Written & drawn by a human called Ajay • Minimal edits via AI • 314 words
Are we a behavior change company?
No. Superpower is a behavior unblocking company.
I tried the other kind once. EntryLevel set out to build the most-completed course on the planet. Refund if you finished, a full D&D adventure, drop-off tracked module by module. We took completion from 5% → 58%, across tens of thousands of people.
Proud of it. But it taught me one thing: we only ever helped people who already wanted it. We didn't change behavior. We cleared the path for people who already wanted to walk it.
You can't install intrinsic desire. You can only convert it.
Fogg's model: Behavior = Motivation × Ability × Prompt, landing at the same moment.
Ability → make the right action almost frictionless.
Prompt → The trigger point / notification - how do we fire it the second motivation spikes.
Motivation → we don't build it. We harvest it, capitalizing on seasonal and situational changes.
The trap is spending everything to motivate the unmotivated. Most expensive, lowest-yield thing we could do.
For Superpower, the willing pool dwarfs the acting pool. Most people want to be healthier and don't act - the barrier is Ability and a Prompt, not desire. That gap between wanting and doing is the market, and it's enormous.
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I've been gone two months. Not because I stopped wanting to write - because something was in the way. AI became a bazooka for my brain; I'd burn billions of tokens and end up staring out the window, brain fried. So I removed the block. Which is, funnily enough, exactly what this issue is about.
New format: handwritten, under two minutes, more insight per word. Some of you will unsubscribe because you’ve forgotten my emails, don’t like it or doesn’t suit you.
Until next time,
Ajay
