. Use magic moments to drive business outcomes.
Experience the difference between traditional features and magic moments:
Click a button above to see the difference
The goal is not to impress users with technology, but to make them wonder how they ever lived without your product.