Daniel's notes on Game Thinking

• During discovery, you hear about amazing experiences people had, often from friends, and it sounds like a world you'd like to be part of. • Once you arrive, you have fun and learn the ropes during onboarding, taking part in structured activities designed specifically for newcomers. • You keep returning and make it a habit because you form relationships, collaborate to accomplish your goals, and find that greater challenges and learning opportunities appear as your skills develop. • If you go deep and master the system, new roles open up that allow you to have greater status, rewards, and impact on the community.

Depending on the game, you might create one or more of these elder game roles: • Champions develop their talent, excel, and become stars and local celebrities. • Teachers create and run programs and classes to help their students learn. • Greeters help newcomers feel welcome and answer their questions. • Mentors select promising newcomers and share knowledge and resources. • Game masters keep the camp running and settle disputes. • Curators spotlight excellence, judge contests, create playlists, mount shows.

Empower Experts to Have Real Impact The most compelling reward for your investment is impact—not trinkets. If you're developing a community-based property, figure out how to empower passionate customers and give them a meaningful role in the system-one with the potential to transform their emotional state from "over it" to "into it."

Discovery Story for Visitors Write a discovery job story imagining how customers will first hear about your offering: When I [first hear about or discover the product], I want to [quickly understand the core value to me] so I can [know right away if it's a good fit and worth checking out)

Onboarding Story for Newcomers Write an onboarding job story imagining how potential customers will feel-and what they're looking for--when they first start using your offering: When I [join the service/sign up for the app/try the product], I want to [feel welcome and learn the ropes] so I can (feel confident and quickly get value from the experience].

Habit Story for Regulars Write a habit story about your customers' Day 21 or Day 30 experience-once they've learned the ropes--that captures what will pull them back to the experience: When I [come here regularly, e.g. the daily experience four weeks in], I want (fresh content, activities, or challenges] so I can [always get that quick "hit" of satisfaction I'm seeking].

Mastery Story for Experts Write a mastery job story about what the experts experience a few weeks in. What experience/powers/rewards/role can you offer them that leverages the skills, relationships, and knowledge they've built up using your system? When I [make the effort to master this system], I want [earned unlocks, powers, access, status, roles] so I can [stay engaged/have an impact/leverage my newfound skills, knowledge, and relationships].

Speed bump #1: little feedback from early customers Customer feedback from your internal team, your investors, and your friends can skew your thinking. These people are not your early market. You need feedback from people who don't know you. Watch out: you may be building a house of cards and limiting your growth.

Speed bump #2: No support for skill-building If your product is shallow or trivial, it can be tough to create a compelling customer journey. Without character transformation and skill-building, you can't lay out a compelling ascension path. And without that, the journey is a lot less satisfying and much easier to leave. You need to create a system that drives customer value over time.

Speed bump #3: Not a coherent experience over time Writing job stories will help you identify your product's through-line from your customer's point of view. If your stories are fragmented or inconsistent, that's a sign that you need to back up a few steps and rethink the experience. To create a deeply engaging experience, tighten your narrative into a compelling customer journey.

The most successful product creators I know always kickoff a new project by building, iterating and tuning the core activity chain, or what I call the core learning loop. Once that's working well, they'll start to add more features and polish. If you want to emulate successful innovators, this is how you build engagement from the ground up.