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Ever heard that Less is more? In product, that’s not always true. Sometimes, the best way to improve your product... is to add a little work.
Sounds backwards, right? Let rewind to the 1950s.
When Betty Crocker launched a game-changing product, instant cake mix: just add water and bake. You made a cake. Yet, it flopped.
Why?
Turns out, customers felt disconnected. It felt like cheating. There was no pride in the end result. So, Betty Crocker made one small tweak: they required customers to crack an egg and add oil. That tiny bit of effort gave users a sense of participation.
Sales soared and a grocery aisle staple was born.
That tiny bit of user effort changed everything. It gave people a sense of involvement - like they weren’t cheating, they were really baking. And that gave them something to be proud of.
Years later, I experienced something similar at my startup Forewards, a referral marketing platform tailored to small e-commerce business owners.
Our secret sauce? An ultra-simple email tool: e-commerce business owners answered a few questions, and we automatically generated high-converting and professional-looking HTML email campaigns. No design skills, no copywriting - just results.. We thought the best thing we could do was remove every barrier. So we built a tool that was basically the “just add water” of marketing:
Our magical backend stitched together tone, images, and copy using templates and AI logic. It was fast. It was polished. It worked.
The results? Fantastic!
But then came the feature requests:
“Can I tweak the email layouts?”
“Can I change the tone of the email copy?”
We initially resisted - after all, why let users ruin what was working?
But we eventually caved and added advanced customization options.
Performance dipped. Emails got sloppy. Designs broke (for anyone who’s worked with HTML emails you may have nightmares about this).
And yet…paid conversion rates increased.
It turns out, the users who engaged the most (and paid the most) were often the ones whose campaigns performed the worse.
Why? Because customers felt like the email was theirs. They’d put in effort. They had ownership. Just like cracking an egg into Betty Crocker’s cake mix. A small bit of work created emotional buy-in.
The takeaway? Even if it hurts short-term performance, perceived control can build long-term loyalty.
Too often, we chase efficiency, We strip away user work in the name of ease.
Sometimes, your users might actually need a little bit of friction. A small decision. A moment of creation. Something they can point to and say, “I did that.” It fosters:
Next time you’re designing a feature, or automate everything away, ask yourself:
What’s the right amount of work for my users?
Designing for pride might be the stickiest feature of all.
Questions or Comments about the article? Connect with Jason Dea here.
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Ever heard that Less is more? In product, that’s not always true. Sometimes, the best way to improve your product... is to add a little work.
Sounds backwards, right? Let rewind to the 1950s.
When Betty Crocker launched a game-changing product, instant cake mix: just add water and bake. You made a cake. Yet, it flopped.
Why?
Turns out, customers felt disconnected. It felt like cheating. There was no pride in the end result. So, Betty Crocker made one small tweak: they required customers to crack an egg and add oil. That tiny bit of effort gave users a sense of participation.
Sales soared and a grocery aisle staple was born.
That tiny bit of user effort changed everything. It gave people a sense of involvement - like they weren’t cheating, they were really baking. And that gave them something to be proud of.
Years later, I experienced something similar at my startup Forewards, a referral marketing platform tailored to small e-commerce business owners.
Our secret sauce? An ultra-simple email tool: e-commerce business owners answered a few questions, and we automatically generated high-converting and professional-looking HTML email campaigns. No design skills, no copywriting - just results.. We thought the best thing we could do was remove every barrier. So we built a tool that was basically the “just add water” of marketing:
Our magical backend stitched together tone, images, and copy using templates and AI logic. It was fast. It was polished. It worked.
The results? Fantastic!
But then came the feature requests:
“Can I tweak the email layouts?”
“Can I change the tone of the email copy?”
We initially resisted - after all, why let users ruin what was working?
But we eventually caved and added advanced customization options.
Performance dipped. Emails got sloppy. Designs broke (for anyone who’s worked with HTML emails you may have nightmares about this).
And yet…paid conversion rates increased.
It turns out, the users who engaged the most (and paid the most) were often the ones whose campaigns performed the worse.
Why? Because customers felt like the email was theirs. They’d put in effort. They had ownership. Just like cracking an egg into Betty Crocker’s cake mix. A small bit of work created emotional buy-in.
The takeaway? Even if it hurts short-term performance, perceived control can build long-term loyalty.
Too often, we chase efficiency, We strip away user work in the name of ease.
Sometimes, your users might actually need a little bit of friction. A small decision. A moment of creation. Something they can point to and say, “I did that.” It fosters:
Next time you’re designing a feature, or automate everything away, ask yourself:
What’s the right amount of work for my users?
Designing for pride might be the stickiest feature of all.
Questions or Comments about the article? Connect with Jason Dea here.
Toronto Product Management Association (TPMA) is a community focused on development, growth and networking of Product professionals in the Greater Toronto Area.
