The Best of Product Teardowns So Far
If you’re new here or looking for inspiration, start here–my most popular teardowns so far
🙋♀️ Kristen here! This is a best-of collection of the most popular teardowns I’ve done so far. 1 year, 100k+ views and nearly 50 teardowns in, I feel like I’m just getting started. One question I get a lot is “Where should I start?” This is the answer! Every week, I unravel what makes popular products successful (or not). My goal: to help you replicate their design principles to get great results, too.
I hope you enjoy this collection (spoiler: I did!). If you'd like to chat, please reach out! We're always on the hunt for fun partners and problems at Irrational Labs:
kristen@irrationallabs.com 📧
P.S Smash that subscribe button to keep getting these.
10 most popular teardowns (+1 bonus)
Here you go. For each teardown, I’ve highlighted 3 things you’ll learn from it:
How Beautiful AI creates slides with zero work 👉 Beautiful slides with zero work – is it too good to be true?
What you’ll learn:
Why showing pricing upfront can be a good or bad thing
Why Beautiful AI should maybe consider not giving away a free trial
How to increase switching behavior via making some things easier and some things harder
Udemy: Massively missed onboarding opportunity? 👉 This mistake is so big, they should hire a Udemy instructor to fix it.
What you’ll learn:
A big missed opportunity on their homepage
What they should do more of to increase user confidence (& conversions)
The most effective time to get people to buy
🎬 Don’t miss part 2 of this popular teardown: Your Retention, Please: Why You’ll Never Finish That Udemy Course 💡
The science of how Tribute gets you to pay (& pay tribute) 👉 Tip your hat to the psychological principle known as 'sunk effort'.
What you’ll learn:
How Tribute’s separation of consumption and payment helps you enjoy making videos more
Why people are more likely to do something if you make it easier for them
What makes a pricing model of “sunk effort” so effective
Radish Oakland: How does a behavioral scientist choose to live? 👉 Happiness is a question of design.
What you’ll learn:
What the research tells us is the number one factor in happiness
How proximity allows for spontaneous interactions that contribute to happiness
What it’s like to co-live with “19 Adults and 4 Babies” (spoiler: way better than you think)
How Qualtrics uses onboarding to set mental models 👉 How well is Qualtrics’ onboarding setting the mental models for what it can do?
What you’ll learn:
Where in the flow “forced choice” works – & why
What Qualtrics does for advanced users, but not new users
Why you should use onboarding to set the mental model of what your product can offer
Bard: Why user trust is still the biggest problem in AI (& how to solve it) 👉 There's only one way out of algorithm aversion: trust.
What you’ll learn:
How to use ‘just-in-time education’ at the point of decision-making to enhance trust-building
How making prompting easier could get more people to engage with AI (& how to do this)
How gen AI could help users recognize (& act on) their intent and why that matters
Fitbit Google migration flow: The economics (vs. behavioral economics) of product design 👉 Think this is good product design? You must be an economist.
What you’ll learn:
Where economics & behavioral economics differ & what this means for PMs
The importance of user context in shaping choices
The power of nudges in decision-making through choice architecture design
How BeReal uses behavioral economics principles to get you to post 👉 Why is BeReal so successful? Because it nails the 3B's of behavioral design.
What you’ll learn:
How BeReal nails the 3B’s (key behavior, reduce barriers, amplify benefits)
How BeReal uses social norms and streaks to increase product engagement
Why you should focus not on the outcome you want for your product, but on what users need to do to get that outcome
Peloton teardown, part 1 of 3 👉 Gamification, habit, streaks, friction – how "in shape" is the Peloton App?
What you’ll learn:
How long it really takes to form a habit
1 way Peloton has made workouts easier
Peloton’s smart twist on streaks & how it incentivizes me to work out
Peloton teardown, part 2 of 3 👉 What could Peloton do to make us even more likely to exercise?
What you’ll learn:
What an empty state is and how Peloton could avoid one by helping you exercise your intention to… exercise
How Peloton could use the "you are what you measure" strategy to get users to explore the app
What Peloton could learn from credit card companies about incentives
Bonus: 🏆 Peloton teardown, part 3 of 3 👉 Uber badges? BeReal curtains? AI coaches? Find out what it all means.
What you’ll learn:
What Peloton could learn from Uber about badges
A move they’re using from the BeReal playbook & a way to do this even better
Future Peloton features that AI could drive & why this is exciting
BONUS: Here is my Fave :) Credit Karma: Personalization Pitfalls, Trust Killers, and When to Ditch Brand Guidelines
That’s it for this best-of edition. You can browse the entire archive here. Here’s to 50 more – see you next week for another deep dive into product psychology 👋
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Questions about your product? Email kristen@irrationallabs.com.
Want to increase conversion, retention, engagement? Reach out to Irrational Labs.
We design products that change behavior, using behavioral science. Check out our case studies to see it in action.
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