Michael Geer

Get Your First Million Users: Discover Your Product's Viral Loops

1. List all major “players” in the system (eg. a marketplace may have two major players: buyers &amp; sellers)

a)	Developers/owners of other gratitude journal apps
b)	Developers/owners of other gratitude quotes &amp; guides
c)	Developers/owners of other happiness apps
d)	Consumers/shoppers who are on iOS
e)	Consumers/shoppers who are on tablet devices

2. List out any selfish reasons why each player would need their contacts/friends to join the service

a)	sellers of the app want more people to join because it becomes a revenue stream for them

[#4] People want to make money so they have freedom and choice

b)	Developers of the app want people to join because they want to be known about the work and apps that they make so they can get fame and fortune

[#4] Businesses want to make more money. The system will allow them to do this from current customers. -- Businesses are constantly looking for innovative marketing angles to bring customers back more often to their shops (or their other apps). Buying once could lead to buying more if they build the right posture and authority.

c)	Consumers or users of the app will want to promote to their friends because they want to be seen as pioneers, leaders, people who share good things to their friends &amp; networks. Builds up their authority and status

[#4] People want to feel powerful, and so if the system allows them to make more change in the world, that will feed their feeling of power. -- People want recognition and to affect their status in their particular circles of friends/contacts. The system will give them a great way to achieve higher status. They will also feel that they are contributing back to the community

d)	Consumers just want to share happy thoughts and feelings with each other, like hang out with like. Networking possibilities

[#4] people want to feel connected to others and part of a community. Learning from other peoples experience can also help an individual to grow and develop.

3. List out all things you could possibly charge each player for on the service
a)	Consumers – charge them a fee for using the app

[#4] Once off purchase of the app to use it forever. The other revenue model would be growth-model and users pay $0.99 each year.

b)	Consumers – charge them a fee for access to a continuous positive news feed 

[#4] having a constant feed of positive stories will help motivate them and help them stay positive, keep up positive energy. They can then list all of the other things that make them happy.

c)	Advertisers – pay us if they want to promote a product or new event (if they want access to this demographic)

[#4] advertise and build up their own brand (for all similar reasons to the above in #2). 


Good first stab! I'm not completely clear about how Players a, b, and c will work, but trust you have that figured out. Just remember that partnerships take longer to set up than straight to end user.

Try to strengthen 2d and e. From your description I don't have a clear idea of how the app will work, but it seems that the sending of gratitude could be a good inherent virality here. The user wants to send gratitude and so they will bring those people that they want to share their gratitude with into the app.

Keep working on it!

Thanks for the comments Michael.

my product is an app, so I thought that a player could be developers of competing apps doing the same thing...have i misunderstood what a player is really meant to be?

We exist because...[Why]
<ul><li>We believe that people should be happier than they already are</li>
<li>We believe that people should focus &amp; remember all the good things that happen to them, not the negative</li>
<li>We believe that there should be more positivity and happy energy flowing through the world we live in</li>
</ul>So we....[How]
<ul><li>Want to help people remember the good things that they have</li>
<li>Want to help people experience the power of positivity</li>
<li>Want to help people change the way they view all situations and that positivity can come out of every situation</li>
</ul>And we will do this by...[What]
<ul><li>Helping people save their happy and gratuitous moments to recollect on</li>
<li>Sharing positive, uplifting news &amp; stories to inspire</li>
<li>Share how a positive spin can be applied to any situation</li>
</ul>

Company

Community

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[no-name] - Gratitude App

Company

Community

Teaching

Mobile